Beginning December 2, 2014, you can enter in a contest to possibly win a Starbucks For Life Card. This card will give you a free drink, every single day, for thirty years. Here are the websites to help you get started.
Looks at this gorgeous card!
You might even notice signage for this promotion at your neighborhood Starbucks:
Now you need to know how this works. There are a number of rules. Don’t assume that because you are using a registered Starbucks card, you must be automatically be entered. You must enter with a code that is found at the bottom of your receipt (this is likely how most people will enter – there is a way to generate a code without a purchase).
So how do you get a code? Go to Starbucks. Pay with your Starbucks card or using the mobile app. You do not necessarily need to be using a registered Starbucks card but you must be using a Starbucks card to get a code. You get one code per receipt – regardless of how many items are on that receipt. Take your code and enter into this website:
When you enter your code, from what I can tell, you will enter your email address also. This is how you’d be notified if you win something – via email.
This is important: According to the fine print, you are limited to entering in TWO codes per day on the Starbucks.com/play site to enter to win. The fine print is very clear that you cannot try to bypass the two codes per day rule by using multiple email addresses.
I don’t want to confuse you – You can play two codes per day. This is NOT related to your earning stars. You can still, as always, earn as many stars as you like under My Starbucks Rewards. With more than 8 million registered card holders (and the many people playing this giveaway who will be using an unregistered card), it is bound to happen the someone somewhere is going to confuse earning My Starbucks Rewards stars and playing Starbucks for Life codes – two totally different things.
There will be a total of ten Starbucks For Life cards given away. It will work out to be two cards per each promotional period. There are five promotional periods (each one is roughly one week). If you are notified as a possible winner, you be contacted via email and have paperwork to fill out – releases related to publicity. Each promotion period, there is a small randomly selected group who are the “potential winners” – a small group of about fifteen people selected each “promotional period” and from that group, two winners of the Starbucks for Life cards will be selected.
There will be many other prizes too. You may win pounds of Christmas Blend, free beverages or other prizes.
As I read through the fine print terms and conditions associated with this promotion, I only found one possible ambiguity. I’m not totally sure what Starbucks intended: In the very first paragraph, it states that you must be over 18 to play. However, when you get to paragraph 7, it says that if you’re selected as a potential winner and you’re a minor, your parent or guardian must sign the paperwork for you.
So in summary, these are some bullet points to keep in mind:
- Make a purchase and hang on to your receipt.
- You must pay with any Starbucks card (whether registered or not!) or the Starbucks mobile phone app.
- Enter your code from your receipts.
- One code per receipt, regardless of how many items are on the receipt.
- You may enter up to two codes per day.
- Enter your code at this website: http://www.starbucks.com/play
- There will be ten grand prize winners of Starbucks for Life cards.
- There will be many winners of smaller prizes, such as free Starbucks Christmas Blend or free beverages.
- The contest Starbucks For Life begins December 2nd.
- The contest ends January 5, 2015
- Starbucks employees are not eligible to enter
If you want to read all the fine print yourself, click here.
Are you ready? I’m in. I feel like I should get Starbucks For Life for this blog! LOL – I’m just kidding. I hope someone who is reading this wins!!! That would be super exciting to have a reader of this site be a winner. Of course, the odds of that would tiny, but it would be super cool. I’d be happy just to know a reader has won.
Good luck!
Edit on 11/26: What I did above was describe the U.S. version of this contest. There is a Canadian version of the contest – it’s structured the same way – you enter with codes. But the Canadian version has 3 Starbucks For Life cards, not ten, and some different prizes, including Verismo machines.
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I only have one question about the Starbucks for Life.. What is considered an evening drink or food? It says those items are excluded. Though, honestly no matter what they are, it’d still be an entirely AWESOME thing to win! 🙂
@Anita – Good question! An “Evening” beverage is going to be beer or wine. Evening food is going to be special small plate food at the Evenings Starbucks – like truffle mac and cheese, the brie cheese plate and more. When you go to the Starbucks store locator, you can filter your search by Evenings stores (those that offer special food and beer and wine) – There really aren’t that many Evenings stores right now. Maybe 30 to 40??
I wonder why they would pick a small group of potential members per period….it’d be pretty depressing to be part of that group and NOT win lol
Ah. That makes sense. We don’t have any of those stores near me, or none that I know of anyway. Lol. Thanks for the answer!
@Robin – That’s a really good question too. The best guess I have is that once you’re a possible winner, they want you to sign a bunch of releases – for example, you’re basically saying that they can use your image for publicity reasons and they don’t have to pay you if the use you for publicity — “Look Robin won Starbucks for Life!! Maybe you will too!!” – Maybe they want to have a group of people who are ready, because the “possible winner” group gets smaller by the number of people who don’t sign a release within only 48 hours. There’s some kind of “publicity release” that looks like it’s a important in all of this.
ps. Sorry, I clicked the wrong Reply. That was supposed to go to Michelle’s comment about the evening stores.
I guess I’m going to have to stop saying, “no, I don’t need the receipt”! Although I don’t know if I could possibly go to Starbucks every day if I did win. I don’t have a “neighborhood Starbucks,” unless you count the one in the nearby Safeway. Fortunately for any winners, the tax burden is based on what you did order, not on what you could order.
Are there any states where someone has to be older than 18 to not be legally considered a minor? (eg. they have to be 19 or 21) That’s how I’m reading it. You have to be 18 to enter, but if someone who is 18 wins and they are considered a minor in their state, then a parent or legal guardian has to sign.
Note that the Canadian contest only has 3 grand prizes, but has 10 chances for an instant prize Verismo. The other instant prizes also vary from the American ones, except for the “1/2 lb of Christmas Blend” & “Tall Brewed Coffee or Tea”.
Canadian rules: https://starbucks.promo.eprize.com/wonderful/public/fulfillment/rules_CA.pdf
I am in. Will definitely be keeping my receipts NOW.
I find this contest very complicated but will enter it anyway. I too hardly ever ask for the receipt but now until the contest ends I guess I will have to ask. I hope SB will keep an update on the winners so we will not have to guess. I saw the signage in the store, but assumed it was only available through facebook.
@Jo – That’s really helpful. Thank you for the Canadian link. When the official Starbucks Twitter profile tweeted about this, they said “US, Canadan and the UK” and so I think it must be three separate contests – in other words, the prizes are for each country, and it’s not like the 10 Starbucks for life cards are shared among 3 countries … at least that is my guess.
@Purple1 – I totally agree! This is a complicated contest! Winners will love it but there are going to be partners who struggle to explain it at the register!
Any word on if licensed stores are apart of this contest? I’m curious because their receipts are generated by the company (ie: Target, Kroger, Safeway) they operate under and would lack the promotional codes?
i really appreciate all the info in your blog, glad i found you. i was wondering you said there was a way to get a code without a purchase for the big giveway. could you tell me how to do this?? thank you so much
My Kroger store said they’re not a part of that. SUCKS
@Lura – Good morning! Happy Thanksgiving!
The fine print on the website essentially describes 2 possibilities of how some might get a code without making a purchase. First off, the website says that if you participate in MyStarbucksRewards, the promotion may send a few random free codes to MSR members in promo emails. I realize that is no guarantee, but if you are part of MSR that could be a way you’ll get a free code.
The second way it describes is this: You will go to the website starbucks.com/play – and there will be a link for a registration. It sounds like winning and all communication is tied to the email address you register with. It says that you follow the links, register your email address, and a code will be emailed to you. I assume (though I don’t know) you only have to set up a registration one time.
I guess we won’t know any of this for certain until December 2nd.
Good luck!
I have had a problem with my Gold account and I am wondering if others have had this issue. I have found that if I have an earned reward on my account that the Starbucks system does not count additional purchases correctly. I have been reporting this problem to Starbucks customer service for months, and until recently they have claimed “user error”. Now they admit the count is wrong and have asked me to log out, re-install, etc. None of that has worked, and I’m waiting to see if they admit they have a bug in their software. At least now they are admitting their count is wrong, but have not as yet admitted they have a serious problem. I strongly suspect the problem is only when the user has an earned reward on the account (And I worked in software development for many years). Has anyone else made this complaint that you are aware of?
Hey bill..
I usually have 7 to 11 earned rewards in my account at all times. I have never seen a counting problem. It does take a while, sometimes over 24 hours to be recognized. Good luck.
I know I can’t win Starbucks for Life and neither can my husband or my immediate family because I’m a partner. But it occurred to me earlier to ask whether or not I (and the rest of my family) can still win these “instant prizes”. I’m not always at work (though it feels like it sometimes) and I do make purchases outside of my work schedule. What if I pay with a card and win a 1/2 bag of coffee? Do I automatically not even win just because the account my cards are linked to designates me as a partner? What about the husband? Is he excluded from instant win prizes? I’m sure it’s all in the fine print but it still makes me wonder.
Also, I’d like to go ahead and call dibs on the prop card used in the pictures. I’m certainly no John Smith but I’ll take it anyway 🙂
@Claire – Hilarious! I bet there are a few card collectors out there who would change their name to John Smith, if they could get that card!!
I used my registered card to pay for my drink, went to the site and entered it and got the message that the number was already used. Same for my second receipt. I’m wondering if you use a registered card, do you still need to manually enter?
I had the same issue but then realized you have to put the code in making sure you space each section as it is printed out at the bottom of the receipt. Also, for my second entry it took me two times before they accepted it. Maybe they are trying to get people not to enter? LOL!
can’t get thru to put in the number anyway even iof it did work!!
Nor can I. I just get a red screen.,,,,over and over again
@Purple1 – That is a good tip that you need to put in the spaces. Thanks!
@Jerry – Did you put in the number with spaces?
Hello – I’ve been trying all day access the site and enter my code. I keep getting a red screen, nothing more, nothing less. What’s up? If I don’t enter today is my code going to expire at midnight???
Just read this article from Time about the contest. It says the actual card itself is worth $5,000.
http://time.com/3615268/win-free-starbucks/
I”m home sick today, the first of the promotion, so no trip to Starbucks to get a code. However I did get an marketing email with a free code to enter, so I have gotten one try. I noticed that the rules state that you have to put the winning card on a registered account, so it sounds like the winners will basically have a reward placed on their account each and every day for the 30 years, and each reward will expire that same day. Interesting that they are basically using the same framework as the regular MSR program.
Good luck to all the readers (and especially Melody!), hope someone here wins one of the Grand Prizes!
@Chris W – Thank you for the great comment. I would love to win! (Sometimes it feels like there should be a special version of Starbucks for Life for StarbucksMelody ;-)) But no matter what, I can really say that it would be super cool to have someone reading this site win. If you won, I’d scream!! It would be awesome. I haven’t seen much of DadCooks, or Chicagobrocks, lately but would be in heaven if they won. Or if Valerie won or Purple1, or Michelle or so many regulars.
I too got the MSR email with the code – I’ve entered once!
Hello I frequent the Starbucks at my local Target, the receipt number on the bottom of their receipt doesn’t work why?
I made a purchase through the iPhone app but my receipt doesn’t have a code…it looks like the receipt every other day. Anyone have this issue?
I think I am doing something wrong… is anyone else having issues obtaining codes? I was able to obtain 1 yesterday, but today nothing came in my email when I requested a code via the website today. I _think_ one can ask for 2 codes per day?
@Shiela – It might be that you can only get codes at company-operated Starbucks. I’ll follow up on that. In the comments above, Purple1 mentioned that you enter the code with the spaces. I found that tip to be VERY helpful when I was entering a code from a receipt.
@Kristen – That’s weird. Did you take a paper receipt with you after paying with the app? Were you at a company-operated store?
On my laptop with Internet Explorer, I kept getting the red screen. Then I tried with my Kindle Fire and I was able to enter my code. Don’t know if my explorer is outdated or what, but it still seems strange.
I used my gold card today and remembered to get a receipt. It went through without any problem. No instant win for me though.
Two days in, and 4 codes entered! On 12/2 I submitted the form for a “freebie code” but I never got one emailed to me. However, I did get a freebie code by email for MSR members and a code on my receipt. Today I submitted the form for a “freebie code” again and got an email with a code about an hour later. I entered that code, plus the code on today’s receipt. I did not have to enter the spaces. My 4th code was an instant winner! I won a free tall brewed coffee or tea (hot only), but it took about 8 hours to receive the email.
I have entered 4 codes so far. it was really glitchy for me yesterday…I haven’t noticed that you have to enter spaces. I would love to hear what others are winning. 🙂 I assume the tall, brewed coffee will be most popular.
It’s really interesting listening to all this! I haven’t even entered a code in yet today!
Would anyone know say if i got 3 codes (as in 3 purchases) yesterday, but since I can only enter twice a day, can i leave one code and enter it the next day? can’t seem to find that information anywhere ..
The rules don’t say anything about being required to enter the codes within a specific time period after purchase, just the contest length of Dec 2 – Jan 5. The 24 hour expiry is just for the ‘once a day’ part if you win one of the grand prizes.
Hello..
I will be entering two codes everyday with zero expectations of winning anything. Can we pass along our extra codes to others? I get 4 to 5 purchases if not more daily. Good luck all.
I’m sure you can @sam and I will gladly take any codes!
I’m having an issue where my receipt codes alway seem to get hung up after I enter/ submit them! They never bring up the screen telling me if I won anything or not. It just spins….I have wasted 2 receipt codes, and then it tells me my code doesn’t work when I try a 2nd time help please? Has anyone else experienced this?
Having same issue as Hayley and Maria. Codes from both receipts and Starbucks emails get hung up using Firefox on home computer, but was successful using Kindle Fire with its Silk browser to enter codes. Limited success tho: no wins of coffee or anything else. Good luck all Melody-ans. 🙂
What is the brew coffee? Is there any flavor? Im a white chocolate mocha fan drink 2 a day
I went through the process the first day it started so I could see what customers are up against when they try. (I’m a partner). I manually requested a code through my hubby’s email and Starbucks account (I was afraid it wouldn’t let me use my email account since it’s registered as a Partner account on the site). The email and code arrived in his email no problem and I entered the code in the website. Pretty straight forward. I love that when you “scratch” the code to see if you’ve won it looks so cool!
He ended up winning a free peppermint brownie cake pop from the code but I think he’s going to give it away to some kid in the store because he and I aren’t technically allowed to enter and play, but now if a customer comes in and needs help, I’ll know what to do!
Claire – what browser did you use? I find it’s highly dependent on the browser if it works correctly! Safari on a Mac was fine….firefox gave me issues.
This is a very very LAME promotion. They give you a code and due to its length you are prone to make mistakes when entering I think 15 or more numbers then there is word which is hardly visible to enter DUMB get that wrong a few times. Then if you win a cup a coffee they have a short quiz that Stephen Hawking would have trouble answering correctly. The real value in a promotion is simplicity….and simple reward. I am still coming every day for my cappuccino why not just reward me at Christmas time for coming 7 days a week no need to create an over the top program that no one benefits from……espesically your loyal customer
I just won my first thing in Starbucks for Life – I won a cake pop! LOL
I got the code sent through the email. So I just used Google Chrome on my iPhone and used the phone for the rest of the steps. I don’t trust Internet Explorer anymore and my experience with Firefox isn’t great. I just stick with Chrome for everything.
Ok so I have been putting in the codes and for the most part they go through without a hitch. But, in thinking about this contest I think in some ways SB has the edge. It seems more than not the customer is getting frustrated in doing this contest. Why not automatically enroll the customer in the contest for each two visits per day they use a registered card? Then also if they win a cake pop or free drink they can be notified by email that they have won. I just am not finding this contest as customer friendly as I expected. Also, the receipt is supposed to automatically be issued but there have been times when partners have had problems with this.