My friend highly recommended a restaurant and urged me to immediately make a reservation. But I wanted to book my plane tickets first. Dumb idea because by the time I got around to calling only 9pm and 9:30pm were left and those times would not work. Meanwhile, I was able to reserve a very early time at their sister restaurant.

I figured out how to get alerts on OpenTable. I set up alerts for both restaurants for more ideal times but could not get the tables. I received several alerts while my phone was in my hand and all I had to do was open the app. Still too late, every time!! I assumed someone must be grabbing the reservations using an automated tool so I googled and stumbled upon Appointment Trader.

So then I had a choice to make, stick with 4:45 at the sister restaurant or try to buy a better time. Well, I decided that if I'm going to pay, it's going to be for the restaurant I really wanted to go to, not the sister restaurant.

I put out a concierge request and thought I would never here anything. When I was notified of a confirmed 5:30 reservation at the preferred restaurant, I was so thrilled!!