I’ve dined at over 100 restaurants in NYC, and Blackbird has completely changed the game. I’ve seen a few negative reviews, but honestly — just ask for the bill before you close out; sometimes servers make small mistakes, and that’s on them, not the app. The perks and rewards easily outweigh any minor hiccups. Me and my girlfriend use Blackbird constantly — it’s seamless, rewarding, and makes dining out actually fun again. If you love discovering great restaurants, this app is a must.

It’s a cool idea, but Blackbird charges a $100 check-in fee that they refund later, about 3-5 business days, according to customer care. The actual bill is charged separately. I used this at a restaurant in NYC and my bill came out to $85. So now my account is out for $185 and it will probably take longer to get the check-in fee back since it’s the weekend. If you’re a money savvy diner and you are paying with Blackbird, make sure to budget out at least $200+ for your dining experience. I’m sure that’s not a problem for a lot of people in NYC, but it’s stressful to me to be out that much money for an $85 meal. Wasn’t really worth it for the free “secret menu” $30 cheese plate we got for participating. I’ll just pay the restaurant directly next time. UPDATE: They responded saying that the pre-authorization does not actually post to an account; this is true, it was stuck in “pending” in my bank account. However, my bank does take pending charges into consideration when I make purchases. So if I have $125 in my account but the pre-authorization hold is $100, my bank will not let me make any purchases over $25. I’m sure this is different with different banks; but once again, if you are a money savvy diner, make sure you have more than enough in your account to continue your daily purchases while factoring in the fee until the pre-auth charge is cleared.

User from SC, I’m consistently disappointed with most things about this platform. It’s a great idea for rewards but due to repeated technical difficulties, and poor user experience I’ll be deleting it. Restaurant staff don’t receive the necessary training and information to use this effectively. today I sat at a restaurant for 30 minutes while half the staff and management tried to figure out how to allow me to use points to pay. I don’t blame the staff I blame whoever was in charge of training them (blackbird). I offered them my credit card but they wanted to figure it out for the sake of guest satisfaction. The experience using it was so bad that I don’t even want to bother using my other 80$ in points. I also worked at a restaurant when they first got blackbird and even from the business side it’s extremely annoying to use and very inefficient. If you like free stuff and a headache then this is definitely for you. Hope they figure out how to make it better

So the concept of blackbird is monetizing you becoming a regular at restaurants… which you can do without blackbird. While there is a selection of restaurants in NYC that use blackbird most of the good ones have no idea what it is or how it works. On top of this, in order to use the $fly that you accumulate, the restaurant has to accept blackbird pay, which almost none of the good ones do. It’s just awkward having to ask every restaurant host if their blackbird works and being met with “what is that?” especially when the puck is sitting in front of them. It’s genuinely a hilarious and unnecessary app. Finally as someone who works in the industry, the blackbird pay system is terrible and not convenient for guests or restaurant staff. No one is ever sure if it works and guests usually end up complaining about something related to it.