Starbucks Reward offers continue to arrive via email, but please keep in mind, I do not know if everyone is offered these, or a subset of their Rewards members or if they send them out on different dates or different regions. I can only post what I get from the Starbucks emails. So YMMV as usual…

Between May 10-23 in 2016, Starbucks wants you to visit after 2pm local time, as the new “Dash/Challenge” gets you 50 Bonus Stars if you visit 5+ times, OR 100 Bonus Stars if you visit 7+ times during this time period.

You have to manually “Join the Dash” there is a banner to click in the Starbucks email for this promotion. So this particular offer requires manual activation.

The rewards will be added to your account by 6/3/16 if you qualify. I do not know if they define 5 visits as five different days or five separate transactions. Since the rewards will be sent after the promotion, there is no easy way to find out ahead of time, so if you want to be on the safe side, assume it’s five different days.

This is a so-so offer, since 7 visits don’t even get you a full reward. 100 points is only 80% of a reward, while 50 points is only 40% of a reward.

Check your emails since I don’t know if all or some of the Starbucks Rewards members get these promotions. I post these based on the emails in my inbox since I have no way of knowing whether the promotions are available to all or some.

Starbucks continues its “charm offensive” to get people back on track with their new One-Percenter Rewards program 🙂 This is actually a pretty good deal, you earn 75 Bonus stars (that’s 60% of a Reward) if you buy one item from each of the following three categories:

• any handcrafted Chai Tea Latte (you will also make Oprah happy)
• any handshaken iced tea
• any Food item (the picture has a breakfast sandwich, I think they mean food from their bakery display, not prepackaged food you get off the shelf)

So if you buy an iced tea, and the $3 Egg-Cheddar breakfast sandwich and a Chai Tea Latte, that looks to be around $10, and you get 60% of a reward back plus the stars for the purchase prices, let’s say 20 Stars. So you have 95 Stars out of 125 with this. Assuming you redeem your future reward for a $6 item, that’s the redemption-equivalent of getting $4.50~ back.

At the bottom of the email, there is a “JOIN NOW” button. When you press it, it opens a confirmation page that you are set to earn rewards through this promotion. The bonus stars will be added to your account by May 19 in 2016.

This offer ends May 9 in 2016.

This is a pretty good promotion if you are a Starbucks Rewards member and you got an email with this offer. It runs April 26 until May 2nd in 2016, and you have to make a choice before you start using it. There are three different product categories. You have to select from the email the one category you want to participate in. Here’s a screenshot with the relevant parts highlighted in red:

Once you select one of the three categories, you have to buy the listed quantity of items (two or three) in that particular product category during this time period. If you do so, your account will receive 60 Stars by May 13. That’s almost half a reward, think of it as the equivalent of 6 stars under the previous rewards program.

You will only earn one 60 Star Bonus during this promotion. There’s no promo code to mention to the barista, but you have to first select your product category from the Starbucks email.

PS: if you are not certain what qualifies as a “breakfast sandwich”, open the Starbucks app and go to the Orders section and look at the sandwiches there. Sometimes they are grouped together in the display, but not always so. They are probably the best way to get to the bonus since the “Egg and Cheddar” goes for $2.95.

Please note this is a personalized promotion according to the Starbucks Rewards email, so different people will get these at a different day during the month. The point of the post is that the Double Stars Days have began rolling for Starbucks Rewards members, so keep an eye for them in your email.

You will receive an email the day before announcing that tomorrow is your Personalized double stars day. I do not know if each person has the same date each month, or it randomly changes. We will know for sure by the end of May 2016 🙂

The email will say something like this (screenshot):

The new regular is 2 stars per dollar, so with this promotion you get 4 stars per dollar. If you are a regular coffee and tea drinker, this brings it to nearly the same level back when one transaction was one star.

Strategically this is a great time to buy more expensive items, bags of coffee beans, boxes of tea, coffee mugs, etc. For transactions of $5+, the new Rewards program is actually much better than the old Rewards program. For example, if you bought a coffee machine with the old system, you only got one star. With the new system, your stars are a percentage of the purchase price, and a coffee machine is a lot more expensive than $5 🙂

Speaking of coffee machines, Starbucks has seasonal special promotions on them, so if you don’t need them right away, you may want to wait for a seasonal promotion. Mother’s Day is coming, they may have some specials by then!

Starbucks continues its “charm offensive” to do some damage control over the disappointment of many regular customers of the change to the new Rewards program that favors big spenders over regular coffee and tea drinkers.

This new promotion, sent via email to Gold Rewards members (keep in mind, I am doing this using my Rewards account as a guinea pig ~ I have no way of knowing if every single person gets it or a subset), gets you double stars for purchases made after 2pm local time at Starbucks stores. Double stars means 4 stars per dollar. This means you need to spend $31.25 to get a free reward (125 stars divided by four). This is essentially the level of the previous rewards program, a dozen $2.50 drinks is about $30 and would have gotten you a free Reward “way back then” 🙂

Having whined about the new program, I should also point out that this has a nice benefit if you purchase multiple items per visit. You no longer have to break your order in parts to get the maximum stars. Since the stars are rewarded on the purchase amount, it doesn’t matter if you buy 10 $2 items or one $20 item. You earn the same amount of rewards 🙂 This is especially useful for “To Go” customers.

There is no opt-in or coupon code, this happens automatically on their systems. The promotion runs April 18-24 in 2016, so even if you don’t know about the offer, you still get the bonus stars (if eligible).

This is a YMMV promotion since I don’t know if every member of the Starbucks Rewards program is getting an offer like these, or only some people or whether everyone gets the same amount of stars. In an email today, Starbucks sent 50 bonus stars. All you have to do to claim them is click on the link in the email. The stars will be added to your account in 24 hours. You must click to claim them by 4/20/16 (ha!).

Here’s a screenshot from that email:

50 Stars may sound like a lot, but it’s really just 40% of a reward. If you assume a reward has a $6 value, that’s like giving you $2.40. Still better than nothing, but it won’t make up for the changes in the reward program 🙂

Speaking of the new rewards program, there is a simple way to think of it: assuming you will redeem your Reward for an item costing $6.25, you are essentially getting a 10% reward on whatever you spend in store. Here’s the simplest example, if you spend $62.50 at the store (in any amount of visits), you will earn 125 stars. 125 stars translate to one Reward. Assuming you select a $6.25 item as your reward, you have 10% ($6.25 vs $62.50).

It should go without saying, make sure you use your Rewards on the most expensive items you typically buy. Don’t use it on a cup of coffee or brownie!

For more details on the new rewards, check our earlier breakdown post.

If you are a member of the Starbucks Rewards program, today’s the day, they have switched over to the new Rewards program. You can still pay and earn rewards using the previous version of their app, but you need to update to the new version of the app (already available on Google Play, didn’t check iTunes) if you want to get your latest Rewards tally using the new system.

We broke down earlier on, it basically favors people who place orders with an average of $5 or more. Perhaps they did this to discourage the $2 coffee cup table squatters? Who knows 🙂

One way to counter the drop in benefits is to volunteer for coffee runs, but this is only beneficial if all the people pay you ahead of time or they are reliable with their payments for their drinks 🙂 Perhaps someone can start a “Coffee Dash” or “Starbucks Dash” service 🙂