2.2 lbs of Taylors of Harrogate Earl Gray tea for $27.43

If you are a fan of Earl Gray loose leaf tea and drink a lot or like to share it with friends and family, there is a 25% off clip-on coupon at the moment at amazon.com that drops the price of a 1 kilo (2.2 lbs, aka 35.3 ounces) from $36.57 to $27.43. This is sold and shipped by Amazon actual, so you get Prime shipping if a member, and the protections of an Amazon purchase.

This is a crazy price, that’s under $1 per ounce, more specifically 78 cents per ounce. You can open your own pop-up tea shops with this price 🙂

After 2pm Dash returns at Starbucks Rewards May 9-15 in 2017

This is one of the more common Starbucks Rewards promotions, the “After 2pm Dash”. Just like before, you have to first manually activate the offer, assuming you had been offered this. Check your email or Starbucks app to see if you have. Once you activate it, the promotion runs between May 9-15 in 2017. A whole week. If you make six purchases after 2pm local time, you get 50 bonus stars. If you make eight (or more), you get 100 bonus stars. In other words, once you reach the six, it only takes an extra two for an equal bonus.

50 bonus stars are 40% towards a reward. So doing this promotion is 80% towards a full reward. In addition to the stars you earn on the actual purchase amount.

I believe there is an overlap between this promotion and the Frapuccino Happy Hour, which runs 3-5pm (or 6pm for Rewards members). So you can score a frapp at half off and get strikes towards the Dash. I forgot how long the half-off frapp offer runs, but it finishes before the 15th for sure.

25c 48oz Cold Brew Coffee with qualifying AmazonFresh order

If you place a qualifying order (must meet the minimum purchase amount in your region) at AmazonFresh (this is now a month to month service, $15/month, only Prime members can sign-up for it), you can add to your cart a 48oz Stok Cold Brewed Bottled coffee for just $0.25 more according to this latest limited time AmazonFresh promotion.

I haven’t had this coffee before, so I can’t tell you how good or bad it is. The are two options (stock YMMV depending on zipcode), one of the two is unsweetened.

50% off handmade drinks at Peets again (April 27-30)

For the third week in a row Peet’s Coffee is bringing in a Thursday to Sunday coupon that gets you 50% off all handcrafted (human made; in other words, NOT bottled ones) drinks at your local participating Peets brick and mortar store. This is a great opportunity to try their new line of Honey drinks, there’s a matcha, and a couple of coffee drinks. Get the biggest size too, since half off makes it a nice deal 🙂 Offer runs April 27-30 in 2017. Check fineprint for restrictions.

Starbucks Rewards: 125 Bonus Stars on First B&M Grocery Store Receipt submission

Starbucks is slowly but steadily trying to expand the reach of their Rewards program. And they are trying to encourage people to buy more Starbucks at your local brick and mortar stores with this new promotion running between April 18 and May 13 in 2017. If you purchase Starbucks K-Cup pods at B&M Grocery stores, and submit a picture of your receipt, you will receive 125 Bonus Stars, which are the equivalent of a FREE FULL REWARD.

Given that you can redeem your reward for the most expensive items at Starbucks stores, or a 1oz of expensive Teavana tea at Teavana stores, if you can find the Starbucks K-Cup pods at a good deal at your local B&M grocery store, this is not a bad deal!

I haven’t done this promotion yet, so I don’t know exactly how it works. If/when I do this, I will post more about it 🙂 For all the details, check the Starbucks Stars website with handy FAQs explaining it all.

[DEAD] 12pk RXBar (Mint Chocolate) for $20

This promotion expired…

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April 21-23: 50 Bonus Stars on Frap & Baked (SBUX Rewards)

This is a new shorter bonus stars promotion from Starbucks, it runs for three days only, but it is simple to do in a single visit. It is YMMV and you have to manually Activate the offer before you earn the bonus.

The offer is this, between April 21-23 (those two days included), if you purchase TOGETHER (in the same transaction) any frappuccino and any baked good item, you will earn 50 bonus stars ~ in addition to the regular stars on the purchase amount. This is 40% of the value of a full reward (125 stars).

If you are a fan of this product combo, you are in luck! Once activated, you can get the 50 Bonus as many times as you like during this promotion. Just monitor your sugar levels because both fraps and bakery goods are loaded 🙂

PS: This may also be a good opportunity/excuse to try the new Unicorn Frappuccino just for LOLz sake 🙂

50% off Peets Beverages in-store with coupon

Spring is in the air and the coffee shop wars are heating up! Peet’s Coffee stores have launched a new coupon promotion, you get 50% off their barista-prepared beverages by showing the coupon above or even mentioning it. You don’t have to print it ~ save the planet 🙂 The coupon runs April 20-23 in 2017, which is Thursday until the close of business on Saturday. This is a good opportunity to try their new trio of honey-themed coffee beverages which are in the $5 territory without the coupons!

Prime members: you may get a $3 Happy Belly Reward if you select Slow Shipping

If you are a Prime member, and you make a qualifying purchase at Amazon (it has to be shipped from Amazon’s facilities as a minimum), you may be offered a $3 Happy Belly store credit if you select Slow Shipping instead of the Prime 2-day shipping. The official term for this is “No Rush Shipping” which is more accurate since sometimes things arrive fast anyway (it depends on many factors including availability of product nearby and other orders you may have coming).

You are presented with this offer in the shopping cart, so if you have 1-Click shipping, you may not notice it. It looks like this (screenshot below):

What is Happy Belly you ask? It is a relatively new line of Amazon house-brand products that, as the goofy name suggests, are food items. These include various nuts, coffee, spices, trail mixes, and …eggs (I’m sure Amazon does not have live chickens in its warehouses). The prices are typically competitive for no-nonsense basic quality products.

In typical (frustrating) Amazon fashion, different flavors/options are available in a combination of regular Amazon.com, and/or Prime Pantry and/or Amazon FRESH. YMMV on each item depending on when you check and where you live.

Bonus Stars Dash on Protein Bistro Boxes

This promotion is mostly good for fans of the Protein Bistro boxes, meaning, if you had already been buying them, this promotion can get you some bonus points. As usual, it is YMMV (I don’t know how many people get invited to these) and you have to manually press the “Join the Dash” button in your email invitation to start earning.

You have to buy four protein bistro boxes between April 11-17 in 2017. If you do, you will earn 75 Bonus Stars, which are 60% of a full reward. So it doesn’t make sense to buy these for the reward. A bistro box is $5+, so at best this offer would effectively be (when you do the star equivalency math) a “Buy 5 Get 1 Free” type of thing.

As far as I can tell, getting a protein bistro box by redeeming a previously earned reward will NOT get you a count towards your four, but I haven’t tested it out.

April 10 is Starbucks Double Stars Day (YMMV)

This is YMMV as I do not know if every Starbucks Rewards member gets the same “Double Stars Day” or they get spread out. Check your emails or the Starbucks apps or its notifications. April 10 in 2017 is declared as Double Stars day, where everything you buy earns twice as many Reward Stars as it does on other days. In other words, you are earning 4X per $1 instead of 2X. Which means, with Double Stars, a $31.25 purchase translated into a FULL reward (125 stars).

You can buy as much as you like during this offer. Gift cards and reloads are not eligible for obvious reasons (otherwise everyone would be doubling up on the purchases). It is a good opportunity to restock on coffee bags and teas and buy any of their new spring collection cups.

Friday only: 50% off Coffee Cake

Nom-nom! Regional bakery chain Le Boulanger (not to be confused with the company Starbucks purchased a few years ago called “Le Boulange”) is offering 50% off on coffee cakes from 11am until close of business on Friday 4/7/17 at their brick and mortar bakeries. The promotion works on both individual slices and whole cakes too! The time is right to start that “Coffee Cake Diet”. Much better than the “Santa Clarita Diet” 🙂

12pk Strong Kind Bars (Hickory) for $10.64

If you like your protein bars to be on the spicy side of things, but still give you solid nutrition, the “Hickory Smoked” flavor of the “Strong & Kind” line of Kind bars is on sale for $10.64 at Amazon.com. The sale is so good you are only allowed to buy one. You can also start a “Subscribe and Save” on this with a 5% or 15% discount (depending on how many SnS eligible items you have during a month).

I have repeatedly bought and eaten the whole line-up of these, they are very good, with minimal iffy ingredients, and a solid 10g of nut protein per bar. These are best described as sweet and spicy. They also go well with different beverages, coffee, milk or milk-alternatives, etc.

April 4-10: 100 Bonus Stars with select purchases (SBUX Rewards)

A lot of recent Starbucks Rewards offers have been of the “after 2pm” kind, but rejoice! This new one, a “Join the Challenge” dash (meaning you have to manually click the email or app to activate the offer IF you have been invited to participate) works any time of the day. You have to buy one of each from three different product categories between April 4-10 in 2017, and if you “succeed”, you will receive 100 Bonus Stars, which are 80% of a full reward (a full reward is 125 stars). You can only earn one 100-bonus during this promotion.

As you can see in the screenshot above, you have to buy one of each in the three product categories. The breakfast sandwich is the easiest because they are the lowest priced 🙂 The bistro boxes and Evolution juices are $5+, so that’s where the decision whether to jump in will be made. Considering the bonus is almost a full reward, consider it a “Buy Two, Get One Free” type of a promotion!

Free Bagel Every Day in April 2017 at Panera (YMMV)

Panera Bread is running another promotion fro select Panera Rewards members that is definitely YMMV. If you are eligible for this promotion, you should have an email in your inbox that informs you of this promotion. You get a free bagel per day (no spread of course, just the bagel) for the whole month of April 2017 at their Panera stores. You have to use your Panera rewards card, which I’m assuming is how they are keeping track and enforcing the one per day thing 🙂

It is a bit of a razor and blades thing, because who is going to eat just a bagel without a spread and without coffee or tea or some other liquid to push it down? 🙂

I rarely go to Panera, which is perhaps why I have been targeted with this and similar promotions. Sometimes companies run offers like this to “encourage” customers to visit more often and develop a habit. Which is why they are running it for a month. If you get used to going to Panera for a whole month, chances are, a percentage of those people will continue going there after the promotion is over. Why pay money for ads (which annoy most people) when you can instead spend the money giving potential customers free food? 🙂

They previously had offers with free coffee as well, which is a more freerider-friendly freebie since you can drink coffee on its own and get free refills if you stay in-store 🙂