

Getting Dumped By OpenTable.com - erehweb
http://blog.sfgate.com/culture/2011/09/19/tourist-trapped-getting-dumped-by-opentable-com/

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Aloisius
Far be it for me to defend OpenTable, but...

No shows are a big deal for restaurants. If you have 40 seats in your
restaurant that turn say, twice a night and a group of 4 doesn't show up,
you've just lost a considerable portion of your night's revenue.

Restaurants are typically living off scraps (5% margins are common), so
OpenTable punishing you for not showing up is in the best interest of the
restaurants. If you at least cancel, the restaurant can call up people on
their wait list and hope to fill the vacancy.

And really, how hard is it to get online and cancel your reservation?

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joezydeco
For a lot of the higher-end restaurants, it's worse than that. It's not like
people are strolling into Alinea looking for seats. When a party doesn't show,
that table is dead for the entire seating.

Achatz has the right idea in selling tickets instead of booking reservations.
The burden of cancellation is now on you, not him. I betcha Tara would show up
if she had cash on the line.

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joezydeco
Funny that the reporter didn't mention how many times Tara blew off her
reservations. Good thing it it's in the OpenTable TOS:

 _"Your OpenTable account will be terminated if you no-show for four
reservations within the same twelve-month period."_

So is Tara's "flightiness" something that should be tolerated by restaurants
that are paying OpenTable for the lead? In my opinion she sounds like a bad
customer that is worth letting go.

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wccrawford
They practically begged her to explain why she doesn't deserve to be removed
from their system. Since she didn't, I can only conclude that they were
correct, and she no-showed 4 times, making OpenTable look bad in the
Restaurants' eyes.

Good riddance to bad customers.

