Upcoming Starbucks Rewards Changes & The Death of Free Soy
0I love supporting local coffee shops, but when you are traveling or just need somewhere to sit down and work, it’s hard to beat the tens of thousands of Starbucks shops that are open across the nation (and internationally as well). Frequent patrons of Starbucks will probably be aware of the Starbucks Rewards loyalty program that Starbucks runs.
All you have to do to join the Rewards program is get any Starbucks gift card and register it online to the Starbucks Rewards program. Then, all your Starbucks purchases on that registered card will count towards your rewards points. It takes 5 purchases (or stars) to get to green level, and 30 purchases to get to gold level.
Here are the current Green Level benefits:
- Syrup or soy milk on the house
- Free refills while you’re here
- Buy beans, get a beverage
- Free drink on your birthday
& the current Gold Level benefits:
- Syrup or soy milk on the house
- Free refills while you’re here
- Buy beans, get a beverage
- Free drink on your birthday
- Free drink every 15 stars
- Your own personalized gold card
- Special member offers
i am a particular fan of the Gold Level because of the free syrup and/or soy milk. With soy milk alone being an additional $0.60 charge, the gold membership is worth my investment since I’m partially lactose intolerant. (Damn my Asian genes.)
Unfortunately, the bad news came yesterday via an email from Starbucks that announced that their Starbucks Rewards benefits will be changing effective October 16. Here are the changes:
They are smart to spin it in a way that it seems like this change actually benefits current rewards members, and then at the very bottom left they leave that little footnote about how soy and syrups are no longer going to be free. A sly blow to the face to Starbuck’s own loyal customers–especially painful for those of who are lactose intolerant.
Now, $0.60 might not seem like much, but it adds up as little costs. In fact, I would say that for me the free soy milk has saved me approximately $144 each year. (Math: $0.60/soy * 20 drinks/month * 12 months.) And while I value being able to find a Starbucks just about anywhere, I definitely will not be valuing their rewards program anymore after this change.
On a brighter note, these changes go into effective October 16, so you still have a few weeks to get your soy for free if you’re a green or gold member. And if you haven’t joined Starbucks Rewards yet, you can go for it–though I don’t know if I can recommend it anymore. (Still, if you’re going to patron Starbucks, you might as well be earning some kind of reward points for it.)
Are you going to miss the free soy and syrups too? Then take a few minutes to hop on over to Starbucks and share your feedback with them. With enough voices, we might be able to get them to reverse that change.
Also, hop on over to change.org to sign the growing petition to keep free syrups and soy!