In case you haven’t seen the incessant Jon Batiste commercials or online ads, Prime Day is coming up on July 12th and 13th. Ahead of that, Amazon has announced some new offerings for Prime members. Among them is a deal that could save users money on their Grubhub orders.
Now, Prime members (in the United States) can sign up for a free year of Grubhub+. The membership — which normally comes at a cost of $9.99 per month — entitles customers to $0 delivery fees on orders over $12. It also promises other exclusive perks and discounts, although these aren’t exactly specified. Notably, this offer is available to both new and existing Grubhub+ users. In the case of the latter, once they connect their Prime account to Grubhub, their free year will kick in at the start of the next billing cycle. However, Grubhub Campus, Corporate, and “certain existing partnership members” are still excluded from this deal.
Sadly, this complimentary membership is also missing what I found the be the most useful Grubhub+ feature. See, in some areas, Grubhub+ comes with a $10 monthly credit that can be redeemed for pick-up orders. In fact, I’ve actually experienced this myself. However, as Doctor of Credit notes, this part of the deal only applies to paid subscriptions.
Incidentally, these types of “extended free trial” partnership deals seem to be increasingly common. For example, certain Chase credit card customers can get up to a free year of Instacart+. Meanwhile, Instacart previously also offered a free year of Grubhub+ to its customers — and the cycle goes on and on.
I suspect that, for most Prime customers, this Grubhub+ deal is unlikely to move the needle much. For one, while $0 delivery fees are nice, Grubhub delivery can still be pricey overall. Plus, since this is a one-year deal, you’ll probably want to keep an eye on your renewal date and cancel before you get charged (assuming you don’t want to pay for the service, that is).
Then again, this offer could stack nicely with the American Express Gold Card’s $10 monthly dining credit, for which Grubhub purchases qualify. Personally, I’d still stick to pick-up orders to maximize that credit’s value, but this might be a good backup plan. In any case, if you’re already a Prime member, you might as well redeem your free trial. But, if you’ve put off Prime until now anyway, you can probably keep doing so.