Starbucks Rewards (Jan 26 – Febr 1): Buy 2 of the same, Get 6 Bonus Stars (three options)

If you are a Starbucks Rewards member, check your emails for yet another bonus stars promotion. This is a “buy two” type of an offer. If you buy two of the same item between January 26 and February 1 (2016), you will earn six bonus stars, in addition to the regular one star per purchase. There are three options, you have to get two from the same category to earn the six bonus stars.

sbux_pick2_of_the_same_rewards

As you can see, they have a little bit of a typo, they wrote “Bonus Starts” instead of “Bonus Stars”. Yes, these things do not escape me 🙂

According to the email, you can only earn 6 bonus stars once from this promotion during the promotional period. The bonus stars will be added to your account by February 12. Do keep an eye out for them though since their system is a little bit buggy.

They also still struggle with some stars not showing in the app (they remain as “purchases” in the Transaction History of the app), but their customer service assures us that they count. I am not keeping that detailed level of star accounting, so I am assuming they are correct.

TIP: if you are not sure which one of their sandwiches are considered “breakfast”, check the menu in the Starbucks apps. You can also find it under the “Mobile Order”. Typically it is the muffin-esque items. They are often clustered together in their displays but not always.

January 17-23 (2016): 25% Back in Staples Rewards (In-Store Only!)

For the shopping week of Sunday January 17 until the close of business on Saturday January 23 in 2016, at Staples brick and mortar stores in the USA, they have a coupon code (46455 – see screenshot of weekly ad below) that gets you 25% back in Staples Rewards for many (but not all of your purchases).

staples_25_rewards

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Easy Bonus Stars for Starbucks Rewards members by using Mobile Order

This is an easy way to score a bonus star with every purchase at Starbucks if you are part of their Rewards program. Earlier today they launched a new promotion, sent to eligible members via email. Between January 6-19 in 2016, for every Mobile Order you place, you will earn a bonus star. This is in addition to the regular star you get from every purchase. The Mobile Order is fairly elaborate, so you may be able to recreate an order even if it’s not as simple as a cup of coffee.

Heck, you can even place a mobile order while you are in the store in-line or in the parking lot. This is a neat trick if there is a long line ahead of you 🙂 When you place a mobile order, a little printer prints it at the register, and it gets in the drinking-making queue right away!

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[DEAD] Starbucks Rewards Members: Verismo 600 machine and Box of Pods and 12 Stars for $59

This holiday temptation expired, but I’m sure there will be more sales before the Christmas of 2016…

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[DEAD] Lucky Rewards YMMV: $5 off $25+ order in-store

This particular offer expired as expected…

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Lucky Rewards members: 500 Points for completing a survey

If you are a member of the Lucky Rewards program, check your email inboxes! They have a promotion that gets you 500 Bonus Rewards Points if you complete a survey. The only way to do this is using the link from their emails. This is a limited time promotion. The points will be added within 24 hours of survey completion.

lucky_survey

Their text, as you can see highlighted in the screenshot above, says the results will not be shared with outside parties. I haven’t done the survey yet, so I don’t know what kind of questions they ask. If I ever get around to completing the survey, I will update this post.

500 points is a respectable amount. That’s $5 off a Lucky’s purchase. You can also use your points towards free items that change every few days, but typically you are better off taking the $3 off (300 points) or $5 off (500 points) or $10 off (1000 points) and so forth, since you can use them to buy what you actually want, versus using them up on random reward items. The only exception to that is if the reward item is available at a better “points price” versus the actual in-store price.

Free Taylor Farms Bagged Salad for Lucky’s Rewards members

The actual Lucky Rewards program is fairly average with just a 1% of the purchase price. However, what makes it great is that every few weeks, Lucky’s offers an unconditional freebie to its Rewards members. This is a screnshot from their email:

free_salad_lucky_rewards

All you have to do is locate the email with the promotion, and click that red button to add the promotion to your Lucky’s rewards account. Then buy it in-store before the deadline, and their cash register will automatically deduct it. If you are using self-checkout, it may need an override from an employee.

Which brings us to now, good until they close on Tuesday 12/8/15, you get a free bag of Taylor Farms Bagged Salad. Options includes different varieties ranging from 5 to 12 ounces in weight. The email does not specify all the eligible options, so you have to go in-store to spot those.

I haven’t picked mine up yet (I will post an update once I go there and see what options are available).

Starbucks Rewards for December 2-13

If you are a Starbucks Rewards member, they are launching a two layer promotion between December 2-13 in 2015. The first layer will be daily promotions sent to your email or in the app inbox. These will vary daily. I don’t know what they will be in advance. The second layer will depend on how many days you visit Starbucks. If you visit every single day, you will earn 12 bonus stars. These are in addition to the promotional daily bonus offers and in addition to the regular star per purchase. These amounts are tiered as follows:

sbux_12_days_of_bonus_stars

PS: I am still doing the math on the $40 promotion. More on that tomorrow!

Starbucks Rewards Mondays: Buy $15+, Get 8 Bonus Rewards

Mondays are special promotion days for Starbucks Rewards members. So much so that has created a Merry Mondays website. For Monday 11/30/15, which coincides with Cyber Monday, if you are a Rewards member, and visit your local store after 2pm local time, and place an order of $15 or higher (in a single transaction), you will earn 8 bonus stars. That’s 3/4ths of a rewards, because you will also get the usual 1-star.

sbux_cyber_store

Speaking of Cyber Monday, if you shop at the Starbucks website, spend $60+ and enter coupon code CYBER15, you will receive $25 off your order total. This offer is good for Cyber Monday.

Starbucks Rewards: 1 Bonus Stars with handcrafted Teavana beverage using Mobile Order

Just as the cold winds are rising, Starbucks decided to run a Teavana promotion, although, to be fair, they also have hot Teavana beverages, not just cold/iced. Anyway, let me start from the beginning. If you are a Starbucks Rewards member, a new promotion was emailed out earlier today that gets you one Bonus Star (in addition to the regular one star) when you purchase a Teavana handcrafted beverage using the Mobile Order app feature.

bonus_Stars_on_mobile_teavana

As such, this is perhaps best suited for cold drinks if you are ordering from afar. The cold drinks, especially in this weather, won’t un-cool quickly, but hot drinks can cool off. Plus if you are getting teabag tea, you have to pay attention to brewing time.

Regardless, you can always place the mobile order from within the store, or if you don’t feel brave enough to do that, you can place it from the parking lot 🙂 Since this is a mobile order, this has to be paid at the same time it is placed, using the balance on your Starbucks gift card.

The promotion runs November 11-24 in 2015.

Starbucks Rewards: Buy 2 specific items, Get 6 Bonus Stars

Starbucks is back with another offer for their Rewards members. This is a bit more complicated than usual and it requires opt-in and also requires making a choice ahead of time!

sbux_complicated_offer

There are three ways to earn six bonus stars. You select which item you want to use for this “challenge”. You have to click on one of those three in your Starbucks Rewards e-mail. Once you do that, that particular offer is activated on your account. The more general one is the breakfast sandwiches since it covers multiple items. The other two items are specific drinks. Unless of course those happen to be among your favorite drinks, in which case, you should have no problem buying two of them during the promotional period.

The promotion runs November 3-9 in 2015. As usual, you have to pay with your Starbucks app or plastic gift card that is linked to your Rewards account. The bonus stars will be added to your account by November 20, 2015.

It is possible that this offer is stackable with the mobile order but there’s no way to verify it ahead of time. They do run in parallel for the most part.

Limit one per customer during this promotional period. You can only select one of those three options, not all three!

Lucky Rewards members: FREE 2 Liter Dr. Pepper (expires 11/10/15)

Quite possibly the best benefit (and most unique) benefit of the Lucky’s Supermarkets rewards program is that every few weeks, they offer you a free item. An unconditional free item. No “buy this get that”, you just get it for FREE! A new promotion went out via email today, and this one gets you a free 2 Liter Dr. Pepper. As before, you have to manually add it to your Rewards card (one click from the email, and login if you are not already logged to your Lucky’s account).

drpepper_lucky

The free item is deducted automatically from your Lucky’s account when you make an eligible purchase. If you are using the self-checkout, it typically needs an employee to enter their numbers to verify the freebie, but they are typically hovering over self-checkout, so they are not hard to find.

This particular offer must be added to your account and redeemed by the end of day on 11/10/15 (Tuesday).

Nov 4-10 (Starbucks Rewards): Three Bonus Stars with any Mobile Order

This is decidedly low-hanging fruit as far as Starbucks Rewards go. If you are part of their program, check your email or inbox to see if you have been offered this. It is really very simple. At some point between November 4-10 in 2015, place a Starbucks order using their mobile app and pay it using their app, and pick it up at your local store. You can even do this inside the store. It doesn’t matter. As long the order originates from the Starbucks app. You score 3 bonus starts, in addition to the one star. It’s fun!

sbux_mobile_order_bonus_stars

Limit one use per customer during this promotion. When you order, there’s a little printer at the register that prints out your order. If you want to get a better feel of the process, place your order when it’s quiet so you can see the wheels turning inside the store 🙂

Starbucks Rewards: Spend $8+, Get 4 Bonus Stars

This is a good time to volunteer to make a coffee run at the office or at home 🙂 If you are a Starbucks Rewards member, a new promotion came in via e-mail (does not require opt-in or coupon code) that gets you four bonus stars every time you make a purchase of $8 or more between October 30 and November 1st in 2015 (three days). You can use this promotion as many time as you like. Your order total must be $8+ per transaction, not cumulative over multiple visits.

sbux_spend8

PS: I don’t know if this works if you buy a drink and a gift card (or gift card reload) in the same transaction. The bonus stars will appear within 24 hours, so if curious, you can try it early on October 30, and you may know whether it works or not by October 31st AM 🙂

Complicated 3-part Starbucks Offer gets you 8 bonus stars

Pretty soon we may need a Ph.D degree to sort out the Starbucks Rewards offers. In a new offer that went out today to their Rewards members via email, you have a complicated three part promotion that will earn you eight bonus stars (in addition to the regular 1-star per purchase). This complicated offer is like this:

  • purchase one Fall Favorite item (PSL, Salted Caramel Mocha, Toasted Graham Latte) between Oct 27 – Nov 2
  • purchase any breakfast sandwich (check their website or app if you don’t know which sandwiches qualify as breakfast) between Oct 27 – Nov 2
  • make any purchase on Saturday October 31

complicated_starbucks_offer

And that’s it. As simple convoluted as that 🙂 The bonus will be loaded to your account by November 13. If you decide to join in, my guess is that there are reasonable chances this won’t show up automatically, so you may have to ping their customer service. The good news is that their customer service is very responsive and fixes their Rewards kerfuffles.