This promotion is good for rewards and non-rewards members. The only difference is that Rewards members get 250 Bonus Stars as part of the Reward program. Other than that, the offer works for non-Rewards members as well.

Starbucks brick and mortar stores just launched their new Verismo V coffee makers (K-Cup competitors, incompatible capsules), and they have an in-store bundle offer. The new Verismo V coffee machine on its own goes for $150, but for $30 more, you can bundle it with the Verismo V Milk Frother ($60 on its own) and a free box of coffee capsules (12 pack) of your choice.

For Rewards Members
If you are a member of the Rewards program, and buy the $180 bundle between October 21-29 in 2016, you also earn 250 Bonus points which is the equivalent of 2 full rewards (125 points per reward). This is in addition to the standard 2 points per $1 rewards.

But wait, there’s more! If you are considering to buy this, make sure you buy it on Sunday October 23 if you are eligible for the Bonus Stars October Sundays promotion.

Most people don’t carry these high balances in their account, so if you are convinced you are going to buy it, before you purchase it, get in line (or use the app) to load up your Starbucks account with enough money to pay for it. That way you can get rewards on the amount. Make sure you include enough for sales tax if it’s collected in your state.

I am not planning to buy this, so I won’t have any experiential updates. I am a poor blogger, I can’t buy every offer just for blog-testing purposes 🙁

As we mentioned last week the remaining Sundays in October 2016 are Bonus Stars days for (some or all? ~ I don’t know) participants in the Starbucks Rewards program. The bonus for Sunday 10/23/16 has just been revealed via email, and it is a double the regular amount of stars, so you would get 4 stars per $1, instead of the usual 2 stars per $1. This “defeats” last week’s 3 stars per $1. A good opportunity to scoop up some “infrastructure” purchases (cups, coffee beans, tea bags, etc).

UDATED: you may want to take advantage of this together with the Verismo V promotion that runs October 21-29 in 2016.

For the last three weeks of October 2016, Starbucks will be running Bonus Stars promotion. The offers will be different every week. They have now revealed the bonus stars for Sunday October 16, you get 3X stars per dollar spent, instead of the usual 2X. So that’s 1.5X faster towards getting a reward. So a $42~ purchase gets you a free reward! If you need any coffee beans or coffee cups and such, this is a good opportunity to take advantage of it.

You can use this offer as many times as you like during each Sunday. You don’t have to opt-in to the offer, it will go live automatically.

NOTE: as usual with these offers, I do not know if every single Rewards members get them, or a subset, or if they are rotated in groups. So there’s always a YMMV for these posts.

This 3-day promotion expired…

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This is a heads-up alert if you are a regular Starbucks shopper. Time flies, and a “Double Stars” day is almost upon us! Pay attention to the emails you receive from Starbucks (or messages/notifications in their mobile apps) to find out when your specific Double Stars day is going to be.

According to the email teaser they just sent (partial screenshot below):

… this will happen next week, meaning the week of October 2-8 in 2016. I think they only do Double Stars on weekdays, so I am guessing most people will get their day between October 3-7 in 2016.

Strategically, this is the time you want to buy the more expensive items. And by that I don’t just mean coffee machines. This is great if you buy coffee mugs/cups, and bags of coffee beans or boxes of teas or K-Cups. With Double Stars, you earn a reward for every $31.25 you spent. With normal stars, you earn a reward every $62.50 you spend.

Starbucks took a break from “Bonus Star” offers for a few of weeks, but they are back now with another offer. This is an in-store offer but it is focusing on pre-packaged coffee and tea. You earn 45 Bonus Stars (that’s roughly 1/3rd of a Reward) when you buy any pre-packaged coffee or tea product from their brick and mortar stores.

But that’s not all. The bonus also works on cups, tumblers and brewers and other assorted merchandise of that sort. Here’s a screenshot of the part of the email that mentions the “other” items:

Perusing further down that email, we find the fine-print that says the offer ends on 9/28/16, you can use this offer as many times as you like during this promotional period. The stars will post to your account within 24 hours of purchase. Pre-packaged food items are NOT eligible, only coffee/tea and merchandise (mugs, etc).

BETTER THAN DOUBLE STARS for ITEMS under $22.50
So this is a good time to stock up on that stuff, this is better than double-stars except for items priced over $22.50. During the double star time of the month, you earn double the usual 2X stars, so a $22.50 item will get you 45 bonus stars during Double Stars. With this offer you get a flat 45 stars. With either offer, you earn the standard 2X stars, so that’s a wash.