LevelUp App Expands Nationwide
LevelUp, a free mobile app that helps travelers save money at restaurants by allowing them to pay with their phones, is expanding nationwide and is now available in Dallas, Los Angeles, Nashville, Tenn., Saint Louis, and Washington, D.C., with more cities, like Miami, on the way.
Users download LevelUp and then link their debit or credit card to the app. The app then generates a unique code to scan at more than 3,000 restaurants and shops across the country. The app has a built-in reward system, so users save a few dollars the first time they pay with LevelUp at a restaurant or shop and then earn additional credit with each subsequent purchase.
To coincide with its expansion, LevelUp is hosting events across the U.S., including Taste of the Trucks in Atlanta Sept. 15 (the $10 admission fee is waived if festival-goers pay using LevelUp), and a food truck cook-off in Philadelphia at Tashan Restaurant to celebrate LevelUp's one year anniversary in the city Aug. 20.
Existing and new LevelUp users who pay with their phones at several LevelUp food truck and block party events can score free food, drinks, and admission.
Events include the Valley Center Gourmet Food Truck Festival in San Diego, Calif., Aug. 18, which features 15 food trucks, including Devilicious, where new and existing LevelUp users get $10 worth of food and drinks, and the Prospect Park Food Truck Rally, a gathering of 16 food trucks including Big D's Grub Truck, Mexicue, Bongo Brothers, and Eddies Pizza in Brooklyn, N.Y., Aug. 19, where LevelUp users get $10 to spend on food-truck fare.
The events and moveable feasts continue in September with the eighth annual Vendy Awards on New York City's Governor's Island Sept. 15, which includes a cook-off between sidewalk vendors. LevelUp users get $5 to spend on food and drink, and LevelUp will donate $5 to The Street Vendors Project. During Brauhaus Schmidtz's Oktoberfest celebration, the Philadelphia brauhaus is hosting the fourth annual Oktoberfest Block Party, which includes beer tasting, a pig roast, and live music. New LevelUp users get $5 to spend at Brauhaus Schmitz and $5 is donated to The South Street Police Mini-Station.
The series of LevelUp summer events culminates with the fifth annual DISH Food & Wine Event at Terra Gallery in San Francisco Sept. 30. The three-hour culinary event features samples from more than 40 food vendors and 10 wineries. Those who use LevelUp get $10 to use at any of the hundreds of restaurants that accept LevelUp in San Francisco.
Lauren Mack is the Travel Editor at The Daily Meal. Follow her on Twitter @lmack.