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The magic trick here is that Starbucks Rewards -- their "free" loyalty program -- requires using a Starbucks Card (virtual or physical) in order to make your pu
by cbhl 7y ago
The magic trick here is that Starbucks Rewards -- their "free" loyalty program -- requires using a Starbucks Card (virtual or physical) in order to make your purchases.
Under the old system (prior to ~Apr 2019) you had to make $150 in purchases annually to get "Gold" status, and then you got a free reward after every ~$62.50 in Starbucks spending. The new program has no minimum, and tiered rewards between $12.50 and $200 of spending.
- rohansingh 7y agoThat's important, but it's not really the core of why the Starbucks Card program is so huge. I worked on the team around 2009, before the rewards program rolled out. The card program was already huge at that point, so the rewards are not the primary draw.
- chipperyman573 7y agoYou can get a virtual card in the app and "pay" with it by loading on the exact amount you need to pay with before checking out (or just buying it in the app). So it "needs" a card, but that's really just a weird thing they didn't abstract from the app, it's not actually an inconvenience (at least to me)
- lxgr 7y agoAs far as I remember, there is no way to load an exact amount, so you always end up with some spare change in the app. I assume that this is somewhat of an incentive to quite a few customers: That almost-forgotten balance almost feels like a discount towards the next purchase, not so much as a free loan to Starbucks.