FROM curries to burgers and sushi to cheesecake, we have ordered takeaways in record amounts over the past year.
It can be hard enough choosing what to eat . . . and there are loads of takeaway apps to pick from too.
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So we tested four of the leading ones – Deliveroo, Foodhub, Just Eat, and Uber Eats – to find out which of them truly delivered.
Luckily, we love curry. The one restaurant near us that appeared on all four apps was Mogul’s Kitchen in East London. We ordered four identical Indian feasts via the apps and compared them for price, speed and customer service.
We also ordered a different takeaway on each of the apps for a bit of extra flavour . . . and because we hate cooking. We found out the exact same meal can cost you a TENNER more, depending on which firm delivers it.
The big lesson was to look out for promos in the different apps and for deals at specific restaurants. Often you will find one if you haven’t ordered in a while, or on days when apps need to hit targets. Here are the results from Mogul’s Kitchen.
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JUST EAT
TOTAL COST: £43.02
DELIVERY TIME: 61 mins
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CHEAPEST for the Mogul order – and helped by a ten per cent promotional discount on a £20 spend. At £43.02, it was the lowest by £3.88 – and more than a tenner cheaper than Uber Eats, the costliest.
Just Eat takes a 50p service fee per order and delivery charges vary but for our orders there were none. It was the slowest of the four, taking 61 minutes – six minutes later than the quoted time, though we pre-ordered.
Our other takeaway, a lunchtime kebab from The Orange Room, arrived well within the quoted time, however. The app is very simple to use, looks clean and has some pictures, which is a nice touch. Our orders ran smoothly but if you do need to get in touch with customer service, Just Eat has a live-chat option inside the app.
It operates all over the country and has the biggest selection, including fast-food giants McDonald’s, Subway, and Greggs. But it doesn’t have the range of restaurant chains Deliveroo and Uber Eats have. Instead, there are independent takeaways that provide their own drivers.
UBER EATS
TOTAL COST: £54.48
DELIVERY TIME: 45 mins
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PRICIEST and not very fast. But a deal with Mogul meant we got extra food.
It came to £54.48, including a ten per cent service charge and £1.29 delivery.
Mogul had a BOGOF promo on side dishes, so we changed our order and loaded up on sides. Had we ordered the same as the other apps, it would have been £53.54 – but with the deal and spending an extra £1, we had enough for two meals. Uber Eats now caps the service fee at £2.99.
But at the time of our orders, it was the full £5.48 and £5.22. It has similar restaurants to Deliveroo plus you can track your order. It is generally the priciest but there are good promos to reduce costs.
Our second takeaway was from Chinese gem PoPo. It was pricier than on FoodHub but arrived 20 minutes early.
Cash hack
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Sign up via the store’s membership app or at coop.co.uk/membership.
DELIVEROO
TOTAL COST: £47.00
DELIVERY TIME: 42 mins
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A PROMO meant ten per cent off at Mogul’s Kitchen but it still came to £47 including fees. I was charged £3.99 for delivery and a £1.39 service fee. The delivery fee is based on distance from the restaurant, and there is a three per cent service fee, capped at £2.
These can add up but the promo kept it competitive. The Mogul’s order came without a hitch and was second quickest at 42 minutes. But our KFC order on another day had half of it missing.
I used the Live Chat and the missing items arrived 20 minutes later. Deliveroo’s app is the best, with the slickest design.
As it uses its own drivers, you can track them on a map. The firm provides drivers for all sorts of restaurants and chains that would never normally deliver, from cake shops to sushi takeaways.
FOODHUB
TOTAL COST: £46.90
DELIVERY TIME: 31 mins
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USUALLY the cheapest but as it had no promos, it came in second for the Mogul’s feast, at £46.90. Foodhub was our speediest by far, at 31 minutes – way ahead of schedule even at peak 7pm on a Friday.
It’s simple to ring the takeaway in one tap from the order page. Handy, as I forgot to order mint chutney. On other apps you can’t do this.
But this one is not as slick as others, with no pictures and no option to search restaurants by cuisine. Unlike others, the restaurants here are mainly takeaways rather than chains and it has the smallest selection.
Foodhub has a flat monthly charge for restaurants but no commission, so it can often pass on those savings to customers, who pay no fees. Our other Foodhub order, from Indian Curry House, had a 15 per cent promotion discount.
Cash hack
BUY a new Oppo Find X3 from EE by June 15 and you could win tickets to the tennis at Wimbledon.
Other prizes include Oppo headphones, Wimbledon gear and more. The phones are available on EE monthly pay plans from £31 a month.
CRYPTO IS WILD WEST OF INVESTING
IT’S only been a month since I last warned about cryptocurrency scams. But crypto is now so mainstream that it is incredibly fruitful for fraudsters, not helped by the huge number of celebrity endorsements (most totally bogus) all over social media.
Firstly, there are virtually no legit investment advisors who will recommend you invest in crypto. If you get a call, e-mail or text from one, bin it – it’s a scam.
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If you want financial advice, seek out an independent adviser: unbiased.co.uk can help.
Never engage with a contact out of the blue. If you’re going it alone, to buy crypto you will need an e-wallet on one of the exchanges/trading platforms.
Remember that this is not a bank account, even though it looks like one, and you have virtually no protection at all.
Even well-known exchanges such as kraken.com, binance.com and bitcoin.com are rife with fraudsters – just last week a customer lost £29,000 to a fraudster on one of these platforms.
MONEY SMART
Thrifty couple now debt-free after paying off their mortgage 28 years early
ALDI DEALS
Aldi’s Specialbuys include a BBQ and a pizza oven – and you can pre-order today
NUG LIFE
We test supermarket chicken nuggets including Aldi and M&S to see which are best
LOUNGING ABOUT
Bargain hunter spots Tesco’s rattan furniture for £120 – cheaper than Argos
DIRTY DASH
‘I’ve lost £1k on my Portugal holiday’: Angry Brits scramble back to the UK
PROPERTY GLADDER
First Homes Scheme: The new housing policy and how it works explained
Never, ever, give somebody control of your e-wallet. Open it yourself, and keep it private. Only a criminal will ask for access to it, or offer to set it up on your behalf.
That will always be a scam and you’ll lose everything. And stick to exchanges registered with the Financial Conduct Authority, which you can check at register.fca.org.uk.
Crypto really is the wild west of investment, and you need to be prepared to lose everything you invest.
CODE RED
VICTIMS of bank-transfer scams face a “lottery” over whether they will be reimbursed, according to Which?.
A voluntary code introduced two years ago committed banks to reimburse account-holders tricked into transferring money to a fraudster.
But some try to avoid refunds by claiming they had warned customers.
Which? says Barclays was the only bank that agreed to publish refund figures periodically.
TSB, which is not part of the code, said it had reimbursed 99.6 per cent of fraud cases in the past year.
We test supermarket chicken nuggets including Aldi and M&S to see which ones are best
