Last updated . Source: SnagRes availability record, 61,530,416 checks across 284 restaurants through 19 October 2026. How we measure. Open dataset.
The most common AppointmentTrader alternative is a free availability alert. Rather than paying a premium for a resold table, you track the restaurant and get notified the moment a normal reservation opens on Resy, OpenTable, Tock, or SevenRooms, then book it yourself at no premium and under your own name. SnagRes does this free on one restaurant.
AppointmentTrader is a real, functioning marketplace, and buying or selling reservations is legal in most places. The catch is that reselling a reservation breaks the terms of most restaurants and booking platforms, so a table you buy can be refused or cancelled if the restaurant notices it was resold. New York also restricted third-party resale without restaurant agreement in 2024, so the platform working as advertised does not remove the risk at the door.
It is worth it only in a narrow case: a fixed date, a specific restaurant, and no time to wait, where paying for certainty makes sense. For most people it is a poor trade, because you pay a premium for a table that was free, seated under someone else's name, with a chance the restaurant voids it. A free alert usually gets you the same table for nothing.
Yes. Marketplaces like AppointmentTrader let you buy a restaurant reservation that another person is holding, with prices set by demand. Just know that the table is typically booked under the seller's name, that resale violates most restaurants' terms, and that you are paying for a reservation that was free to make in the first place.
It can. Many restaurants treat reservation reselling as a terms violation and will cancel or refuse a table they believe was sold, especially when the name on the booking does not match the guest. Refund protection depends on the marketplace, so the money you paid is not always safe if the table falls through.
Yes. An availability alert is free, and the table you book through it costs its normal price with no premium. Buying a resold reservation adds a demand-driven markup on top of a table that was originally free. The trade-off is that an alert requires you to book quickly when a seat opens, while a resale is confirmed the moment you pay.
Regularly. Across the rooms we watch we recorded 7,048 release events in at most 22 days of observation, and Carbone alone logged 300 of them in 22 days. What varies is the date, the hour and the party size, which is why an alert filtered to what you will actually accept beats paying for a listing.
No. We never book a table, never hold one, and never charge per reservation. We watch 284 rooms in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago, measure what each one releases, and tell you when something opens so you can book it yourself in your own name. That is the difference between a tracker and a resale marketplace.
Trustpilot shows 2.1 out of 5 across 9 reviews at the time of writing, 8 of them one star. The complaints repeat: sellers who cannot withdraw their money, high fees on payouts and refunds, reservations priced far above tables that were free on the platform, and support that does not respond. One five-star review says the booking worked. It is a small sample, and it describes exactly the market New York's reservation law was written against.
For the release hours behind these figures, see the hours these rooms actually release, and for the full study the measurement study behind them. Every service in the category, including the wide ones, is listed in alert services compared.
If a premium is on the table anyway, compare it with Dorsia's minimum-spend model. And before paying anything, check the restaurants that are open most nights or what is live in New York and San Francisco right now.
AppointmentTrader is an online marketplace where people buy and sell restaurant reservations, along with other hard-to-get appointments, for money. When a table at a booked-out restaurant is impossible to find, someone who holds one can list it, and a buyer can pay to take it over. Prices float with demand, and the hardest tables in the most sought-after cities can carry a significant premium over the cost of the meal itself.
The core idea is that a reservation which was free to make becomes a tradable asset. Sellers post bids and asks the way you would on any exchange, and the platform takes a cut of each completed sale. That is different from what a tracker like SnagRes does, because a tracker never sells you a table. It tells you when a normal, free reservation opens so you can book it yourself.
We have no position in resale, no listings, and nothing to gain from talking you out of it. What we do have is a record of what the tables in question actually release, which turns out to be the most useful thing to know before paying a premium for one.
Buying a resold reservation is legal in most places, but it carries risks that a free booking does not. The biggest one is the name on the reservation. A resold table is almost always still booked under the seller's name or a placeholder, so you arrive as someone you are not. If the restaurant asks for ID, notices the mismatch, or realizes the table was resold, it can refuse or cancel you at the door.
Reselling reservations violates the terms of most restaurants and most booking platforms, and some venues actively cancel tables they believe were sold. That means the thing you paid for can evaporate before you sit down, and refund protection varies by marketplace. New York went further in 2024 with General Business Law section 391-w, which targets third-party reservation resale done without the restaurant's agreement, so the practice is being restricted rather than normalised.
Price is the second risk. Because the market is demand-driven, what you pay can swing widely, and you are paying real money for a table that carried no cover charge when it was first released. There is no ceiling on a demand-driven price and no refund for a table that was never the restaurant's to sell.
This is the part the listing page cannot tell you. We watch 284 of the hardest rooms in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago and have logged 61,530,416 checks of their live booking calendars as of 19 October 2026, with 465,235,816 recorded open time slots. So we can say what a specific room releases, and how often, rather than repeating that it is impossible.
The headline finding is that these tables are not frozen. Across the rooms we watch we recorded 7,048 separate release events in at most 22 days of observation. Seats come free at restaurants people describe as unobtainable, again and again. What is genuinely scarce is a particular date, at a particular hour, for a particular party size.
Which is where a premium quietly buys less than it appears to. Carbone logged 300 release events across 22 observed days, and on the day of measurement 2 of the 31 dates in its window had a bookable two-top, its most frequently open slot was 11:30 PM, and none of its recorded open slots fell between 7 and 8:30 PM. If prime time is the thing you want, the room was barely putting it out at any price.
Party size moves the odds more than money does. At Monkey Bar, a two-top came free on none of the 30 dates in its window while a four-top came free on 6 of them, and ninety-five percent of everything that opened there was before 6 PM, with 11:45 AM the single most frequently open slot. Across the whole list, 31 rooms are easier to book for four than for two.
7,048 release events observed across the tracked rooms in at most 22 days, so openings are common even where reputations say otherwise.
39 of the 284 rooms with a full measurement record had no bookable two-top on any date in their window. Ten of those did have a four-top open somewhere in the same window.
12 rooms logged open slots but never one between 7 and 8:30 PM, which is exactly what a premium listing usually promises.
Thirty rooms never let anyone book more than 14 days ahead, so a seller cannot hold a date the restaurant has not yet released.
Torrisi shows the pattern in one line: seventy-eight percent of the slots that came free there were at or after 9 PM, and the most frequently open one was 10:45 PM.
Whether a resold reservation is worth it depends on how much certainty you need. The honest case for buying is narrow but real. If you have a fixed date that cannot move, a specific restaurant that will not be substituted, and no time to wait for an opening, paying a premium buys you a confirmed table right now. For a proposal, an anniversary, or a single night in a city you are visiting, some people decide that certainty is worth the fee and the risk.
For almost everyone else, it is a poor trade. You are paying a premium for something that was free, under a name that is not yours, with a chance the restaurant voids it. Most hard tables do open on their own, usually as cancellations in the days before the meal, and those seats cost nothing and sit under your own name.
The question is not whether resale ever works. It is whether it is the best tool for the table you actually want, and that depends on facts about the room rather than on how badly you want it. A listing that promises a Friday at eight somewhere that has not released a prime slot in weeks is selling certainty about the wrong thing.
Here is the same table seen two ways, so you can weigh a paid resale against a free availability alert without the marketing on either side.
Cost: a resold reservation charges a premium that floats with demand and can be steep for prime tables, while a free availability alert costs nothing and books the table at its normal price.
Whose name: a resale usually seats you under the seller's name or a placeholder, while an alert lets you book directly, so the reservation is under your own name from the start.
Cancellation risk: a resold table can be refused or voided if the restaurant spots the resale, which breaks most platforms' terms, while a table you book yourself carries no resale risk at all.
Which tables: a resale can lock in a specific hard date on demand right now, while an alert covers cancellations and fresh releases across Resy, OpenTable, Tock, and SevenRooms, but only when a seat actually opens.
What you know beforehand: a listing tells you a price, while our measurements tell you the room's open rate for two and for four, the hour it releases, how far ahead it books, and which slots come free.
Effort: a resale is hands-off once you pay, while an alert asks you to book within minutes of the notification, because a free cancellation gets taken quickly.
The straightforward alternative is a free availability alert. Instead of buying a table someone else is holding, you watch the restaurant and get told the instant a normal, free seat opens on Resy, OpenTable, Tock, or SevenRooms. Then you book it yourself, at the standard price, under your own name. That is exactly what SnagRes does, re-checking tracked restaurants continuously and notifying you the moment a table appears.
Browsing live availability is free and needs no account. A free account watches one restaurant. Plus is $14.99 a month, watches 30, shows the exact time slots that came free rather than a status, and extends the calendar from 14 days to 30. We never log into a booking account, never hold a table, and charge nothing per reservation, which is the line New York's 2024 law draws and the reason we stay well clear of it.
The trade-off is worth stating plainly. A resale hands you a specific table now for a fee and some risk. An alert is free and clean but asks you to act when it fires, because cancellations get grabbed fast. If your date is flexible and you can pounce when your phone buzzes, an alert gets you the same restaurant without the premium and without gambling on whether the door holds.
There is one case where neither helps: a restaurant outside our 284 rooms and outside New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago. Our list is short on purpose, and the honest answer there is a wider service, not us.
AppointmentTrader resells restaurant reservations for a premium, but the table is under another name and can be voided. A free alert is the safer way.
How AppointmentTrader resales work, the risks buyers face, and why a free availability alert is the safer way to get the same table under your own name.
Keep reading: Are reservation bots and resales legal? · Alerts, bots and resale compared · Catch a free cancellation instead · Set a free availability alert
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SnagRes checks 284 hard-to-book restaurants across four cities and alerts you when one opens. Watching one is free and no card is needed: see the hardest tables right now.