15 Essential Tips for Ordering at Burger King

The year is 1953, and Insta-Burger King has opened its doors in Miami. In the years to come, the word ‘Insta’ would get dropped from the title and the chain would play home to cult classics, such as the Whopper and the flame-broiled patties. Fast-forward to seven decades later, and Burger King can now be counted as one of the largest fast food chains in the United States.

While the popularity of the chain was initially built on its promise to offer a more substantial burger than its competitors, you needn’t necessarily shell out the big bucks for every meal. As of this publication, the fast food chain has a slew of loyalty and reward programs that will send free burgers your way, while the app offers up secret deals. Looking to get creative? You can whip up everything from discontinued burgers to drool-worthy desserts on your own with certain order requests. Scoured from employee tell-alls, viral hacks, tips, and tricks available on the farthest reaches of the internet, these are the tried-and-true secrets that will change your eating experience at the fast food chain. Whether you are adding some spice to your meals or giving yourself a brain freeze with a DIY ICEE Float, one thing is for certain: you won’t be placing your orders the same way again at Burger King.

Filling in arduous feedback forms and surveys may not be the highlight of the fast food experience, but if you are looking to score a free burger, it doesn’t hurt to share your thoughts. In a bid to drive consumers towards its survey, Burger King offers the link to a feedback form at the back of every receipt as of this publication. After answering a few elementary questions about your experience at the restaurant, thoughts on the food, and any areas of improvement, you will receive a code to redeem a burger for free.

It helps to bear in mind that the free burger is only applicable on a minimum order of regular fries and a drink. Since a medium-sized serving of fries costs $3.59 and a value-sized Coke clocks in at $1.59, a total of $5.18 (excluding taxes and a tip) is a small price to pay for the addition of a free Burger King Whopper, which would otherwise be billed at $7.19 at the time of writing.

Laying claim to exclusive perks that the rest of the masses don’t have access to? That’s what we call royalty. In a bid to make you feel truly majestic, Burger King offers the Royal Perks scheme for scoring enticing freebies off the menu. In their own words, “What’s better than BK? Free BK.”

The process is straightforward enough: after signing up for the Royal Perks scheme, you can earn “crowns” for every $1 that you spend at Burger King. If you live in a dormitory or have a large family, be sure to encourage them to place their orders through your membership to quickly rack up points that can be redeemed for free food and drinks. To sweeten the pot, Burger King also offers double the ‘crowns’ during your birthday month.

If you aren’t sold yet, consider this: you can also lay claim to a free upsize on fries, fountain drinks, hash browns, and coffee every single day. Fun sweepstakes, challenges, and games also offer the chance to clock in additional points.

Looking for a filling meal for two at the price of one? You’ll want to make space on your phone for the Burger King app. In addition to the Royal Perks membership, the app also offers the chance to snag some sweet deals for cutting back on your food bills.

While downloading yet another app may not be topping your everyday to-do list, Burger King throws in secret deals and app-only discounts to make it worth the effort. Before placing your order at the counter, it helps to pull up the app to quickly glance through the deals available. A wide array of combination meals and discounted bundles are usually available, but the buy-one-get-one free offers on the Whoppers tend to be a popular crowd favorite as of this publication. Wednesdays are also a fortuitous day for snagging a standard Whopper for as little as $3.99.

If you are dropping by Burger King during rush hour when food is constantly getting freshly made, you might luck out with freshly made French fries — that magical intersection of a golden-hued crust with a fluffy interior. But if you are tired of biting into chewy, cardboard-like fries, it is time to get smarter with your order by asking the servers to hold the salt. This seemingly innocuous request will prompt the staff to make a fresh batch just for you.

Frozen batches of French fries generally arrive at Burger King’s locations around the country, which are then thawed to room temperature, fried, and seasoned with salt. However, customization requests, such as asking the staff to hold the salt, will mean that they have to make a fresh batch from scratch.

A new iteration of this fast food hack has also emerged on TikTok with one user recommending that you ask for unsalted fries, a medium cup, and a few salt packets, so you can shake them up yourself. The best part? The medium-sized cup will also fit easily into your car’s cup holder for nifty snacking while you cross errands off your list. You’re welcome.

With gluten increasingly camping out in unlikely places — such as soy sauce and certain types of flavored coffee — attempting to order a gluten-free meal at fast food restaurants can seem like an impossible task. However, it is possible to make gluten-free choices at Burger King by simply customizing your order smartly. The next time those Whopper cravings kick in, ask the staff to skip the bun and wrap any burger of your choice in lettuce instead.

Burger King’s TENDERGRILL® chicken breast filet is also listed as being gluten-free and makes for an ideal swap for any burger — when ordered without the bun, of course. Dining at a fast food restaurant with a gluten sensitivity is a personal choice, but if you are looking for some peace of mind, you can inform the staff of your allergy and politely request them to change gloves when preparing your order.

Scorching days of summer and bottomless drinks sound like a match made in heaven — especially when you know how to hack the menu to get endless refills for less than $2. If value-sized drinks don’t usually feature on your typical Burger King order, you’ll want to change that. Value-sized cups of Coke are priced at $1.59 and many outlets across the country offer endless free refills, making it maximum value for money.

While free refills are generally provided without any additional charges, it does pay to remember that they are only available for dine-in customers, and not for drive-through and takeaways. You will also not be able to find specialty milkshakes and bottled sodas as part of this offer. Certain outlets may also choose to impose restrictions on excessive refills during rush hour, so you might want to file this hack in the back of your mind for when you’re visiting during non-peak hours.   

From Super Mario figurines to SpongeBob SquarePants cups, Burger King’s kids’ meals have played host to some highly coveted collectibles over the years. However, if you are swinging by sans kids and without a big appetite to fill, it helps to still order one of the King Jr. Kids Meals. Apart from the standard combination of burgers, nuggets, and apple juice, the meals also come with the option of collecting a toy. Upon request, the toy can be swapped for a small dessert, such as an ice cream.

With growing environmental concerns over single-use plastic, the toys might, however, may have a short future. In the United Kingdom, Burger King has pulled out plastic toys from kids’ meals and offered up a free King junior meal to entice customers to bring in their single-use plastic toys for recycling. Across the globe, the fast food chain has vowed to pull all non-biodegradable toys from its kids’ meals by 2025 — so the time to claim your free dessert may be now.

There are few better places to enjoy a leisurely cup of affogato than from an ice cream parlor while basking in the Florence sun. However, if you don’t have any Italian getaways coming up anytime soon, you can opt for the next best thing by creating your DIY version at Burger King with soft-serve ice cream and coffee.

The delightful juxtaposition of velvety smooth ice cream against the bitterness of espresso is what tipped affogato into a viral sensation in the world of desserts. To recreate the magic at your local Burger King, you’ll need soft-serve ice cream — served in a cup, rather than a cone. Next, you can ask the staff for a shot of espresso. Since the restaurant has a substantial menu of coffee available, this should be an easy ask. On the off chance that you aren’t able to get your hands on a shot of espresso, you can also choose to pour a small serving of the classic BK Café fast food coffee instead.

Ice cream or slushie? Why choose when you can have the best of both worlds? A quick glance through any round-up of Burger King secret menu items you need to try, and you’ll find frozen Coke floats ruling the beverage section. However, you can also create your ICEE float with two simple ingredients: soft-serve ice cream and flavored slushie.

As long-time patrons of Burger King will recall, ICEE floats were all the rage back in the 2000s — commercials showed penguins hot-footing it to Burger King after stumbling upon a pair of kids enjoying a mouth-watering concoction of blue cherry and vanilla. Since then, ICEE floats have become a popular fan favorite. The key to creating your own is to mix a soft-serve cup and any flavored slushie that catches your eye. Your options include Frozen Coke and Frozen Fanta Blue Raspberry, but 2000s kids remain partial to the Frozen Fanta Wild Cherry for creating an ode to the discontinued Cherry ICEE Float.

In the world of fast food breakfasts, Burger King’s French Toast Sticks are something of a legend — and with good reason. Despite this dish making its way into other fast food chains, such as Wendy’s, the Washington Post declared Burger King’s iteration as the undisputed winner. With hash browns and a steaming cup of coffee, it serves as the complete breakfast — unless you’d like to get creative by adding the toasted sticks to a burger.

On those mornings when you are craving a hearty breakfast, you’ll want to level up the Croissan’wich with the addition of French Toast Sticks. Both items are popular favorites on the Burger King breakfast menu and are generally available during the chain’s breakfast serving hours till before 11a.m. You can also choose to add in a drizzling of syrup, depending on your preferred threshold for sugar in the mornings. The result is a sweet and savory combination that offers up a mouth-watering start to the day.

A classic Burger King Whopper wrapped in a tortilla — what’s not to love? This is the question that Burger King execs likely asked themselves while introducing the Whopperito back in 2016. After an initial launch in select locations in Pennsylvania, widespread social media demand catapulted the Whopperito into a nationwide sensation. While the limited-time offering failed to attain permanent menu status, you can still create your own by requesting any Whopper of your choice to be wrapped in a tortilla.

With ground beef, lettuce, tomatoes, and pickles, you have all the makings of an unforgettable Whopperito. All that remains is to swap the traditional sesame seed bun for a tortilla that the restaurant generally keeps at hand for its breakfast burritos. While the creamy touch of queso may be missing, this DIY concoction is a handy way to revive memories of the Whopperito.

Burgers come and burgers go in the fast-paced carousel of flavors at Burger King. If you ever find yourself craving the smoky, tangy notes of the Rodeo Burger, the good news is that you don’t have to hop into a time machine. Eagle-eyed fans of the fast food chain have been quick to put together their own combinations to revive this old classic. All you’ll need to do is ask for a cheeseburger to be topped with Burger King onion rings and barbecue sauce.

Initially timed to coincide with the release of the 1998 movie, “Small Soldiers,” the Rodeo Burger has been on a rollercoaster ride of its own. After making a quiet exit from the menu, it made a small cameo in 2021 with a spicy barbecue sauce smothered over a Whopper Jr. patty. Before fans could properly rejoice, it went MIA again and left a trail of broken hearts in its wake. However, since the barbecue sauce is still available as a dip with chicken nuggets and fries, you can always DIY your own comeback of the Rodeo Burger.

Heat lovers rejoiced in the return of the Jalapeño Cheddar Bites to the Burger King menu in 2025 after a brief two-year hiatus. But if all the spicy dips and sides on the Burger King menu are just not cutting it for you, you can always take matters into your own hands by asking for a special addition to your Whopper: spicy jalapeños.

You won’t generally spot jalapeños if you pry apart a Whopper, but you can always choose to ask your server to pile some on your burger to add some fire power to your meal. The chain restaurant tends to keep jalapeños at hand for the spicy items on its menu, and a polite request is generally obliged. As of this publication, you can round out your meal with other spicy additions: Fiery Chicken Fries, a limited-edition guest on the menu, as well as Fiery Buffalo Nuggets.

You love the crunchy fries, you love the creamy milkshakes — so why not bring them both together? Combining fries and a milkshake at Burger King may sound odd at first glance, but hear us out. The science is solid on this one: when you dip fresh-from-the-fryer French fries into an icy milkshake, the contrasting temperatures work in tandem to light up different parts of the human brain. This contrast is said to create a more intense eating experience, and explains the immense popularity behind cult-favorite dessert items, such as hot fudge sundaes and apple pies topped with a dollop of vanilla ice cream.

While vanilla shakes are a popular choice on the internet for creating this combination, those feeling experimental will want to flex their culinary muscles with the other flavors available on Burger King’s milkshake menu as of this publication: chocolate, strawberry, classic Oreo, and chocolate Oreo.

Whether you are hosting a house party on Labor Day weekend or looking to beat the blistering glare of the summer sun, you might find that your ice requirements extend beyond the average tray in your freezer. However, your only option doesn’t include a trip to the convenience store — not when you can find up to 15 pounds of bagged ice at your nearest Burger King for cheaper.

Bagged ice has long been churning up a nifty profit for convenience stores. But your quest for cheaper alternatives will lead to your favorite fast food chain: 5-pound bags of ice are available at many Burger King locations for $1.49 as of this publication. This price tag makes it cheaper than other major players in the game, such as 7-Eleven, Walmart, and Target. On those days when you aren’t keen on changing out of your sweatpants, you can also pick your ice from the drive-through as it saves the trouble of getting out of the car and standing in labyrinthine checkout queues at grocery stores.

While the choice to sell bagged ice is made individually by every franchise location, the probability of scoring cheaper ice is dialed up in warmer states like California, Texas, and Florida. If you are looking to save yourself a trip, it helps to call ahead and check on the availability before firing up the car.