Life
Grubhub's New “Perks” Program Gives You Free Food From Taco Bell, Auntie Anne’s, & More
Perhaps the only thing better than free food is free food delivered straight to your door. Now, that can be a reality as Grubhub is launching Perks, a mobile-only feature that gives customers a way to earn free food. Heaven is real and it is free Taco Bell on my doorstep.
Starting Wednesday, September 4, Grubhub and Seamless users can start taking advantage of Perks. As the press release explains, Perks is an in-app program that gives users “offers only available on Grubhub along with new ways to earn and redeem restaurant loyalty rewards.” Basically, it puts all a bunch of free food deals and earned rewards all in one convenient app tab.
“Restaurants have always used free food as a perk for their VIP diners - to keep them happy and coming back,” Matt Maloney, Grubhub founder and CEO, said in the release. “We have now extended this practice to Grubhub diners by building loyalty tools so our restaurant partners can promote their restaurants more aggressively on our marketplace and reward their best digital diners as well.”
In honor of the launch, Perks’ first deal is a free Cheesy Gordita Crunch from Taco Bell. Once again, with feeling: all Grubhub and Seamless users can get a free Cheesy Gordita Crunch from Taco Bell using Perks. This is not a drill. Free taco bell is nigh.
Perks will also provide “seamless integration of restaurant loyalty programs so diners can earn and burn points digitally as well as on the restaurants’ white label app or physically in-store.” For example, if you’re a part of Dunkin’s rewards program, you’ll be able to integrate those rewards with Perks. No need to hop back and forth between the two apps. This is particularly good news as Dunkin’ recently started delivering in select parts of the U.S.
Using Perks on the Grubhub app is pretty simple and is comprised of two different parts:
- Under “Redeem,” you see all your rewards earned or offered listed and available for immediate use. Per Grubhub, that could add up to more than $400 in free food from a combination of national chains and local restaurants.
- Under “Earn,” you’ll see your restaurant loyalty programs. There, you’ll be able to easily enroll and track your progress toward different, restaurant-specific reward goals.
In addition to today’s free Taco Bell, Grubhub has a handful of other free food offers already lined up. Those include:
- Free Original or Cinnamon Sugar Pretzel from Auntie Anne’s
- Free 1 Dozen Cheddar Bay Biscuits from Red Lobster
- Free 20 oz smoothie from Smoothie King
Biscuits and pretzels and smoothies, oh my!
Starting today and launching in the coming year, there will be free food opportunities from your favorite restaurants like Shake Shack, Just Salad, honeygrow, Pokeworks, and Argo Tea. Just think, you could be doing exactly what you’re doing right now but with a free burger. Is that the dream or is that the dream?
Grubhub has been having a banner year in terms of launching new services and features. In addition to the aforementioned Dunkin’ delivery, Grubhub started delivering Taco Bell to customers nationwide earlier this year. According to a report earlier this year, Grubhub became the most-used delivery app. It just barely beat out Uber Eats while easily surpassing DoorDash. To perhaps no one’s surprise, it’s young people driving the market. Per Zion & Zion, adults between the ages of 18 and 29 were the most frequent app users. Grubhub is giving young people what they want and what the young people want is burritos, at their door, ASAP.
If you want to stay up-to-date on what other perks will be included with Perks, you can follow along at Grubhub’s blog. Just try not to get too distracted by the food porn and posts about the best pasta shapes.
