Quick Answer
Meituan is China's most feature-complete lifestyle app — one app for food delivery, shared bikes, hotels, movies, and errands. Important: Meituan has no English interface (confirmed by App Store — Chinese only). You'll need to recognize Chinese button names and use WeChat's translation feature as a supplement. Key navigation entries: Home, Food Delivery, Hotel, Movies & Shows, Run Errands, Meituan Bike, and My Profile.
Interface and Translation Methods
Meituan's all-Chinese interface is not foreigner-friendly. Two workarounds:
- WeChat translation — Open Meituan as a Mini Program within WeChat, and use WeChat's built-in translation to switch the interface to English
- Screenshot translation — Use Microsoft Translator or Google Translate's Camera mode to translate the current screen
- Recognize icons — Meituan's home page icons are self-explanatory; recognizing icons is faster than reading Chinese text
Food Delivery
Food delivery is Meituan's most-used feature:
- Open Meituan, tap the Food Delivery entry on the home page
- Your location is auto-detected; confirm or adjust it
- Search for a restaurant name or browse nearby options by category
- Tap a restaurant to browse its menu
- Select items, then tap Select Options (for portion, spice level, add-ons)
- Tap Submit Order
- Choose payment method (Alipay, WeChat Pay, or linked international card)
- Wait for delivery; use Track Order to monitor the courier
Delivery fees are typically ¥3–10. Delivery time is usually 30–60 minutes.
Shared Bikes
Meituan operates yellow shared bikes:
- Open Meituan, tap Meituan Bike or the home page Scan entry
- Use Scan to scan the QR code on the bike's lock
- After unlocking, start riding. Billed by distance (about ¥1.5 per 15 minutes)
- Return the bike at a designated P-point (electronic geofence) and lock it
Hotels
Meituan also books hotels:
- Tap Hotel on the home page
- Enter city, check-in date, and number of guests
- Browse hotel listings, filter by price and rating
- Tap a hotel for details, view room types and Select Options
- Submit Order and pay
Movies & Shows
- Tap Movies & Shows on the home page
- Select a cinema, showtime, and seats
- Purchase tickets with online seat selection
- Present the pickup code at the cinema to collect tickets
Run Errands
- Tap Run Errands on the home page
- Can help with proxy purchasing, delivery, and queuing
- After placing an order, a courier accepts and fulfills it. Fees are based on distance and service type.
Scan and Payment
- Scan — Scan a merchant QR code to pay, or scan a shared bike to unlock
- Payment Code — Find your payment code under My Profile to display for merchants to scan
Practical Tips
- Recognize icons over text — With Meituan's Chinese interface, recognizing icons helps you find features faster
- Use WeChat translation — Open Meituan as a WeChat Mini Program to switch the interface to English via built-in translation
- Link payment first — Ensure Alipay or WeChat Pay has a linked international card before ordering on Meituan
- Check ratings before ordering — For both food delivery and hotels, check ratings and reviews and choose highly-rated options
- Return bikes at P-points — Meituan bikes must be returned at designated P-points (electronic geofences), otherwise a relocation fee may apply
The following are the author's personal QR codes (not merchant codes), with a fixed amount of ¥10.00 set for testing whether your card binding was successful.
About Personal QR Codes: This website is maintained by an individual. The QR codes are for personal daily use, not merchant codes. Since personal QR codes may not be able to accept international credit card payments, the transaction may fail. However, this does not mean your card binding failed — the fact that you reached the payment page itself confirms that your binding was successful.
About the Amount: Please do not modify the preset amount. This is simply a payment test. If the payment goes through, consider it as buying me a coffee. The fixed amount is set to avoid any inconvenience caused by accidentally entering the wrong amount.
Important: The primary purpose of these codes is to help you verify whether your registration and card binding were successful, not to generate profit. If you're not comfortable, feel free to skip this step.
