My two teenage sons and their friends have become experts at getting free or highly discounted fast food all around town. Rarely does a day go by when these kids aren’t darting off for lunch to one restaurant or another, laughing about their daily deals, free burgers, or dollar burritos.
How do they do it?
They’ve made a game out of browsing the best food deals on each restaurant’s apps daily, accumulating loyalty points, doing surveys, and taking advantage of time-sensitive promotions. One restaurant drops a $1 or free food item multiple times each week. Another restaurant gives free dessert when the diner fills out an online survey. Another offers Buy One, Get One Free meal deals a few times a week, and the boys dine in pairs, splitting the cost of one meal but enjoying two.
Truly, they’ve turned this into a game. It started with a national hamburger chain offering $4 worth of free food to everyone downloading their app. That same app offers points earned on every purchase, which are redeemable for more free food. They began figuring out the best ways to take advantage of these points and promotions.
Yes, it does take some time to look through each day’s deals and figure out the best deals, but since they do this with a group of friends, they share the planning process together and have almost made a game out of it. Want to get in on the fun? Here are some of the tips they’ve learned along the way:
<strong>Introduction offers:</strong> Many apps offer a free food item or monetary credit toward your first purchase when you first download the app. A simple online search for “which apps give you free food when you download” will return a list of restaurant apps to choose from, and then you can get started enjoying your discounts.
<strong>App-only orders:</strong> Note that many of these deal-item promotions require your order to be placed in the restaurant’s app versus in-person or the drive-thru lane. Depending on the retailer, be prepared to give your order number upon pickup to receive your food. Some apps also require users to attach a payment method within the app to start ordering food.
<strong>Time-sensitive deals:</strong> Some apps have special offers that you must load within a specified period of time or be one of the first to claim in the app. One restaurant drops a deeply discounted food offer to the first 20,000 people who log in each day. Customers can then place the order anytime throughout the day and receive this item.
<strong>Combine your deals:</strong> In addition to loading the free or discounted item, my kids will also look at the number of points they’ve accumulated in the app to see if they can add an additional item. For example, why not pair that $1.00 hamburger with a side of free fries?
<strong>Share with a friend:</strong> Some deals offer additional incentives if you share the offer with a friend via email, text message, or social media. Of course, this helps the restaurant build its base of app users, but if you, like my sons, have friends who are similarly minded and would enjoy these deals, you may be able to earn additional rewards by sharing them with others.
<strong>Be flexible:</strong> I’m sure part of this is the challenge of finding the best deal, but my sons get such a kick out of finding the lowest-priced lunches in town. They don’t choose the restaurant first and then look for the best deal. Instead, they and their friends scour all their food apps for the best financial deals, and then they choose that establishment for their lunch.
Ready to get started? Think about the restaurants and fast-food establishments in your area where you often dine and download an app or two. If you’re a fan of Reddit, their Reddit.com/r/Freefood community also follows the best free and discounted food deals online each day.