Secret deals hidden in your fast food apps: From a half-price Big Mac to free six packs of nuggets at Wendy's
McDonald's, Burger King, Chick-Fil-A and Wendy's are at war with each other - and that is great news for fast food fans.
Americans fed up with paying over-the-odds can benefit from the big chains trying to out duel each other to offer the best deals.
The battlefield for this fierce fight is your smartphone - and the shots are being fired via the restaurant's ever more refined apps.
Apps let the chains learn about customers and cut down on staff costs - so the likes of McDonald's are willing to throw freebies and cut-price deals at Americans to reward them for using them.
This week, Wendy's app users could snag a different free item every day with a purchase. And if you find yourself at the McDonald's drive-through for a coffee, ordering through your phone can get you two breakfast sandwiches for the price of one.
Reddit users have pointed out that the McDonald's app has plenty of BOGO deals, daily discounts on popular items such as McNuggets, and even free fries on Friday if you purchase $1 or more
For consumers concerned about skyrocketing fast food prices, apps allow them to take their time ordering and figure out what the cost will be ahead of time, Global Data retail expert Neil Saunders told DailyMail.com.
Mobile ordering is especially helpful for families with kids because 'they can place orders in advance which is easier than doing it in store with children in tow,' Saunders said.
For fast food operators, the advantage of getting your customers hooked on your app is clear, Saunders said.
With relatively little cost to them, they can send you push notifications as often as they want to get you to order that Big Mac or that Whopper you probably wouldn't have thought to buy if you hadn't seen it pop up on your phone.
Reddit users recently shared which restaurants offer the most value through their apps, with Wendy's and McDonald's getting the most attention.
One user claimed they were to able activate a free six piece nugget coupon at Wendy's - which requires a purchase - by adding a $0 cup of water to their order. It mean they got the food for free.
The cheapest combo meal at Wendy's is the $5 Biggie Bag, complete with a junior cheeseburger, 4 piece nuggets, fries and a drink.
And if you order it in the app, you can get a free frosty.
Chick Fil-A offers points that can be redeemed for food and free chicken sandwiches for filling out forms.
Customers also report bonus free waffle fries just for signing up for the app.
Fast food aficionados consistently hyped up Dominos as a great option for people looking for free meals.
After just two orders of $5 or more, customers can earn one of three free items - a free cup of dip, a 16 parmesan bread bites or a 20 ounce drink.
But one user thinks Jersey Mike's, a sandwich shop concentrated primarily on the east and west coasts, is the reigning king when it comes to rewarding loyal customers.
'Of all the food apps I've noticed Jersey Mike's racks up points the fastest. I swear I get a free sub every other time I go,' they wrote.
Wendy's, like its other fast food competitors, is offering limited time discounted meals to win back inflation-weary customers
Burger King is bringing back its $5 Your Way Meal for the summer months
Others pointed out that the McDonald's app has plenty of buy-one, get-one free deals, daily discounts on popular items such as McNuggets, and even free fries on Friday for spending an extra $1.
Buffalo Bills fans will be happy to know that McDonald's signed a multiyear contract with the upstate New York NFL team to offer deals tied to what happens during games.
For example, if the Bills are able to sack the quarterback on the opposing team, fans will be able to redeem a free Big Mac with a $2 purchase.
Even if you're an infrequent fast food patron who won't rack up points for free meals, chains are offering deals to encourage you to place orders via an app.
For example, a Big Mac with medium fries and a medium drink at $11.79 before tax over the counter in Santa Ana, according to the Los Angeles Times reported. The same order on the app at the same location was $6.50, a 44 percent discount.
Some theorize the push to get customers to use the apps instead of placing your order by talking to an employee is because the apps, by their very nature, reduce labor costs.
But some have decided to swear off the McDonald's app, with many on Reddit saying deals decrease the more you redeem them. Others said their friends or partners got better deals than them because they were newer users.
'The deals are almost non-existent for me,' one disappointed customer wrote.
'I think they did it on purpose. Give us amazing deals for a long time, get us used to using the app and then that them away.'
Variance in deals is more complicated than that, according to Saunders.
'Deals depend on a lot of things. Who operates the franchise, patterns of demand in local areas, what competitors are offering,' he said.
In April, McDonald's reported a quarterly profit miss for the first time in two years because consumers are being 'more discriminating with every dollar they spend,' bosses said.
So as summer brings more Americans onto the roads for vacation, McDonald's and other fast food giants are shifting in a big way to win them back.
Wendy's is offering a $3 breakfast combo meal for a limited time. Burger King is also bringing back its $5 Your Way Meal for the summer.
McDonald's has a $5 meal consisting of a McDouble or McChicken sandwich, small fries, small soft drink and four McNuggets.
The latest pivot from fast food restaurants could also be seen as an attempt to lure customers back from the grocery store, where prices have gone up 26 percent over since 2019.
Fast food prices have skyrocketed 33 percent over the same time period.
Analysis by FinanceBuzz reveals how much popular fast food products have gone up in the past ten years
Some have pointed to Jersey Mike's as an underrated option among the more popular fast food chains
A 1984 ad from Wendy's called 'Where's the Beef' featured three elderly unveiling a burger from a fictional competitor - a veiled dig at McDonald's and Burger King - that had a small patty
Budget meals are, at best, a recycled strategy.
McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's engaged in advertising battle in the 1980s that came to be known as 'The Burger Wars,' wherein the rivals claimed you would get a better value ordering at their restaurant.
Wendy's most famous ad, called 'Where's the Beef?' depicted a group of elderly women unveiling a burger from a fictional competitor - a veiled dig at McDonald's and Burger King - that had an absurdly tiny beef patty.
Experts say what fast food places are doing now with their limited time discounts is a gamble to get customers to buy more while they're in the restaurant.
'The hope is that the consumer will go there and maybe buy something additional to the value meal and then want to return even when there is no deal,' Johns Hopkins marketing professor Shubhranshu Singh told the LA Times.
'It's not sustainable,' Singh said. 'I don't expect any of these deals to stay.'
