Now as any is a good time to discuss what apps you use for fast food if they have good coupons or deals attached.
Recommended
Jack in the Box - Usually has 2-3 coupons a day as well as a dedicated “Deals” section which usually has some good non-coupon deals. Most coupons are simple “Buy an item and get a side for free” but once a week there’s a pretty good “20% off your entire order” coupon. Plus you can get two tacos for 99 cents through the app regardless of coupons which is actually great since in-store tacos are two for $1.50 now.
Del Taco - Rotating 3-4 coupons every single day, usually “Buy one get one free” deals but sometimes you’ll get “free drink with any purchase” type stuff.
Not Recommended
Taco Bell - App barely has any deals (maybe one showed up in the two months I had it) and is constantly nagging you to make orders.
I don’t really eat fast food so I wouldn’t bother with those. For take out I typically order through the restaurant’s website. That often ships us over to GrubHub or whatever for the order. But we order local and usually take the opportunity to walk and pick up our food, so we haven’t bothered with the apps. If there are advantages of ordering through the app versus the restaurant I’d be interested to know.
When I work from my office in downtown Chicago, I use Ritual for take-out. It’s not everywhere and it has the occasional glitch* but a wide variety of restaurants and fast-food joints are on it at least in Chicago, it’s easy to amass points towards $5 or $10 off your order, and take-out means I get in a walk at lunch but don’t waste time in line ordering or paying for my meal.
Of course, all of this is moot right now as I’m working from home. There are some suburban restaurants on Ritual but not close enough to my home to be convenient.
*Glitches: Some restaurants stop taking Ritual orders up to an hour before they close. Not a problem at lunch, but sometimes a problem if I work late and want to grab dinner to eat on my home-bound train. Sometimes items show as unavailable for ordering, more often than I think those items are actually physically unavailable. :dubious: And a few times when I ordered through Ritual from sit-down restaurants as opposed to fast-foot joints, they insisted I hadn’t paid yet and I had to show the host my Ritual receipt to prove I’d already paid. :rolleyes:
I don’t think any of the ones mentioned so far exist in my area, but I’m interested in this topic. I don’t really use apps, I just use the online and text coupons places send me but haven’t used much lately. I pretty much only eat at work but have a limited budget. I prefer to prepare meals and reheat but my workplace has been making everything less convenient and stressful including access to food.
For more nationwide chains the Wendy’s app is pretty good since they have about 8-10 coupons for you to use, all of which are either buy one get one free coupons or free item with purchase of a sandwich.