TRADITION TRADITION! Is
Celebrate
a guide to sirnchahs
KETUBAHS
GLASS TO BREAK
CHUPPAH TO RENT
KIDDUSH CUPS
WEDDING GIFTS
BRIDAL REGISTRY
•
Travel Tip: Try
Coupon Dining
i)
Deals abound; save money by doing
your destination research online.
AN
A
V
A •
Er
Don Cohen I Contributing Writer
TRADITION!
TRADITION!
0
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celebrate! I
March 2012
ne of the nice things about
traveling out of town to
celebrate a simchah is the
opportunity to explore a different city
or part of the country. While travel can
stretch the budget, there are some inter-
esting ways to cut costs on food and
entertainment.
By now, most people use Internet sites
to book flights, hotels and rental cars,
but while I do it, I find it's pretty tedious.
More fun is signing up
for a number of deal
sites like groupon.com
—and its array of
competitors and
complementary services
—to get ideas and save
some bucks.
Last month, my wife
and I went to New York
for four wonderful days.
About a month before
going, I signed up to
get Groupon's daily
deals in Manhattan.
Each day, I received a daily email with a
discount on a New York restaurant, event
or service. Every few days, it was a res-
taurant. Because we had four dinners in
New York, including one where we were
taking a bunch of people out to dinner,
if the place sounded good, I checked for
reviews in local newspapers, online or
free review sites like Yelp or UrbanSpoon.
I also checked out city maps to see if
restaurants with deals connected to the
rest of our itinerary. I paid close atten-
tion to ensure I could use the deal for
the meal and day I desired.
I passed on a lot of them because
I didn't want to be overscheduled, but
had we wanted to, we could have eaten
pretty much every meal at a significant
discount.
Groupon wasn't the only site I
checked. Both livingsocial.com and
dealchicken.com have deals in more
than 50 cities, with the former also offer-
ing deals in Canada and overseas. JDeal
80
focuses on Jewish events and kosher
restaurants, but has general offerings,
too — just like the local OyWhatADeal.
And like "Oy," which currently serves
Detroit and Philadelphia, you can find
sites that just serve a few cities or
regions. Also, visit entertainment.com for
deals, too.
For travel ease, several of these sites
allow you to download coupons directly
to your smartphone so you don't have
to worry about printing
anything out.
Another great way
to cut costs is to use
Restaurant.com . Once
you register, you can find
deals across the country.
And once you find what
you are looking for and
check it out online, you
can usually find coupons
discounted by 80 per-
cent, making the coupon
only $2 or so to buy.
For example, you can
get $25 to apply to a total bill of $35
or $50 that will cost you just $2! (They
do add in an 18 percent tip, like many
of the deal sites, but you were going
to tip well anyway, right?) Another nice
thing about Restaurant.com is that the
deals don't disappear in a day or two; so
instead of having to commit your money
up front, you can even purchase these
on the way to the restaurant.
One more tip: Instead of having to
juggle different sites, you can subscribe
to a free service that does it for you.
Try Yipit.com , which pulls deals from
multiple services in a particular city and
sends you an email with the links.
Now, back to my New York trip. There
were some deals that looked good but
didn't check out, others that were good
that I missed, and others that I would
have tried had I not already bought
a dinner deal already. We ate Italian,
Indian and had sushi for six, and every
meal was a deal — and delicious. 7