4 ms·

The big question... is this actually useable at Starbucks? If I show a barista a 3rd-party, non-Starbucks affiliated app, and ask them to scan it, will they do

The big question... is this actually useable at Starbucks? If I show a barista a 3rd-party, non-Starbucks affiliated app, and ask them to scan it, will they do it? Or just look at me like I've grown 3 heads? Even if it is a valid barcode (and still not clear on where that's coming from either - I don't understand the 'crowdsourcing a gold card' thing - can someone explain?)

ehPReth 13y ago
They don't look at the app - they (or you) just point the scanner at the screen
clp16 13y ago
It works great. We've tested a bunch of times. The barista just points you at the scanner.
mmmmax 13y ago
I just did it...it was amazing! I'd prefer to keep a balance alive for longer.
- mhluongo 13y ago
  How long would work, you think? I think today people are loading the BTC at the office, but I'm not sure that'll be the most common case. Maybe a "more time" button would help?
csixty4 13y ago
As long as it scans, they're happy. I saw someone pay with an image of their barcode on a smartwatch and the baristas were going nuts over how cool it was.
- XaspR8d 13y ago
  Shucks. I successfully used my Pebble barcode at Starbucks the other day and was only met with confusion and mild surprise.
Ateoto 13y ago
I work at a Starbucks. The scanners are usually customer facing and all the barista needs to know is that you are going to pay with an app on your phone. As long as there are no complications I doubt the average barista will know or care exactly how you paid. As for the crowd sourced gold card, Starbucks' loyalty program gives you a special card after 30 transactions (Gold Card), once you hit that level, you get a free drink or food item. Every subsequent 12 transactions earns another free drink or food item. These would obviously be earned very quickly if multiple people are using the same account. However, I feel that if this is the way this app works, that it opens itself up to both Starbucks shutting it down quickly and user exploits. You could just generate your own image of this accounts barcode and use it whenever you'd like. The worst that would happen is that the barista would inform you that there wasn't enough money on the card, or that it was an invalid account, something that happens often. So I doubt this is the case with this app, I am interested in how they are running this though. Edit: Up above it is mentioned that each customer gets their own account. So this isn't an issue.

ehPReth 13y ago

They don't look at the app - they (or you) just point the scanner at the screen

clp16 13y ago

It works great. We've tested a bunch of times. The barista just points you at the scanner.

mmmmax 13y ago

I just did it...it was amazing! I'd prefer to keep a balance alive for longer.

mhluongo 13y ago
How long would work, you think? I think today people are loading the BTC at the office, but I'm not sure that'll be the most common case. Maybe a "more time" button would help?

csixty4 13y ago

As long as it scans, they're happy. I saw someone pay with an image of their barcode on a smartwatch and the baristas were going nuts over how cool it was.

XaspR8d 13y ago
Shucks. I successfully used my Pebble barcode at Starbucks the other day and was only met with confusion and mild surprise.

Ateoto 13y ago

I work at a Starbucks. The scanners are usually customer facing and all the barista needs to know is that you are going to pay with an app on your phone. As long as there are no complications I doubt the average barista will know or care exactly how you paid. As for the crowd sourced gold card, Starbucks' loyalty program gives you a special card after 30 transactions (Gold Card), once you hit that level, you get a free drink or food item. Every subsequent 12 transactions earns another free drink or food item. These would obviously be earned very quickly if multiple people are using the same account. However, I feel that if this is the way this app works, that it opens itself up to both Starbucks shutting it down quickly and user exploits. You could just generate your own image of this accounts barcode and use it whenever you'd like. The worst that would happen is that the barista would inform you that there wasn't enough money on the card, or that it was an invalid account, something that happens often. So I doubt this is the case with this app, I am interested in how they are running this though. Edit: Up above it is mentioned that each customer gets their own account. So this isn't an issue.