Beginning Monday, November 17, 2014, you can earn bonus free drinks buy picking up a special little promo book, and collecting stickers that go in it. Buy five holiday beverages, and get one free grande drink. Just as a reminder, there are five holiday drinks this year:
- Eggnog Latte
- Caramel Brulee Latte
- Chestnut Praline Latte
- Peppermint Mocha
- Gingerbread Latte
There are a few points that I think could cause confusion on this promotion: when you purchase a holiday drink to earn a sticker, it does NOT appear that you must purchase a Grande (16 ounce) size. It looks like you could, hypothetically, you could buy five tall Eggnog Lattes if you like and get the five stickers.
Nowhere does it say that you have buy Grande size holiday drinks to earn a sticker – buy any size you like. The period for collecting stickers ends December 25, 2014.
The other thing that could cause confusion is that when you redeem the booklet for a free drink, you do not have to buy one of the five listed holiday drinks. Nowhere on the booklet does it say that the free drink must be a holiday drink. In fact, it doesn’t look like you have to necessarily buy hot or iced drinks – it appears you could redeem it on an iced grande handcrafted drink.
The front of the booklet says that you have to redeem the booklet for an “espresso” beverage – so when you redeem the booklet, it looks like you can get any Grande (hot or iced) espresso drink. But the inside (and backside) of the booklet just says “we’ll reward you with one (1) free grande (16 ounce) handcrafted beverage of your choice.” It’s an ambiguous little booklet. Nowhere in the inside or back of the book does it limit you to an espresso-based beverage.
Last but not least, once you fill up the little booklet with stickers, you must redeem it for a free 16 ounce beverage before January 31, 2015.
So happy sticker collecting! Buy five and get one free! And of course, if you are paying with a registered Starbucks card, you are earning stars at the same time!
17 Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Socialize
You mean November 17th, right? 🙂
This was fun when we did it last time – correct me if I’m wrong – I think it wasn’t last year but the year before? Years have started to blend together for me!
I just took over a new, much busier store, which is *very* disorganized, so you just reminded me – I have to find these today 🙂
Thank you Rebecca! Fixed that now!
Hi Melody, im wondering when we get the stckers in Canada, can we use them in th States ? Thanks.
We have something similar in the UK and Ireland this year, except you need to buy one everyday between 1-24 December and you’ll receive a ‘special gift’!
This is a nice promo. Melody, is it me or does the layout of your blog look different everyday? 🙂 It’s like a surprise to see what I’ll see when I come here. Speaking of site layouts, why does the official Starbucks homepage look so boring now? It used to have special holiday videos of people watching paper snowflakes and things like that. Today it is all about selling merchandise. It looks like an ad for the online store instead of embracing the holiday spirit.
@Becky – You’re right about the layout constantly looking different. It’s not what I want yet, and I dislike the new organization of categories above.
For years and years, the blog was a wordpress blog running the Thesis theme/ platform. I had some minor compatibility issues with the version of Thesis I was running, and I didn’t have a mobile phone responsive theme. In 2009, when the blog started, mobile-device responsive just wasn’t a big thing.
I hired a guy in the spring to work on the blog and he made it worse. After removing Thesis, the question became, what WordPress template would really work for me?
For a while, you saw the WP default – That wasn’t TOO bad but it didn’t center on the page. I will say that the WP default was beautifully mobile phone responsive.
I want (still trying to get there) – A very wide layout, mobile phone responsive, 2 widget sidebar ready, narrow banner (my real estate is now so precious with the massive amount of content), comment friendly, compatible with many images ready, nice blog that also shows more than one article above the fold. Lots of people never scroll down. One problem with the WP default was that there was so little content “above the fold.”
I discovered that there wasn’t really an exact “out of the box” download WP template – I downloaded like 30 themes to my WP dashboard and kept playing with them – which is why you keep seeing the ever-changing blog look.
I will say, this blog IS living proof that it is the content and not the layout that gets readers. I know that I’ve abused my readers lately with the ever-changing design and I’m SOOOOOOO super appreciative of the many coming back, and still leaving comments now and then! I know who my most regular readers are now! LOL
The blog is still a work in progress.
Is it just me, or are these holiday offers confusing every time? Nobody can seem to agree on which drinks earn a sticker, or even count for promotions. I always assume that the holiday beverages refer to the holiday FLAVORS, so with any holiday offer, you should be able to order hot, iced, or blended, as long as you choose a qualifying flavor. Every barista seems to have a different understanding, so I’m guessing it isn’t spelled out clearly in training materials. So do you think we should earn stickers with Peppermint Mocha Frappuccinos? I also got a tailored Starbucks Rewards offer starting today, specifically for Peppermint Mochas. I can’t figure out if Frappuccinos qualify, so I don’t know if our purchases will count. It’s hard because everyone in my family has very specific tastes. Another holiday season, another search for clarity on holiday beverages. Any insights?
I can offer a little clarity, which also might shed light on why sometimes there is no clarity? Lol..
An offer like the Holiday Share The Merry event, or specific offers attached to your card are driven by our POS. So, sometimes I have to find out the hard way if your Peppermint Mocha Frappuccino counts – ie. ring it in and see if the POS discounts it. So, while a partner might not be entirely sure what counts, all it takes is a quick trial, and there’s a solid answer for you. The reason certain drinks may or may not be discounted all comes down to what Starbucks is trying to achieve through the offer – if they’re trying to increase they espresso sales, frappuccinos aren’t going to count. If they’re trying to boost their Holiday beverage overall numbers, they’ll count all combinations.
A Holiday promotion such as the one described in Melody’s post here is store/partner driven. We are putting the stickers on, so we have some measure of control over which beverage gets a sticker. So, while getting a Teavana Oprah Chai with eggnog instead of milk might not technically be a holiday beverage as such, I would offer a sticker for that.
When redeeming the booklet, there will be a code for us to ring into the POS, and it will work just as I stated above – qualifying beverages will be discounted, non-qualifying ones won’t, and I won’t necessarily have a master list of all the beverages that could be ordered with said coupon.
Clear as mud? 🙂 Hope that answers your question a little bit!
Hi- thanks, that does help a lot especially for the sticker booklet. However, I wish they’d be clear with these rewards and bonus star offers. The one I got is for a $3 gift if I buy five Peppermint Mochas. So the store staff won’t know or have influence on whether Frappuccinos qualify. Also there’s no way to check during the promotion to see if you’re earning it. You just have to wait til the end and see if a reward shows up. I love these offers, and I hate to complain because they’re awesome! But it’s not much of an incentive to buy more when you have no clue whether your purchases will qualify. I just wish they had some clear fine print, or an easy way to ask in advance.
@Rebecca B and Melissa – I’m sorry I’m late to the conversation. I just want to say that I do agree with Melissa that these little promo cards could be much more clear. This isn’t the first time that this has come up. I like Rebecca’s answer – that is helpful! Thank you!
Melissa, I see how your problem doesn’t exactly fit into either of those categories. My usual suggestions for MSR offers are make sure you read the email fully, including the fine print; ask a partner to read the email (sometimes we understand our company lingo better (and sometimes not, :))), and find out if they have any more info about it (for planned MSR offers, I have details about the offer, and who it’s being given to (ie – select members, all members, valid in US &/or Canada etc.; for more spur-of-the-moment ones, I may not have that detail, lol).
does this promotion work in the States? Thanks
At my Starbucks, I get stickers for the Salted Caramel Mocha…..it’s my favorite!
Hi! Can they be redeemed at any starbucks location?
does this promotion work in the States? Thanks
This is far after the fact, since the promotion has been over for a few days, but I was frustrated that the baristas at the few Starbucks stores I visit did not offer stickers for this promotion. I’m sure I purchased more than 5 holiday beverages during the month of December alone, and received a booklet with the first sticker, but never received the additional stickers to go in it on subsequent purchases. I’m the type that hates to ask for something “more”, so I know I really should’ve asked for the sticker each time, but I also think it would be really nice if the barista offers it without me having to ask.
Jen! You don’t need to be worried about asking 🙂 During the holidays, partners have a LOT of things they’re trying to remember – gift receipt? It’s a Wonderful Card promotion. Holiday food pairing? BOGO on whole bean coffee? Yes, we have gingerbread now. No, we’re all out of salt now, would you like caramel brulee instead etc. Sometimes we forget things or sometimes I leave things out because I can see the glazed eyes of the person in front of me 🙂 Also, depending on how busy the location, the store may be out of the stickers, so may not volunteer the sticker because they didn’t have them! Hope that helps 🙂