Tag Archives: deal

Aria V Wine Shop (or Another Living Social Win!)

I’ve had some good Living Social deals and some pretty awful ones. And over the summer, I had seen a deal for 12 wine tastings plus 2 appetizers at Aria V Wine Shop in Culver City. Seemed like a decent deal to me since it only cost me $25.

The deal was going to expire next week, so yesterday my friend Kate and I decided to finally test it out. It was located in a kind of weird area of Culver City (almost under the 405 and right next to a shut down hospital). But we managed to find some free street parking around the block and headed inside.

It’s actually located inside the Polentoni restaurant (so if you are going look for that sign), but inside a little private room. When Kate and I got there, we were the only ones in that room, but it quickly filled up.

We explained to our waiter that we were here for the Living Social deal and he explained that we could choose 2 appetizers that were priced at $12.50 or under and then 6 wines each to taste that were priced at $42 a bottle or under. Anything over that and we would just have to pay the difference.

We checked out the menus.

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I asked our waiter if I could get the Prosecco as 2 of my tastings and then pick 4 more and he was ok with that.

We got our food.

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(I ate lightly earlier in the day to save up for these calories).

And when our “tastings” arrived, we were shocked by how generous the pour was.

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I’m a pretty lightweight when it comes to alcohol, and there is no way I could do 6 tastings like that!

In the end, I had 2 glasses of Prosecco and one glass of a rose that the waiter had selected for me. And Kate had 3 glasses of Italian reds that the waiter had selected for her (one was called a Super Tuscan, but I don’t know the rest).

As we were brought the bill, the waiter also brought us glasses of their special holiday mulled wine.

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It looked and smelled delicious, but personally I didn’t like it very much.

And when our bill arrived, it proved that we got our moneys worth on this deal.

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We left a very nice tip.

I’ll totally go back to Aria V, even if I don’t have a deal for it. It was yummy, the atmosphere was fun, and it’s pretty close to my house.

And I’ve been in a bit of a funk the last few days (the work schedule and lack of sleep is getting to me a bit). But nothing can bust you out of a funk better than hanging out with your best friend and having moments where you are laughing so hard that you are crying.

Dealing with Living Social (or I Thought I Bought a Good Deal)

As someone who is trying to bring down their credit card debit, I love good deals! But I still enjoy fun things in my life. I try to do spa stuff during Spa Week (which is coming up in mid-October). I look out for sales on clothes and shoes. And I love Living Social deals!

Or at least I did love those deals.

About 3 weeks ago, I bought a deal for 6 laser hair removal treatments for $99. It was at a place in Beverly Hills and the reviews on Yelp were all 4 and 5 stars. I was excited because this would be a great way to see if I could handle the pain of laser hair removal and would want to do it on other parts of my body.

I finally got through to someone on the phone this past Saturday. He was extremely rude on the phone to me. No greeting when he answered the phone. And as soon as I said I had a Living Social deal, all he said was “we can’t see you until October”. I said that was fine as long as I could use all 6 of my treatments (the deal had a promotional value expiration date of December 17th). The guy said that they would only let me use treatments until December 17th, therefore I would only be able to get 1 or 2 of my 6 treatments done.

I think that this is crap. I pretty much said that to the guy on the phone, who claimed to be the manager. If you are too busy to see me for over a month, you should let me complete all my treatments as long as I start them before the expiration date.

So on Sunday, I called Living Social. I explained the situation and said I wanted a refund. They weren’t able to offer me a refund, but they did credit the amount I paid to my account. And then the guy on the phone told me that they were having a lot of complaints about this vendor not honoring the deal they offered.

I’m glad I got my money credited to my account. Even if the laser hair removal place apologized to me, I wouldn’t want them to have my money. I’m a little sad because I was excited to try laser hair removal. I guess I’ll have to wait until another good deal comes along.

Oh, and all those 4 and 5 star reviews on Yelp? I think they are fake. Now when you look, it’s a lot of 1 and 2 star reviews (including my 1 star review on how they treated me).