The Starbucks Teavana card is here! You can find it at Teavana stores everywhere – these cards are brand new!
The MyStarbucksRewards program has become fairly seamless. It’s remarkable. Beginning May 12th, you can earn Stars for your whole bean coffee purchases at your local grocery store.
You now earn Stars for all your purchases at all Teavana locations, the four Evolution Fresh stores, the one Tazo Tea store, and of course, all Starbucks locations. You can register all of these special cards, put money on them, and use them all at Starbucks too. You can redeem your rewards at any participating Starbucks store. You can reload any of your Starbucks cards at any of these locations too: Teavana, Tazo, Evolution Fresh, and Starbucks.
When I dropped by Teavana today (April 23, 2013), Emily was working, and remembered me from my previous visits to Teavana. (She was already aware that I have a Starbucks blog.) She wasn’t surprised that I had come in for the Teavana card, and together we did a number of experiments at the register. In fact, she was happy to try out her new register functions with me! She said that she had just put the Teavana cards out yesterday, and thinks that her registers were just updated for them. I bought a Teavana card for myself, loading $5.00 on it. Then, I reloaded my Starbucks card, and purchased some tea. And finally, I paid for my Teavana tea with my Starbucks card. It all worked perfectly.
In addition, I suspect this means that Teavana is now set up for Starbucks partners to make purchases there with their partner discount, but I don’t know for certain. Lastly, I don’t know if there is a La Boulange card.
So what does this mean?
If you’re a partner, don’t be surprised to see your customers paying with these new Starbucks cards. And, there are already many card designs out there! The trickiest one is the Evolution Fresh card – the word Starbucks does not appear anywhere on the Evolution Fresh card.
If you’re a customer, you have even more opportunities to earn stars. This is a good thing. 🙂
Which is your favorite of these special cards?
By the way, if you enjoy looking at a variety of Starbucks cards, I highly recommend reading through these previous card articles – scroll through and check out many cards.
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Melody I am excited to go to Teavanna and use my SB card. The store is sort of out of the way but I will go. I like their card, but the Evolution Fresh card is really nice. I also like the idea that you can reload your SB card at a Teavanna store.
Purple1 – I would love to hear how that goes. I have one main worry. There are like 300 Teavanas across the country, and I can totally see that it could happen that a person walks in wanting to use a Starbucks card, and some Teavana partner who is not up to speed says something like, “What?? No we don’t take Starbucks cards to pay for your purchases.” Hopefully that won’t happen.
I was lucky – It seemed to make a difference that I was there and the person helping me remembered/ knew of me and the blog. Her attitude was totally great: It was the first time, and she was kind of like, ‘Let’s give this a try…” instead of trying to argue that a Starbucks card will not work as a form of payment.
All I’m saying is that I have some worry that Teavana partners are still being trained. But as more and more people come in with their Starbucks card to pay, the easier it will get!
Melody I certainly will share my experience at the store when I go. I surely hope that given this is a national roll out that the Teavana partners will be well trained and cordial if there is a problem. I assume that all the registers will be properly updated for this change. Also, just curious are the district managers for Teavana the same as the DM for the starbucks stores?
Oh that is a good question – Feedback to Teavana? That I don’t know. I know for sure that their registers are now ready for Starbucks cards as a form of payment. The place that could be a problem is if a Teavana partners says something like, “oh no we don’t take Starbucks cards” when in fact they can and do. I would assume you could call Starbucks Customer Service for a Teavana issue since they’re fully owned and operated by Starbucks, but that’s a good question. I don’t have any idea about the Teavana DMs. With Starbucks licensed stores, the DMs are Starbucks partners! I would imagine it’s the same with Teavana.
This is great! As a person that’s just found out that she can’t drink coffee, caffeine, or any soda at all (carbonation), I’m moving on to teas! The world of tea is new and daunting, but I look forward to tackling it with the same passion and curiosity I’ve brought to coffee drinks and Starbucks. It’s cool that I can use my Starbucks card / account at Teavana as I explore teas. Huzzah!
Melody, this is incredible information! Unfortunately El Paso doesn’t have a lot of this stuff, but its really refreshing to see everything becoming so seamless. And Ensanguin, you will LOVE Teavana. The partners there are incredible. They have SO many choices, so many infinite possibilities, and they are so knowledgable. You’re in good hands!
The last time I was in Teavana the partners were all very knowledgeable about the connection with Starbucks. Hopefully that is universal.
Also, Melody, in response to your question. Yes, Starbucks partners are now able to go and get their discount at Teavana. Teavana partners are also able to come to Starbucks and get both their markouts and their discounts.
Melody, I’m not entirely positive now, but I believe I read that the Teavana cards won’t actually work at Starbucks (that may be a “yet” thing). I’ll check back again tomorrow.
But, we have been getting our partner discount at Teavana since 4/15, and Teavana partners can come to a Starbucks location for discounts as well as weekly markouts.
Every experience I have had in Teavana has been awesome, both before and after the Starbucks acquisition When I found out that they were joining the family, I was super excited, because it is a store that I already loved. The partners that I have encountered there are always awesome.
I just picked up a bunch of cards and an iced tea while I was on my lunch break. The cards are awesome, and I love how they are textured!
And I tried using one of the loaded cards at my store when I went back, and it works perfectly.
Devin, I am glad to know it worked! Thank you for testing it! I had every confidence that the loaded Teavana card would work fine at Starbucks. 🙂
Melody went to the Teavana store and I was the first SB customer so as you experienced the partner and I walked through the process. She could not have been nicer. She had to call another store to get info but she was so nice it did not matter. The transaction went through, however, she did not know how to load the card. BTW she said they have their own DM.
I’m really excited about this. Also, for what it’s worth, Starbucks cards do not currently work at La Boulange (and vice versa). However, at La Boulange partners can use their partner card to qualify for a discount.
Melody, I am “in the know” (hint-hint). All SBUX owned companies have interchangeable cards, all SBUX owned store cards can be registered, and all of them can earn Stars, HOWEVER, as of right now, Star rewards can only be redeemed at Starbucks. All SBUX owned store partners receive discounts at all other stores, and are entitled to their partner mark-out at Starbucks (when using their partner card).
Even though there are many Teavana stores, there are few Teavana partners, and most of them are in management. Teavana DMs are (right now) solely responsible for Teavana. Starbucks has excellent communication, so it would be shocking to learn of a Teavana partner that did not know about the new cards. All Starbucks partners have already been made aware of the new Teavana cards.
I walked into a teavana in Peabody MA last week. I was excited to use my starbucks card there. So of course I was terribly disappointed to here the gentleman waiting on me tell me that they don’t accept it at their location yet. Judging by what I have read, he must just not have been told that they do. However, the woman working with him was clueless as well.
@Jennifer Stone – I don’t think that is correct – I believe your Teavana should have been able to use your Starbucks card to pay. Teavana has some sort generic “gift card” button (??) and I know that the Starbucks card works as a “gift card.”
I am sorry you had that experience – I would recommend that you contact Customer Service. Maybe they can get feedback back to the store:
http://www.starbucks.com/customer-service/
Good luck!
I think it is weird that Teavana, which is a new Starbucks brand is able to accept Starbucks Cards and the other way around. But why is it that Starbucks has never let Starbucks Cards be used at Seattle’s Best and the other way around? Any answer to that?
@Marsh – That is a very good question. I have thought about it. I think that at one time, the majority of SBC stores were either licensed (the Borders cafe stores) or franchised (some cafes across the country – like this one http://seattlesbestmelody.com/2013/07/03/seattles-best-coffee-stores-in-orange-county-california-irvine-lake-forest/
So I have that it was possible, that back when most of the business was licensed or franchised, maybe it wasn’t worth it to try to bring in SBC to the MSR loyalty program.
Though the shape of the SBC business is changing. Borders is gone, and Starbucks is opening up a number of the DT concept stores, which are all Starbucks-operated locations. http://seattlesbestmelody.com/2012/11/24/seattles-best-coffee-launches-drive-thrus/
Maybe someday there will be an SBC card that you can use at Starbucks. Marsh, it is a great question.
I am wondering however even if the Seattle’s Best Coffee stores are licensed or franchised, why would that stop them from having interchangeable cards? There are TONS of licensed concept Starbucks stores at Safeway, QFC, Fred Meyer, Albertsons etc that take the Starbucks Card. So why not SBC? Even if it is at a franchised or licensed concept store?
So, you have to say, go to teavana to get the card AND buy the tea. Are you not able to do anything online. You have make the truck to the mall?