Sometime within the past couple of weeks (I really don’t know exactly when), My Starbucks Rewards got a little better: You can finally get ANY free tall beverage with the purchase of a bag of the premium Reserve coffee offerings, which are only sold in one-half pound sizes.
In the past, I know I was a little frustrated that with the Reserve coffees, this perk was not available. The Reserve coffees are only sold in one-half pound sizes, and yet are often more pricey than the one pound flavorlock bags of the Starbucks core coffee offerings.
So now you can get a free “tall” any beverage (let me be clear this is not just brewed coffee as a perk) under the following circumstances – the register will automatically deduct the drink:
* Use a registered Starbucks card
* Load money on it
* The card (does NOT have to be a Gold Card!) must be at the “Green” level of perks or higher – Green is very easy to get to, and the registers will know!
* Use the registered card to pay for your purchase of whole bean coffee
* Buy either a full one pound bag of the core Starbucks coffees (meaning Yukon Blend, Gold Coast Blend, Verona, Sumatra, Kenya, House Blend, Pike Place Roast, etc…) OR buy a full one-half pound bag of the Reserve coffees (the Reserve coffees change often and currently Rwanda Gakenke and Sumatra Tapanuli are the special Reserve offerings).
I love this change! I just wanted to make sure that everyone knew about it!!
And for the record, it looks like this idea is “launched” at MyStarbucksIdea.com:
Free tall beverage when buying a half pound of the premium beans.
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This IS great news! However (and I DO totally believe that YOU know this), when I just now went to MyStarbucksRewards……..it still says (“*subject to change”, which apparently it has) ..it still says this does NOT include Reserve coffee, Clover etc.
WHY DON’T THEY GET THAT CHANGED???
I foresee a possible problem with one store that I may go to this Tues., which is a Reserve store, (not Clover) and I would like to have something in writing to show to them! should I choose to buy a Reserve half. what say you Melody??? I briefly went to MSI and saw your thread but no words there from a mod……which one MIGHT expect when the idea is launched. Am I missing something. ?
I just like solid back up, I like my ducks in a row, when I feel a ‘challenge’ coming on….
@DeniseR – I don’t understand what you’re saying at all. I would just order and not say anything about the perk and register will do it. I discovered this a little over a week ago: I was on my way into work and at the register I ordered half pound of Reserve, and had a short Sumatra Tapanuli too, in my personal cup. The Clover drink was a perk.
It would make zero sense to offer a free Frappuccino which could have add shots even and not offer a Clover which is less work.
Yesterday, when I was at Olive Way, the partner Amanda knew me and I said in a happy tone of voice, “hey watch this, the Frappuccino will be free!” and she said okay let’s try it – There was no argument or challenge at all. She didn’t know about the change to the program so she smiled and big and was impressed too.
Don’t say anything at the register if you think it’s going to be a problem! In my case, I guess baristas just go along with it!
The other thing is that this change might have been in the works before I made a thread about it – There is some disconnect between MSI and ideas that are ‘coming soon.’ You could arguably say that the ideas are coming and then they go back and find the threads that match and call them launched. It’s like which comes first? The MSI Idea or the Starbucks idae? I doubt there are very many ideas that really are from MSI that Starbucks didn’t have somewhat already in the works and weren’t thinking about already.
Look at cuppajoe’s light bulb for “Tribute Blend” – Clearly Starbucks didn’t make tribute blend because of Cuppajoe4evamoe at MSI, rather they were working on it already, and he coincidentally thought up that idea too. So in other words, I doubt that >I< caused any change. But still, I'd like to see my idea marked launched!
Ugh this is a long rambling at 6 am on a Sunday. I need some coffee.
sorry I apparently wasn’t more clear.
I don’t know what else to say. I was just reading the ‘rewards’ as they are written this morning at MSR. I (thought) I totally understood the topic here. I’m not sure what you meant about the frappucino???
I was questioning why Sbux doesn’t..that I have found….have this written somehwere.
Denise, I was responding to the idea that there could be a “challenge” at the register. I don’t think so at all.
YAY…that’s all I really have to say but I’m so happy :0)
Funny how they are bringing out this reward in such a quiet manner. It will for sure drive all the partners crazy. And then my local SB does not even carry the Reserve coffees!
@Amy in Boston – Yay is right! This is great news for us coffee lovers in markets with reserve and clover stores!
@purple – I bet we will see a blog post up at MSI at some point – They probably just haven’t gotten to it yet.
Cool. Glad u know. Something new has been added. ^5
One word – SWEET!
It is surprising the number of things that happen at the register and are not promoted! When I bought a French press at a Starbucks store I got a free pound of coffee. How many more people would buy there if they knew that?
Hi Dave! First off, I have to say “welcome” because I do like to formally welcome new people to this site. I’m curious about the free pound of coffee with the purchase of a French press! I have never heard of that! Was that at a company-operated store? Can you tell us a little more about what happened? Was the French press something really unusual or like one of those expensive stainless steel ones that keeps your coffee really warm? That is really interesting. I would not count on having that happen in downtown Seattle. I wonder if that was a “surprise and delight” from a partner and his or her mark out! LOL
I am glad that I can buy some Starbucks Reserve coffee with a free cup.
I wondered about this previously to your announcement 🙂 THIS is a great idea and I’m thinking I am down to try one of the special reserves! I’d say about 95% of my Starbucks info and “heads up” come from you. THANK YOU for giving everyone the shout out on this!
Customer needs do not have the limit, but Starbucks users are given privileges more than Starbucks Japan users. For example, refills are not free in Japan. Oops, I have to restrain myself, enumeration of the dissatisfaction. LOL.
(Because they are many more than the number of bread which I ate last year)
Anyway, it is “My Starbucks Rewards” and “communication with users” that Starbucks Japan must learn. If there is not it, it is not Starbucks.
@purple1
Starbucks Japan has almost 900 stores. They increase than 1,000 stores in the year after next. But only 4 stores have a clover. “4 only”. LOL
Glad this was finally changed. It never made sense to give the free drink when buying a pound of a core coffee but not give it when spending MORE on a half pound of reserve or small-batch coffee.
@Nathan – Those receipts are for coffees to be mailed to you! I owe you a huge apology that I never got you out in the mail the coffees that we talked about some time ago!!!! My very bad!
I think it’s totally awesome that this perk is available! Too bad my store does not hold on to Reserve Coffees long enough to have noticed this!
@Melody – Thanks for the welcome. As for the free coffee…the Partner didn’t know anything about it, she was as surprised as I was when it rang up for free.
Many people don’t realize this so it’s nice to get the new out there. Not many of my customers are aware of the fact that you can get a free tall beverage with the purchase of a pound of coffee. I always ask but usually they don’t listen. Hopefully this helps!
-Vincent
@Dave: I don’t get it either about the free lb of coffee. Was this at a corp. store in the U.S. ? very odd. (and lucky;)
Just curious- and maybe it was already remarked on- but how many stores carry reserve coffee and do not have a clover? Does SB think reserve coffees only sell best where there is a clover? My local SB does not have a clover nor does it sell reserve coffee, but I think it would sell. Comments?
@purple1 – I think I heard that at one time that there are about 800 Reserve stores and 200 Clover stores. ?
@Vinny – Welcome to the blog. Your comment sat in my spam filter for a long time because of the link you put in the main body of the comment. That is spam to do that, but since I know you’re a passionate partner, I just removed the link and approved the comment – If people want to visit your blog, they can click on your name. Make sure you have “google analytics” installed on your blog otherwise you’ll have no way to really know what is happening to it in terms of its growing or diminishing popularity, location of visitors, bounce rate, length of time on site, and so on and so forth.
It is fabulous now that a person can get a tall free ANY beverage with either one whole pound of coffee OR a half pound of Reserve! This makes me so happy!
@Denise R – yes, I felt very lucky. Decided to buy a French press and a pound of coffee while traveling because it would be cheaper and give me coffee before my shower. With the free coffee it was a great deal! It was just a small store in Minnesota: 7802 Olson Memorial Highway, Golden Valley, MN 55427
I didn’t realize that there were that many non-Clover Starbucks carried reserved coffees. In Boston, I honestly cannot think of one nonclover Starbucks that carries reserve coffee. However, we are very fortunate because of all the Starbucks that I’ve visited in the city, less than a handful doesn’t have a Clover machine and I think the reason that they don’t is because of space.
happy happy birthday to you Melody!
Happy Happy Birthday to you Melody!!!!!!!
@purple1 and @deniser – Thank you for remembering my birthday! I’m another year older today. LOL
Simphony will now add whatever free things you get.
Getting a reward based on.a specific card pay purchase is one thing and is a wee step in the right direction. With the release of the Starbucks app for Android (Finally!) I now have the Application on all my toys, iPad, BlackBerry and Motorola Droid X. The purchase using the application as the method of payment is processed and registered against my account “before” my drink is prepared and given to me.
The transaction has made its journey from my device to and thru the store’s register to Starbucks’ processing server and back to my device updating all the purchase data. From that point I am waiting weeks to receive a rewards card! To use a Twitter element #Fail!
My rewards received is well below what is expected at 15 transactions. = a reward! Placing a Free cuppa card into the postal system is problematic and I believe I’m in the neighborhood of about 75% of cards received!
Starbucks has as a core value a commitment to being a responsible Green corporate entity. They have in place, the mechanism to post rewards immediately to our card/application. Having an instant reward based upon a purchase proves it can be done. Starbucks took forever to release the Android application but the process proven to work it is well past time to consign reward postcards to the dustbin. Pet peeve rant over. Sunday is my arrive early read the paper while sipping my quad venti morning. Time for bed! Great work with the blog!