Home > Articles > Home & Office Computing > Entertainment/Gaming/Gadgets

Use Your iPhone or iPad to Save Money On Dining

Most people think of their Apple iPhone or iPad as a business and communications tool, and/or as a mobile entertainment device. However, it can also be used to save you money on dining and finding local restaurants a snap, wherever you happen to be. Jason R. Rich describes a handful of apps that will save you time and money when choosing where to dine.
Like this article? We recommend

Most people think of their Apple iPhone or iPad as a business and communications tool, and/or as a mobile entertainment device. However, it can also be used to save you money on dining, plus make finding local restaurants a snap—wherever you happen to be.

If you're a frequent business traveler, for example, you're probably bored with the overpriced room service dining options offered at the hotels where you stay. Ordering from a hotel's room service menu typically offers few meal choices, but plenty of extra fees. In fact, hotel room service can often cost twice what eating similar cuisine in a restaurant would cost. Yet the idea of dining alone in a nearby restaurant while you're on a business trip isn't appealing to most people.

Or maybe you're forced to work late at your office and need to have food delivered because even taking a few minutes' break to grab some food out of the office won't fit into your schedule.

Perhaps, you've work hard all day, and when you get home at night, the last thing you want to think about is cooking or preparing dinner.

Well, using the free GrubHub app on your iPhone or iPad, if you're within one of 15 participating cities, such as Boston, Denver, Philadelphia, San Diego, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, Chicago or Seattle, for example, you can access the complete menus of dozens of restaurants in your immediate area— whether they typically deliver—order food by taping on menu selections on your iPhone or iPad's screen, pay using a major credit card, and then have the GrubHub service deliver your meal right to your hotel room, office or home, typically within 30 to 60 minutes.

What's great about GrubHub is that there are no additional delivery charges. While some restaurants have a minimum order of $10.00 to $20.00, this is typically how much you'd spend ordering a meal for one person.

Using GrubHub, you're no longer limited to meal options from just one single menu because the service works with thousands of restaurants in each participating city (more than 13,000 restaurants nationwide).

Your iPad or iPhone will automatically detect your location, and within seconds, provide a listing of nearby participating restaurants, along their complete menus. The free GrubHub app is available from the App Store, and cities in which this service works are constantly being added. For details about the GrubHub service, visit http://www.GrubHub.com.

Other Options for Saving Money on Dining While on the Go

GrubHub offers a tremendous amount of convenience, will save you money when used as an alternative to hotel room service, and will provide you with healthier dining options compared with fast food. However, there are also a handful of apps that can help you find a restaurant to dine at in whatever city you happen to be, and even help you make a reservation or receive money-saving offers for dining at those restaurants.

To help you make dining reservations at one or more participating restaurants simultaneously, without having to sit on the phone and call restaurants separately, the free OpenTable app for iPad (which has 15,000 participating restaurants in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom), offers a convenient solution.

Once you know your travel itinerary, for example, in one session, you can make restaurant reservations everywhere you want to dine during a trip, and receive an instant confirmation from each restaurant. Or you can book a reservation while driving to your favorite dining establishment to ensure that a table will be waiting.

Frequent users of this OpenTable service earn rewards that include free or discounted dining. The app can even make restaurant suggestions, based on your location, budget, and/or type of food you're looking for.

To help you find places to dine, the App Store offers many different apps for your iPhone or iPad. For example, there's the FastFood—Top Restaurant Finder ($1.99), which can be used for finding the location of a restaurant and then provide you with directions and the phone number to that dining establishment. The Restaurant Finder Premium app ($2.99) also allows you to find nearby restaurants based on what type of food is offered, as well as other criteria.

The Zagat To Go app ($9.99) offers the entire contents of 45 printed Zagat city–specific restaurant guides in one app and allows you to find local restaurants based on your current location, sort them by the type of food served, or choose restaurants based on dining cost. You can also read detailed and reliable reviews of each establishment.

Another tool for helping you find and select restaurant dining options is the free Urban Spoon app. There's a separate iPhone and iPad version of this app available. The iPad version allows you to sort through hundreds of local restaurants and compare several establishments on-screen at the same time. You can pick restaurants by location, food type, or average meal cost. This app has restaurant data for most North American cities, as well as cities in the United Kingdom and a few other countries.

To help you save money when dining out, the free Groupon app for iPhone and iPad delivers an updated listing of money-saving offers from restaurants and businesses right to your mobile device each day. Like Groupon, the SeizeTheDeal app for iPhone and iPad also provides a new listing of local area discounts, which includes money-saving dining offers, each and everyday.

If you happen to be traveling to London, download the Capital Eats app ($1.99) onto your iPhone or iPad before you leave. This app pinpoints your location and then provides a listing of restaurants that offer a discount of 30 to 50 percent for yourself and up to five guests, when you present your iPhone/iPad (and the on-screen voucher code provided) at a participating restaurant. The only drawback to this app is that it needs to be connected to the Web to operate, so you'll either need to find free Wi-Fi service or pay for international data roaming to use it.

For AAA members, there's the free AAA Discounts app. This easy-to-use app pinpoints your current location and then provides a detailed list of restaurants, attractions and businesses that offer discounts to the organization's members. The nationwide database includes discounts from more than 110,000 businesses and restaurants, and can save the average iPhone or iPad user more than $100.00 per year.

To find more dining-related apps, like the ones described here, including many city-specific restaurant guides, or apps designed for vegetarians, vegans, or people with specialized diets, visit the App Store. Within the app search field, enter the phrase "Dining."

Not only can the various dining-related apps available for your iPhone or iPad save you time and money; they can help to ensure that you pick only the best-quality restaurants to dine at, whether you're in your home city or traveling.

InformIT Promotional Mailings & Special Offers

I would like to receive exclusive offers and hear about products from InformIT and its family of brands. I can unsubscribe at any time.

Overview


Pearson Education, Inc., 221 River Street, Hoboken, New Jersey 07030, (Pearson) presents this site to provide information about products and services that can be purchased through this site.

This privacy notice provides an overview of our commitment to privacy and describes how we collect, protect, use and share personal information collected through this site. Please note that other Pearson websites and online products and services have their own separate privacy policies.

Collection and Use of Information


To conduct business and deliver products and services, Pearson collects and uses personal information in several ways in connection with this site, including:

Questions and Inquiries

For inquiries and questions, we collect the inquiry or question, together with name, contact details (email address, phone number and mailing address) and any other additional information voluntarily submitted to us through a Contact Us form or an email. We use this information to address the inquiry and respond to the question.

Online Store

For orders and purchases placed through our online store on this site, we collect order details, name, institution name and address (if applicable), email address, phone number, shipping and billing addresses, credit/debit card information, shipping options and any instructions. We use this information to complete transactions, fulfill orders, communicate with individuals placing orders or visiting the online store, and for related purposes.

Surveys

Pearson may offer opportunities to provide feedback or participate in surveys, including surveys evaluating Pearson products, services or sites. Participation is voluntary. Pearson collects information requested in the survey questions and uses the information to evaluate, support, maintain and improve products, services or sites, develop new products and services, conduct educational research and for other purposes specified in the survey.

Contests and Drawings

Occasionally, we may sponsor a contest or drawing. Participation is optional. Pearson collects name, contact information and other information specified on the entry form for the contest or drawing to conduct the contest or drawing. Pearson may collect additional personal information from the winners of a contest or drawing in order to award the prize and for tax reporting purposes, as required by law.

Newsletters

If you have elected to receive email newsletters or promotional mailings and special offers but want to unsubscribe, simply email information@informit.com.

Service Announcements

On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send users an email. Generally, users may not opt-out of these communications, though they can deactivate their account information. However, these communications are not promotional in nature.

Customer Service

We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and in regard to issues relating to their account we reply via email or phone in accordance with the users' wishes when a user submits their information through our Contact Us form.

Other Collection and Use of Information


Application and System Logs

Pearson automatically collects log data to help ensure the delivery, availability and security of this site. Log data may include technical information about how a user or visitor connected to this site, such as browser type, type of computer/device, operating system, internet service provider and IP address. We use this information for support purposes and to monitor the health of the site, identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents and appropriately scale computing resources.

Web Analytics

Pearson may use third party web trend analytical services, including Google Analytics, to collect visitor information, such as IP addresses, browser types, referring pages, pages visited and time spent on a particular site. While these analytical services collect and report information on an anonymous basis, they may use cookies to gather web trend information. The information gathered may enable Pearson (but not the third party web trend services) to link information with application and system log data. Pearson uses this information for system administration and to identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents, appropriately scale computing resources and otherwise support and deliver this site and its services.

Cookies and Related Technologies

This site uses cookies and similar technologies to personalize content, measure traffic patterns, control security, track use and access of information on this site, and provide interest-based messages and advertising. Users can manage and block the use of cookies through their browser. Disabling or blocking certain cookies may limit the functionality of this site.

Do Not Track

This site currently does not respond to Do Not Track signals.

Security


Pearson uses appropriate physical, administrative and technical security measures to protect personal information from unauthorized access, use and disclosure.

Children


This site is not directed to children under the age of 13.

Marketing


Pearson may send or direct marketing communications to users, provided that

  • Pearson will not use personal information collected or processed as a K-12 school service provider for the purpose of directed or targeted advertising.
  • Such marketing is consistent with applicable law and Pearson's legal obligations.
  • Pearson will not knowingly direct or send marketing communications to an individual who has expressed a preference not to receive marketing.
  • Where required by applicable law, express or implied consent to marketing exists and has not been withdrawn.

Pearson may provide personal information to a third party service provider on a restricted basis to provide marketing solely on behalf of Pearson or an affiliate or customer for whom Pearson is a service provider. Marketing preferences may be changed at any time.

Correcting/Updating Personal Information


If a user's personally identifiable information changes (such as your postal address or email address), we provide a way to correct or update that user's personal data provided to us. This can be done on the Account page. If a user no longer desires our service and desires to delete his or her account, please contact us at customer-service@informit.com and we will process the deletion of a user's account.

Choice/Opt-out


Users can always make an informed choice as to whether they should proceed with certain services offered by InformIT. If you choose to remove yourself from our mailing list(s) simply visit the following page and uncheck any communication you no longer want to receive: www.informit.com/u.aspx.

Sale of Personal Information


Pearson does not rent or sell personal information in exchange for any payment of money.

While Pearson does not sell personal information, as defined in Nevada law, Nevada residents may email a request for no sale of their personal information to NevadaDesignatedRequest@pearson.com.

Supplemental Privacy Statement for California Residents


California residents should read our Supplemental privacy statement for California residents in conjunction with this Privacy Notice. The Supplemental privacy statement for California residents explains Pearson's commitment to comply with California law and applies to personal information of California residents collected in connection with this site and the Services.

Sharing and Disclosure


Pearson may disclose personal information, as follows:

  • As required by law.
  • With the consent of the individual (or their parent, if the individual is a minor)
  • In response to a subpoena, court order or legal process, to the extent permitted or required by law
  • To protect the security and safety of individuals, data, assets and systems, consistent with applicable law
  • In connection the sale, joint venture or other transfer of some or all of its company or assets, subject to the provisions of this Privacy Notice
  • To investigate or address actual or suspected fraud or other illegal activities
  • To exercise its legal rights, including enforcement of the Terms of Use for this site or another contract
  • To affiliated Pearson companies and other companies and organizations who perform work for Pearson and are obligated to protect the privacy of personal information consistent with this Privacy Notice
  • To a school, organization, company or government agency, where Pearson collects or processes the personal information in a school setting or on behalf of such organization, company or government agency.

Links


This web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects Personal Information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this web site.

Requests and Contact


Please contact us about this Privacy Notice or if you have any requests or questions relating to the privacy of your personal information.

Changes to this Privacy Notice


We may revise this Privacy Notice through an updated posting. We will identify the effective date of the revision in the posting. Often, updates are made to provide greater clarity or to comply with changes in regulatory requirements. If the updates involve material changes to the collection, protection, use or disclosure of Personal Information, Pearson will provide notice of the change through a conspicuous notice on this site or other appropriate way. Continued use of the site after the effective date of a posted revision evidences acceptance. Please contact us if you have questions or concerns about the Privacy Notice or any objection to any revisions.

Last Update: November 17, 2020