I have used opentable quite a bit and have been generally happy with the service provided. I often find that opentable tells me no tables are open, but can call the restaurant and get a table anyway - so I am not sure it is really that great, all things considered.
I recently had an experience which has made me vow not to use opentable ever again. I live in New York City and "missed" a reservation the night the storm hit. Opentable sent me an obnoxious email asking what happened and threatening to cancel my account if the behaviour continued. I couldn't have been more offended - the worst storm potentially ever to hit the East Coast hit New York and I was being dinged and threatened because I didn't show up at a restaurant.
Further, Opentable doesn't even have a "contact us" section of their website with a phone number or even an email address. The company is clearly not about the consumer - it is about making money. I won't use a company like this ever again.
This site is a scam. it has given my computer a virus. every time i log on to any food, hotel, car, travel site open table takes over and I can't get around it. STAY AWAY It will not let you unsubscribe!
I found this to be true as you did. I asked the restaurant that I made reservations with and the manager told me they no longer use Open Table. I am thinking that Open Table still has the the the restaurants listed on their web site but you can no longer go through Open Table to make a reservation.
While I have not faced problems with reservations, I have just experienced an even bigger scam: they just don't send you the reward cheques! That happened twice to me within two years, so about $200 gone. Their argument: they are not responsible when a cheque gets lost in the mail. Ridiculous. They can easily make the cheque payable to the account holder or to a person who gets it as a present.
Never again will I use Open Table. In the past, whenever I had $20 in open table rewards, I could trade it in for $20 off my check at any Open Table restaurant. This time, without ever notifying me of a change, they said I could only use my rewards at a limited number of their restaurants, none of which I eat at and all of which are among their more expensive options. When I contacted them to ask that they honor our agreement this one time, since they never told me of a change of policy, they flat out refused. All attempts to resolve them have been fruitless. Horrible anti-customer customer service. Very sad.
Went ot my open table account. Had a problem with a reservation and wanted to address it. I went on the tabs "HELP" and "CONTACT US" and got a blank screen. This is not acceptable
Opentable is ruining restaurants and is making it near impossible to get promptly seated any longer. Basically, Opentable has a 20% rate of no shows. With razor thin margins, restaurants cant afford to have empty tables; so they list 20% more tables (20% overbooking on Opentable). If they don’t get the 20% no shows, then you find yourself waiting to be seated up to two hours after your reservation at some restaurants. Thanks to Opentable, its near impossible to be seated on time anymore, so you may as well just not have a reservation at all. To make matters worse, Opentable employees are told to make a bunch of fake reservations with restaurants that leave their service as a way of making them come back. Other shady business practices include keeping a restaurant who left Opentable listed on Opentable links so when you click the restaurant Opentable will make recently recommendations for similar restaurants as a way to put the restaurant that left them out of business.
Opentable is ruining the restaurant industry and turning the experiences of diners into nightmares. I will no longer use Opentable or patronize any restaurant that uses Opentable.