Starbucks have announced changes to their loyalty program that will becoming in this April. An outline of the changes below, followed by our thoughts:
As you can see, you need more than 10x the amount of Stars to redeem for a free reward than before. Basically now every $62.5 will earn you a free reward, whereas previously every 12 visits would get you a free reward. This means that if your average spend per visit was less than $5.2 then you were better off with this previous rewards program and if your average spend per visit was above $5.2 you’d be better off with this new program.
I’m sure Starbucks have run the numbers and realized they will save a bunch of money doing this (I somehow doubt they average order value is above $5.2), it’ll be interesting to see if there is any backlash from consumers who switch to other coffee centric loyalty programs. Personally I think that Starbucks tastes like cat urine so this change won’t affect me in the slightest.
For those of you that do participate in Starbucks loyalty program, did you know that your free reward doesn’t even have to be a drink (no need to order a 24 shot espresso to maximize your value). Feel free to share your Starbucks hacks in the comments.
