Whataburger Is Giving Away Free Burgers This Week

The beloved burger chain is celebrating its birthday, but you get the gift.

Who doesn’t love free food? Recently, fast food chains have found so many ways to give fans the menu items they love most—for no charge at all. Burger King is giving away free fries for the rest of the year. Heck, Krispy Kreme can’t seem to get enough of handing out free doughnuts this summer. But, there's usually a stipulation—you have to use the restaurant's app.

We've written about how fast food rewards apps have become the preeminent way to score the best deals—including freebies—at your favorite chains. It’s becoming more and more common for fast food restaurants to encourage customers to order through their apps or websites, rather than in person. One of the ways they incentivize using their apps is to offer free items and other deals exclusively to app and/or website users. This week, another chain has entered the free food chat.

On August 7 and 8, Whataburger, the San Antonio-based burger chain, is offering free food through its rewards app. Since nothing tastes better than free, here's how you can get your hands on a complimentary burger this week.

Celebrate the First National Whataburger Day With Free Burgers

Dubbing August 8 the inaugural National Whataburger Day, the burger chain is honoring founder Harmon Dobson and the brand he started over 70 years ago. One of the ways it’s celebrating is by treating Whataburger Rewards members to an in-app offer of a free Whataburger, no purchase necessary.

How can you cash in on a free burger? In addition to enrolling in the free-to-join rewards program and downloading the app, users must have placed at least one order on the app in the last year to qualify for a free burger. You can’t get the free burger unless you’ve ordered through the app in the past 12 months (aka are considered an active rewards member).

Those who aren’t active members can quickly download the app and place an order for any item to qualify. After that they’ll be eligible for the free Whataburger—the chain's 5” beef patty on a bun with tomato, lettuce, pickles, diced onions, and mustard—on August 7 or 8. App users can redeem this offer once in the two-day period.

The chain will also hand out limited quantities of National Whataburger Day table tents to those who visit in-person on August 8. Customers often collect (read: steal) the table tents from the restaurants—to the tune of costing the brand over over $200k a year. It would appear Whataburger has gotten wise to the trend, and is celebrating fans (as eccentric as they may be) by giving them away for free. The table tents are also available for free on the 8th at Whataburger's online store when accompanied by another purchase.

We love a good freebie, but we also appreciate it when brands give back to more than just their fans. Working with the charity All for Lunch, Whataburger will relieve $73,000 ($1,000 for every year in business) of school lunch debt for children in the states where it has restaurants. Now that's a birthday gift everyone can celebrate.