Discount Dining Dollars – Scam or Money-saving Strategy?
Although Discount Dining Dollars (DDD) is not accredited by the Better Business Bureau (BBB), the service is not considered a scam by government officials, as a lot of US universities have some kind of partnership with DDD. However, the Better Business Bureau has admitted to receiving numerous complains about the service, most of them having to do with dishonest advertising in relation to the selection of discount choices.
Discount Dining Dollars is a service that provides a variety of discount coupons for restaurants, food courts, snack bars, vending machines, etc. Customers can buy the DDD membership or trade earned points for coupons and discounts and use them with at a variety of businesses that are part of the Discount Dining Dollars programme.
The most popular coupons of Discount Dining Dollars are Buy One Get One (BOGO) and Up to 50% discounts at a selection of restaurants including Subway, Mc Donalds, and Fridays.
Not a Scam
Whether the company is considered a scam or not is highly dependable on the user needs for the service. While Discount Dining Dollars can’t be regarded as an old-fashioned scam, a lot of users have complained that the service is nearly useless due to limited time frames and choices associated with the program.
But there are also legitimate Discount Dining Dollars customers have reported being happy about the utility of the service. As it turns out, it’s possible to save some money with Discount Dining Dollars, but you’ll need a solid spending strategy and use all your discounts before they expire.
The Good
Coupon enthusiasts might find Discount Dining Dollars as a good deal. The main advantage of the service is that it eliminates the need to hunt through newspapers, magazines, and other printed media for coupons. While some say that Discount Dining Dollars takes away the thrill of it, most customers are glad that the service consolidates them into one, easy to access location.
A lot of US & Canada universities are enrolled in the Dining Dollars programme. The official purpose of the DDD programme in universities is to ensure that the students are fed – not to exploit them so that a company contracted by the university can make more money.
While forcing freshman’s to buy a minimum amount of “dining dollars” is certainly a dishonest way of “keeping the students fed”, some students have found ways to use them to their advantage. Their most effective tactic is to use their dining dollars on expensive meal trades and pay with cash/credit card for the little things. This is supposedly saving them some money since they don’t pay tax when using dining dollars. However, this is only effective if the student lives on campus – freshman living off campus will likely not get the same discounts as the ones offered near the university.
The Bad
The biggest inconvenient is the selection of rewards. The best free reward you can receive is a Buy One Get One Free (BOGO). Altough the membership is advertised as a prize, it’s actually a collection of coupons – like the ones that you can get from your average community paper. Even more, depending on the BOGO coupon, there’s a high chance that you might need to spend yours in the first 30 days after receiving it.
Paying with real money for dining dollars is not regarded as a good thing to do, even for customers that make use of this service. You might discover that only a few coupons will apply to the places that are near you. Even more, if you don’t spend your dining dollars between the established time, they will expire and you won’t be able to get your money back.
Furthermore, some users have discovered that a large portion of the coupons part of the Discount Dining Dollars program can actually be obtained for free. The general consensus is that unless you’re getting the membership for free or being forced into it, there are few reasons for spending real money or points to gain entry to the programme.
But perhaps the most common complaints that users have for Discount Dining Dollars is their dishonest advertising campaign. Until you redeem your points for membership, you can’t view any information concerning the deals you’re getting by visiting the website. Their campaign mentions that you’ll get BOGO meals and 50% discounts, but there’s a high chance that they are not available in your area. This has left a lot of new members feeling tricked into a useless service.
Not a good deal
Discount Dining Dollars is not actually a scam, it’s just a deal that is far inferior to the one advertised. If you’ve raised enough Bing Rewards points for a Discount Dining Dollars membership, consider using the points for Amazon certificates since you can use them to shop whatever you want. Unless you’re getting the DDD membership for free or you’re being forced into buy dining dollars by your university, it’s best to look for other ways to save money.
