The Green Banana Guide is an interesting concept for visitors to Lanzarote.

For a single fee (currently £14.99) you receive a Green Banana Discount Card, giving you between 5% and 20% discount at a variety of outlets on the island.  These can be viewed on an interactive map and are also listed in the printed guide to the island.

At Double Six Fish and Chips in Puerto del Carmen, for example, you receive 10% off your bill.

If used often, the card is likely to cover its own cost fairly soon, as it can be used multiple times at the same establishment and the discount is applied to the bill for the entire party, not just the card owner.

For those who visit the island more than once a year, there is even an annual offer available.

However, even though it sounds like it could be good value for money, there are some discrepancies on the website that unsettle me.

Firstly, the card has to be purchased, which in itself is not a problem.  I like the idea that it can either be sent to you in advance, or delivered on arrival on the island.  But on reading the printed guide, I was confused by the question on the second page:  “How do I get my FREE Green Banana Guide discount card?”

Did someone say free?

The answer tells you that the card will be issued by a rep at a welcome meeting.  But what if you travel privately and don’t have a welcome meeting, let alone a rep?

Then there is the issue of restaurants listed in the printed guide, that are not on the map.  Emma’s Cantina, for example.  Is the guide not up to date?  Or the map not complete?

And finally, the website talks about phone calls to the UK for 0.04 cents per minute (should that be 4 cents?), although I cannot find out how this works – either in the guide or on the website.

Of course, the easiest solution would be for me to ask – and I did, using the contact form about six weeks ago.  Unfortunately, no-one has replied yet.

Update (August 2012): The Green Banana Guide have contacted us to point out that the article is out of date and that the way the company operates has since changed.  The original article was written in November 2010, so we will review the card again the near future.

Tags: Banana, bill, card, Discount, green, restaurant, telephone

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 10th, 2010 at 11:37 pm and is filed under Eating out. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.