Giving your favorite college student or your elderly Uncle Fred a restaurant gift certificate or gift card for Christmas sounds like a great idea.

After all, everyone loves to eat.

But restaurant-issued gift certificates have the same pitfalls as gift cards from any other retailer: They can be worthless if the business closes.

But there’s another gift-giving option that looks appealing this year, when everyone is trying to stretch their budgets: dining discount certificates.

The best-known ones come from a Chicago company called Restaurant.com. Its offers sound terrific — $50 gift certificates for $20, for example, or $25 certificates for $10 — or even $5 or less, if you catch a special. But read the fine print before you buy.

The discount certificates come with strings attached; they aren’t the same as giving someone a restaurant gift card or gift certificate.

Your recipient may have to spend several times more than you did just to use the present. And if they’re unwilling or unable to do that, your gift will be worthless to them.

To make the dining offers, the company partners with dining establishments of all sizes and types all over the country, including hundreds in southeast Michigan. Purchasers pay for the certificates online and print them out on their home computers.

Each restaurant sets its own rules for using the certificates. They have minimum purchases. Drinks usually don’t count. Some days of the week may be exempted. Certain tips may be required. And sometimes the guest has to order a certain number of entrees.

Here’s an example:

One bar offers a $25 certificate for $10, but it can only be used at dinner and guests must dine in, spend at least $45 on food — not including drinks — and order at least two entrees. The restaurant adds an 18 percent tip to the pre-discounted bill. Adding $10 for drinks, that brings the check to a minimum of $64.90.

If you pay $10 for Uncle Fred’s $25 certificate, he’ll have to spend at least $39.90 of his own money to use it.

Some restaurants’ offers come with more restrictions.

A $25 discount certificate for one restaurant requires a $50 minimum food purchase, including two entrees, is valid only on Saturday or Sunday nights, and adds a 20 percent tip to the pre-discount amount of your bill.

Another place sets a $50 minimum, exempts Friday and Saturday, adds an 18 percent gratuity, requires you to dine in and present the certificate before you order, and accepts cash only.

Restaurant.com’s certificates do deliver what they advertise: a larger discount than the money you spend for them. But you might want to do the math before you give them as gifts.

If you’d still like to give the gift of dining and want to buy a gift certificate, buy from a restaurant you believe has staying power. And tell your recipient to use it soon.