TOCK and other prepay reservations!!!!

I absolutely hate them. I have zero problem guaranteeing a bill in advance. I don’t understand why restaurants don’t allow you to reverse the charges and split up a bill at the table. It gets so messy when you have a large group and a big wine bill to collect money from everyone…especially after a long boozy dinner!

And I am always the one who makes the reservations and gets stuck with this.

Curious how many people have asked a restaurant to reverse the pre-paid charges and have the full check presented at the end of the meal?

I have only requested this once and it was mass confusion.

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It hasn’t been a problem for me…yet. I’ve used it mostly to book wine tastings since it seems many wineries have adopted this as a result of the pandemic. The only restaurant I’ve booked so far that required prepayment was The French Laundry. I was 100% OK with that one as it was only my wife and myself. Kind of liked paying for half of the meal the month before and the other half the night of to be honest. It worked there. Every other restaurant I’ve booked so far didn’t require an advance deposit. So far…

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This is no different than purchasing tickets to a sporting event, concert, etc. The benefit to the restaurant is they get their money right away. I imagine a guarantee simply means a hold on the credit card, without immediate access to the money.

I don’t mind the process and with Zelle, Venmo, Paypal and similar, it’s not all that difficult to collect money these days.

I just booked a large dinner for several people of whom I only really no one of them really well. Now I have to track down several thousand dollars and get stuck with it on the various platforms you mention. It is annoying to say the least but not the biggest problem in the world.

I mean no disrespect, but then perhaps the answer is not to allow yourself to be the guy responsible for tracking down thousands of dollars from people that you don’t know very well. Or require pre-payment from interested parties by your preferred method of payment and let them sort it out. If people complain, you can allow them to make the rezzies and you’re off the hook.

Usually it is just the food that you have to prepay for. The wine is always brought on a separate check to the table after the meal.

George

I hear you, its just that I am almost always the one with the restaurant contact. And I am the most chill person going and have ended up not collecting a number of times because it just seems so gauche after a beautiful to meal to start dividing up bills etc. I just think in the spirit of hospitality the restaurant could just reverse the charge. Or even better Tock would make it easier to split the bill or something. Maybe the do have that feature? I do understand there are credit charges that might be associated with reversing the charge so its complicated.

Yes I know. BUT I have been situations where the wine bill was so big that the other diners did not even realize the food was not included which is precisely why I hate Tock. Then I have to tell someone who might not know what they were getting into that in addition to the $1000 per person wine bill they owe me $500 for dinner. Trust me its awkard.

So if the wine bill is that large. You don’t pay or you pay much less which could eliminate you having to separately collect money for food?

It’s just math. [highfive.gif]

George

Despite spending my entire career in finance my ability to do simple math at the end of long boozy dinners seems to deteriorate :slight_smile:

What I was looking for is how often do others get restaurants to deal with this by reversing the charges. What I am gleaning from this thread is no one has done this which is helpful in itself as I will just deal with it. Appreciate the comments.

As someone else said in the thread, I treat it like tickets to any event: collect money up front for the tickets or immediately after. I don’t make the restaurant deal with it.

Spends at restaurant should be able to be split live. I would ask for that ability.

I know! I really don’t think we are talking about similar situations. Take one extreme. Noma private room, 20 people from 8 countries some friends, some friends of friends. I made the reservation and then I have to track down all of the money.

I have never gone to a concert with 20 people from 8 countries.

The problem is that you are too popular.

The 8 countries thing is tough. I have done 10+ people but all US based so everyone is in USD.

You should look into Splitwise or something to help manage.

I have used eventbrite for things like this. Sell tickets to the dinner. You can easily text/email people the invite.

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I think for this situation the restaurant should work something out with you in advance. If they won’t, pick a better place for the multi thousand dollar per person dinner :slight_smile:.

Quite a few of the wineries we visited in the Willamette Valley and in Walla Walla use Tock. You can’t escape it.

This might be something worth sending to Tock as a feedback email. Including a split the bill feature for large parties would certainly be a helpful thing.

I imagine restaurants, and even Tock may have an aversion to charge reversion due to chargeback fees from credit card processors.

Though I haven’t done things at the scale that you do things Robert, the way I tend to do it is to simply collect the funds ahead of time. Even with multiple countries or currencies, there’s various payment tools to deal with exchanging funds.

Usually when I do dinners, there’s at most 1-2 degrees of separation between me and any given guest. So when prepayment is required, I just charge the friend for their and their invited guest’s ticket. Want to come and bring a friend? No problem, that’ll be two Tock tickets for $X. It’s then on them to seek out funds from their guest. I’ve found that the further ahead you communicate the cost of the dinner, and that you’ve had to prepay for everyone’s meal, the easier it is to get people to buy in. Last minute, or post event, it can get either tricky or awkward.

I had to use Tock for a lunchtime tasting at a Michigan winery. I didn’t mind pre-paying the fee, but I really disliked that I had to prepay the tip. What made it worse is that someone in my party ended up tipping the server at the end of the tasting. They didn’t realize it had all been prepaid.

Annoying.

I use Tock at my restaurant but do not have pre pay except for special events like wine dinners. While I understand that the new system might seem inconvenient their are legitimate reasons. It’s not about getting the funds early. Tock doesn’t release the funds to us until the day of the event. It’s about guaranteeing the money. I can’t tell you how many times parties of 6 or 8 have no showed on Saturday night. The loss to the restaurant and particularly the server are terrible.

Robert, I’m not sure I understand the problem. When you book a party of 8 for $1200 per person then just send a mass email to the group with your venmo or zelle address asking for reimbursement. It also alleviates the mass confusion at the end of 8 credit cards flying out.