Over the past year, I’ve been asked many times, ‘What happened to the free brewed tall coffee that you used to get for buying Starbucks packaged coffee at the grocery store?‘
That program is gone. The packaging that used to offer a free tall coffee has been phased out in favor of MyStarbucksRewards loyalty program. If you happen to find coffee that still has the free brewed coffee coupon on the side, I would assume it’s old packaging.
If you don’t remember the old program, there’s an official Starbucks.com article here on Exchange Empty Coffee Bag for a Tall Coffee.
So why oh why did Starbucks eliminate that perk? I can only make an educated guess, but it seems to me that Starbucks wanted their rewards program to be seamless between grocery stores and between the actual retail stores. It shouldn’t matter where you’re buying your whole bean coffee, you’re earning stars. (And when you’re inside company-operated Starbucks stores, as of March this year, you’re earning bonus stars for your at-home coffee purchases.) In order to start earning stars, put money on any Starbucks card, register it at Starbucks.com, and use it to pay for your purchases. Be sure to track your rewards by frequently logging into Starbucks.com or using the phone app. Every time the register barista swipes your card, it’s one star (there are some limited exceptions: you’re not earning stars during card reload swipes, and when you’re getting a free refill, no star is earned).
I suspect that customers who are particularly upset about the loss of the tall brewed coffee coupon don’t understand the fun things you can do with Starbucks Lucky Dozen rewards. When your account at Starbucks.com is gold level, every 12 stars you earn a “Lucky Dozen” reward.
What can you get with a Lucky Dozen reward? Let me throw out some suggestions:
You can doctor up a Frappuccino and make it a fancy “secret menu” item. Always know the recipe for what you’re ordering! I tried this Strawberry Shortcake Frappuccino recipe. It was totally delicious. What an amazing treat. I wouldn’t do this all the time – it’s dessert in a cup!
You can use your Lucky Dozen reward for a free one ounce of Teavana loose leaf tea, at any Teavana store:
You can use your Lucky Dozen reward on any salad, panini, or food item at Starbucks. (Evenings food and beer and wine is not included as a Lucky Dozen reward). This is incredibly valuable if you like either the salads or the paninis! The salads are often $6.95!
At any Evolution Fresh store, you can use your Lucky Dozen reward for any bottled Evolution Fresh juice. By the way, you can do the same at Starbucks – use your reward for an Evolution Fresh cold-pressed bottled juice or any other bottled beverage:
As should be obvious, I was totally stuffed by the time I was done doing the “research” for this article. I ate and drank my way through most of my rewards! I hope you can see that in the long run, you’ve got a lot more flexibility and value in a MyStarbucksRewards Lucky Dozen reward than in just a tall brewed cup of coffee. So enter your star codes, and earn stars!
Enjoy!
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Melody nice to be reminded of what options you have with your stars! Thank you.
If this is true about the free tall coffee with an empty bag then Starbucks need to remove the code from their POS system
What a very positive spin! Thanks for posting this!
I’m going to be hitting my neighborhood Vons Supermarket today to pick up some whole bean coffee. It’s on sale twice – $5.99 per bag, plus buy 3 get one free! An easy way to get four extra stars on my MSR account.
@Purple1 – I definitely think the issue with the stars on the grocery bags is that people who don’t know much about MSR don’t understand why you would want stars.
@ChrisW -Completely forget to mention the bonus stars for grocery coffee. Actually, I kind of feel like they should find a way to make the grocery coffee worth more than one star all the time.
@Jorge – On the Facebook side of this page, I was a little surprised to see that the comments were that baristas routinely honor the free tall brewed coffee, regardless of whether there’s a coupon on the bag.
The code will eventually be removed from the system, it’s just going to take a while. We’re still accepting bags for a free tall coffee and informing our customers that they are discontinuing the promotion and why. Most don’t care because they just come in for the free coffee anyway.
The code is still in our POS, and we always will honor the free tall coffee if people bring in their bags. At least this is what we still do at our store.
my Barista told me that they will still honor the bags that say “free tall coffee” for a while longer.
She told me that corporate switched to just the stars because it is what the customer’s wanted (based on feedback and/or market research)
@Melody, thanks for a great post that highlights how to enjoy the “Lucky Dozen Rewards”. đ đ đ
I was told earlier this year via a customer service e-mail that the expiration date of the bag/coupon was 30 days from the best by date. I suspect codes are still out there that are still good. Hence the magic code the baristas use should still be in the system. I was also told in that same e-mail that the special blend I had bought that did not have a code could still be used for a free tall coffee if the barista remembered the magic code. (Note I am carefully not typing that code. I presume that is the honorable thing to do.) Overall I think this means the code should exist and can still be used until all the bags and knowledge have percolated out of the system.
What I’ve really been wondering about is what the return is on the ‘receipt surveys’, now that they’ve eliminated the free tall or $1.00 off or whatever it was. Can’t remember. Honestly, I know I’ve done a couple but mostly I figure they really could at least leave that minimal reward they used to offer so I no longer do them.
They figured the return would be the same, I was told…but I’m doubting it. I wonder who knows?
I just called Starbucks Customer Service (1-800-782-7282) which is something I haven’t done in eons and eons. Yesterday, I bought coffee in the morning – 2 bags of it at the 1st & Pike Starbucks store. This should mean that I’d get 2 bonus stars for that transaction. When I looked on the app, it showed the stars that I earned, as well as bonus stars for the egg salad sandwich which I bought very, very late in the day at the MLK & Graham Starbucks. But no bonus stars for the coffee. I called CS. I went round and round with a woman who all she could say is “they are there” and so between looking at the website and the app, I said, they’re not there.
Finally, she just gave me two bonus stars. She wasn’t very nice about it. At one point she asked me, “how many stars do you have?” I was confused by the question- I just didn’t know if she meant for the day for the month or something else. She said “total for the year” – I said I don’t know. The app and the website don’t give me that information. She then argued with me that the app DOES give it to me – I said maybe the iPhone app does – I really don’t know, but the Android app doesn’t. When I said I was using the Android, she dropped the conversation and finally that’s when she said that she’d just give me the two stars.
We got off the phone and I realized that the question wasn’t answered: How many stars have I earned for 2014. An interesting question. So I called right back and got a guy on the phone who said that their system doesn’t give him such information. He’d have to add up stars day by day. It would take forever to add my stars, so I left him my phone number and he said someone would call me back with the grand total of stars for 2014.
I suppose all is well that end’s well, but that wasn’t the best CS experience ever.
@Melody – just another example of why I have no faith that Starbucks will ever understand how to properly program Apps, POS and Inventory software, web sites, and shopping carts. Not to mention not realizing that third-party customer service is not what first-place companies use.
Web presence is where it is at today but there are very few companies (or contractors) that are really experience and expert. Progressive companies are just starting to realize that to drive traffic to their brick and mortar store they must present an exceptional online experience and a tie into brick and mortar store. Call it evolution or change, the fact of the matter is that it is evolve/change or die.
Interesting comment regarding Customer Service Melody – both times I have called them were a complete bust. First time was a true “Customer NO Service” moment (about a recall) and the second time they didn’t end up doing what they said they were going to do. I agree with you Dad Cooks, outsourcing customer service isn’t what first tier companies do.
As for the free tall with coffee, I get what Starbucks is doing but I can understand the disappointment many are expressing and why MSR is not a good substitute for them. As someone who has lived in rural parts of this country, there are many places where the closest Starbucks (company, licensed or otherwise) is quite a distance – often a prohibitive distance that isn’t traveled to more than once a month or even less. I worked for a Congressman who served 25 counties and I bet there aren’t even 10 Starbucks in his entire district, with 90% of those being licensed. But there are a lot of people in that district – enough to elect someone to Congress, and plenty of them like coffee and a lot of those like Starbucks.
(take a look at the red portions of this map as it probably best represents where there are fewer Starbucks in the country http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/countymapredbluer1024.png – it’s a big chunk of the country)
Many of those customers in areas without a nearby Starbucks still desire Starbucks. Perhaps they buy their coffee at the local WalMart or IGA. The free tall was a treat they could look forward to when they ventured off to a Starbucks location.
At $9.79 a bag, a free tall at ~$1.90 was a nice reward and a nice treat (and as many have argued during “refill” conversations on this site, the cost to Starbucks was minimal). And to receive this reward, they were not required to load money onto a Starbucks card to receive the reward – something they probably have very little use for).
With the demise of the free tall program, the rural person has to spend $117.48 (12 bags of $9.79 coffee) to get a free $6.95 salad or $5.95 Evolution fresh juice, plus they need to have a registered Starbucks card with a positive balance. But that’s assuming they are already “gold” and if they do not live near a Starbucks, chances are they are not gold.
To become a gold MSR member, the person buying bags of coffee at the rural grocery store or WalMart would have to buy 42 bags of coffee ($411.18 worth) before they get that one free Cap’n Crunch Frappuccino. Where’s the reward in that? Especially, as pointed out in previous posts and comments, the cost of a cup of coffee is minimal).
One size fits all is a difficult task to accomplish. A person who sits in the SSC in Seattle, surrounded by all things Starbucks probably agrees with this post that the program is better because of all of the choices someone has in redeeming their lucky dozen. What I’m suggesting is that the free tall customer segment was a different type of customer and MSR as it’s structured today may not be a good fit for them.
I agree I have little use for any of the other rewards but used the free coffee with a bag deal all the time because as you stated we live in an area were it’s more convenient to buy our Starbucks coffee from the grocery store.
Speaking of the consumers segment….I read that Pumpkin Spice VIA is not coming back in the current form….but in VIA Latte form.
So VIA Pumpkin Spice Latte…..
@Tim – I don’t think that’s right. I believe that the Pumpkin Spice Latte is coming back as well as the Pumpkin Spice Latte Via – you’re going to see both in stores!
I’m missing quite a few stars (on the MSR site online) since Sat. They don’t show up in any form but my transactions are there. Was waiting til today to call C.S., which I totally dread.
Melody very interesting interaction with CS and how many years now has it been outsourced? Seems like forever. I agree with Dad Cooks that SB should have continued with in house customer service. What happened to the training for these folks? How can SB justify such poor interaction with customers? Do they think continued responses like the one you had Melody will help them? Of course, a loyal customer will probably stay a loyal customer but nonetheless CS should be on a higher level than what you and others have experienced.
I believe the original intent of the free tall coffee was to drive business. Surely, folks wouldn’t come to Starbucks JUST for a free tall coffee, would they? Turns out, they would. Yeah a single $1.87 cup of coffee isn’t much of a loss for Starbucks but when you multiply that by the number of bags of coffee sold in a day, it adds up. I’m sure they have data on how many “free tall coffee with purchase” transactions and I’m sure many of them are $0.00. Fact is, Starbucks is a business and if they’re not making money on a “promotion”, why would they continue it?
As big as Starbucks share of the coffee market is, it still doesn’t hold a candle to the percentage of people who just drink coffee at home. That number is growing faster than Starbucks growth, mostly because of the popularity of single serve brewers.
So the original intent of the free tall coffee offer was to get those customers who had only seen Starbucks Coffee in the grocery store coffee aisle to come into a company owned store to see what was available (including the ability to purchase whole bean coffee), especially the entire Starbucks Experience.
As Starbucks tries to provide a seamless integration between all sites (company owned, licensed, grocery, etc.), especially through the MSR program, they are trying to eliminate the distinction between the types of locales.
@Melody – Re: yearly star total
You should be able to go to your online Starbucks account, then My Rewards -> Rewards History and get a screen like this, that gives you your star total by month: http://postimg.org/image/60reoj6rd/
Then you can just get your star totals for each of the last 8 months and add them together; none of that day-by-day totaling is necessary. Unless the US site doesn’t have that feature? (I know it differs from what’s available on the Canadian site).
The US website, in its infinite wisdom, only shows a Rewards History for the current and previous month. At least on the standard web version.
The advantage of replacing the free tall with a star is that it allows much better tracking of who buys what and where.
I honestly had no idea that perk was phased out! Maybe I missed it coming through the portal? But regardless, our system still lets us apply the discount code, so I wonder how much longer before it’s completely phased out?
The MSR program is so worth it, though.
THANK YOU MELODY!
I don’t know why but the Starbucks Rewards have always confused me. I always thought after 12 stars you can get a free hot beverage any size. Or a basic pastrie idem from the LB. Case. And I’m not 100% clear , can you get the evolution fresh juice in Starbucks stores with your free reward ?
This literally took a weight of nervousness of my chest.
Thank you again for this post, and for clearing it up.
-George
George, your Lucky Dozen reward can be used in SO many ways. Any cold hand-crafted drink. Any hot handcrafted beverage. Any food item. One ounce of loose leaf tea at Teavana. And beverage in the cold case like Evolution Fresh or something else.
There are a few things that you cannot use the Lucky Dozen freebie on: You can’t use it for any beer or wine from the beer & wine Starbucks stores. You cant use it for the “Evenings Food” at the Evenings Starbucks, like the truffle mac and cheese or whatever. Other than that, you can do pretty much anything with that Lucky Dozen reward. That was the point of this article. I’m so glad it helped you!!!
Check out FOOD BABE and the ingredients that are in Pumpkin Spice.Come to find out there is no pumpkin and HFCS in the formula,just thought you might want to have that update.
Hi @Melody! The demise of the free tall brewed coffee is sad for a lot of people, and was a fantastic perk. I can’t tell you how often that bonus stars are missing from grocery packages (even saw them missing at Costco). If I want packaged coffee, but the star is missing, I won’t buy it. đ I do really appreciate the rewards program.
@denise r – I hear you. When it’s something more than a quick inquiry, I prefer to e-mail customer service.
@marie – most Pumpkin Spice Latte lovers probably don’t mind that there’s no pumpkin. According to Starbucks, it’s one of their most popular seasonal drinks, and the recipe has not changed in 11 years.
Melody-Yes it is a good seller but i think lots of people thought it was puree or something.It’s just an informative comment since you are the Starbucks lady!
As of today, some Starbucks in my area are accepting the bags, others are informing us, the customers, that the promotions has ended, since the code isn’t in their system by default anymore. I think the older baristas who memorized the code still just give out the tall coffee.
Also, the free coffee is still available officially in our grocery stores if you purchase the flavored Starbucks coffees — Hazelnut, French Vanilla, etc. Those bags still have the free coffee offer listed on the bag, along with the code!
@Melody, per your comment re: purchasing online, each transaction gets a star, not the amount of items purchased in the transaction. I learned this from the local baristas. I was going to get a coffee and a CD, and the one barista asked me if it was OK for him to ring the sale up twice, once for each item. He told me that I would get two stars that way.
Starbucks needs to work on their app and web site, the website says I have gold status until 2015, while the app says I have gold status until 2016. According to the website, if I earn 24 stars, it doesn’t extend my gold membership for two years, only one, but it looks like the app will extend my membership for another year.
Starbucks takes another perk away from customers and puts a typical “cheerleader” article re: it on its website. NO surprise there by golly. I go to Starbucks frequently for coffee and pastry and I buy bagged coffee to use at home. Have done so for years. I prefer to pay in cash though, and choose NOT to have a Starbucks card, and you know what? I’m still a CUSTOMER! Maybe CEO’s at the top of the money ladder at Starbucks have no need for a free coffee now and then via turning in an empty coffee bag, but many of us who don’t make much really looked forward to that. The implication from the following:
“I suspect that customers who are particularly upset about the loss of the tall brewed coffee coupon donât understand the fun things you can do with Starbucks Lucky Dozen rewards. When your account at Starbucks.com is gold level, every 12 stars you earn a âLucky Dozenâ reward.”
is that customers who DON’T do these things are somehow less than full customers. Life is complicated enough without having to essentially have “formal membership with card” in order to buy freaking coffee and pastry at Starbucks in order to get a little perk back once in a while! I really hate this, I know others who do, and even barristers have told me that they think it’s a lousy thing for Starbucks to have done. That other coffee shop across the street that punches a card every time you get a coffee, giving you a free one after 9 purchases, looks better all the time.
I know it’s not a long time but I’ve been a “gold” member since 08. I just consider myself to be a daily customer. This was driven by corporate greed and nothing else. I buy at Costco and would get a star AND a free tall. So cut the bs about the great things I can do with the rewards. I want to thank this venue of chat though. I buy 2 coffees at 1 time and get 1 star. Now I’ll have them rung up separately.
I bought bags at different stores …saved the bags with the tall free coffee when I travel …always bought a cake to go with it…no problem now , I bought a thermos
I bought bags at different stores …saved the bags with the tall free coffee when I travel …always bought a cake to go with it…no problem now , I bought a thermos and carry my own home brew
Wow Alberta, CA must have REALLY old packaging then..we still have ‘free tall coffee’ on the packets here (no stars yet). What peevs me is there is no date expiration on the coupon and no ‘at participating store only’ on the sticker (or other details) so it should be honored. Will think twice about buying their coffee now, both out of age of coffee and principle. I like the simple idea of trading in something for a coffee, sick of all these cards.
They want your data!
Starbucks cancelled the free coffee with an empty bag because they want to force you into their retail stores. I just about never visit a retail store, but buy there store coffee. Guess I’m not loyal enough. Don’t worry Starbucks I’ll still buy your coffee.