Normally loath to suggest these sorts of thing, but recently discovered maccas has the best coffee in my suburb (C’mon melbourne get your shit together!) so every other day I’m grabbing a coffee. A mate recommended the app. I wouldnt suggest going there to get a deal, but IF your already buying stuff from maccas doing it through the app gets you points you can trade in, jut scored a free medium coffee with a non standard milk! It takes a few purchases to build up the required points, so again not a deal. But if you’re doing it anyway may as well get the free stuff from it.
But if you’re doing it anyway may as well get the free stuff from it.
Counterpoint: By using the app, yet another organisation has your personal details, phone number, email, payment method including possibly credit card details. Do they have your birthday too? That’s plenty enough data to attempt identity theft.
The app also tracks all your purchases. Loyalty cards are used to do this too. Looking at your purchases someone could reliably predict what days and times you are buying your coffee. So, they also know when you aren’t at home, Thieves would love this information and could plan a little visit to your home to relieve you of some of your valuable items.
Companies make money by capturing your data, using it internally, but also by selling it too. You probably don’t know if, what or who they onsell it to.
Finally, as we"ve seen companies’ data is constantly hacked (eg Optus). There’s little or no penalties for companies not taking good care of your personal information.
This is just off the top of my head. But it’s the generic “Reasons why you shouldn’t use an app” that are usually ignored. It’s ultimately a trade off between security and convenience/cost.
I was always more worried about giving my personal information to these loyalty card companies because they can sell that info off. I didn’t even imagine the prospect of hackers using that information to know when and where I could be at any time.
Going deeper down the rabbit hole:
- Any app that has access to location, knows where you are right now.
- It’s doesn’t have to be a hacker. A dodgy employee of the organisation or a contractor can do the same thing. They don’t have to ‘hack’ anything. Just use their legitimate access for bad purposes.
Yeah it’s legit a great app. Regularly get great offers on there like a $4 medium meal, $1 large frozen coke, $1 hash brown, $2 mcflurry, etc - and the points you get for spending any money aren’t ridiculously pointless like most are.
In terms of frugal options, Maccas is currently the winning the fast food space.
I find Maccas and HJs tend to trade places in this in a 3-5 year cycle. Though if you’re talking $ per calorie KFC wins hands down.
Cheaper (and tastier) to get a thermos and make coffee at home. Also, the food might seem cheap, but you can meal prep with things like rice, beans, and frozen veggies for much less money (and time actually). Alsooo Maccas will slowly kill you.
Don’t like raining on your parade, just trying to help people save money and live happier lives. McDonald’s won’t save you money in the long run, and it will screw up your body.
Maccas coffee is one of the few coffees my stomach seems to accept, which is super strange and I don’t understand why. But totally agree on the food. It’s a very rare “sometimes” treat.
Everyone needs treats sometimes :)
