Starbucks Canada has revised their Rewards Program to ensure their customers get more free food and drinks! However, they have also said goodbye to a few small freebies 🙁 Click here to view all the changes (too many to mention) and let us know what you think of the revised program. The new program starts on October 16, 2012.
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The whole reason I got my card was because of the free soy option. I’m really disappointed in this change, and I don’t think the new freebies do enough to make up for what they’re taking away.
I like the change because it has no negative impact on my drinks that I currently buy there 🙂
I completely agree Dani, the money it is going to cost to have soy milk in my drinks is nowhere near what Starbucks will be offering!
I guess they’ll save lots of money by taking away my free syrup
I am lactose intolerant so always get lactose-free milk or soy at starbucks. The only reason I got the rewards card was for the free upgrades. Guess I won’t be going to starbucks as often. Not worth it at 60 cents extra a pop.
I really enjoyed that free tall whenever I bought a pound of beans at Starbucks: it made me feel a lot less guilty for buying such expensive beans., Guess I’ll be buying beans elsewhere more often.
Hubby is a gold card level member, and when I told him “no more postcards, they’ll send you an email insead” he immediately said “I think I will probably quit then”. This surprised me, but he liked the ease of throwing a postcard into his wallet and is really not the type to fuss with trying to remember emails or printing up emails.
I think Starbucks is counting on lots of people forgetting to claim their free drinks.
Same here, I got the card for the free soy because I’m lactose intolerant as well. The other freebies aren’t much use for me. Sad they are making that change. =(
Taking away the free soy milk has really pissed of the vegetarian/vegan community. They’re all talking about getting their coffee at Second Cup instead.
I also got the card for the free lactose/soy upgrade since I am lactose intolerant. While I can see why they would charge extra for lactose free milk, I could never understand why they did it for soy, soy is cheaper than regular milk. Guess I’ll just have to start buying the cheaper drinks where you put in your own milk. There’s no extra charge for lactose free/soy when you do it that way! Cheaper drink + free milk= more money in my pocket
I was really bummed about the soy as well. However, the freebie can now be used for food too. Might be worthwhile to finally try their expensive paninis with the freebie.
@ Elizabeth, why is the vegetarian/vegan community switching Second Cup in particular? I don’t think they offer free soy do they?
they could have easily limited the number of free syrups, it would eliminate those crazy undrinkable combinations just to make the most expensive drink but still keep customers happy. Shame, looks like my dozen visits a year will becom 0-3.
Some of you seem to have misunderstood how to claim your free drink/food. The email is just to notify you that you have a freebie. The freebie is loaded into your account on your card automatically so now it’s even more convenient because you don’t need to bring the postcard anymore. This is a big PLUS for me as I keep forgetting to use my postcard since it doesn’t fit in my wallet.
The way it works for me: I pretty much get my coffee @ Sbux every day, bring my own mug (pay the “tall” price AND get a discount for BYOM). I drink it black so no issues. When I get my free drink, I try to use it for a “fancy” drink – dry cappuccino with lactose-free milk (not THAT fancy). In any case, I never noticed them dinging me for LF milk, so that’s pretty good. Maybe that’s an option?
As for getting the rewards my email, all I can say is FINALLY!!! I only use the Sbux app to pay & always have to leave the postcards by the front door (and usually remembered them the day they expire!!!)
It was pretty cute to get them in the mail, but waste of paper/time etc I guess.
I don’t like the changes. I usually only buy beans for the Christmas promo, but they didn’t tell me my free coffee could be anything so I just got the biggest drip one. I was looking forward to getting a better one this year and now the option will be gone. This will be the first year I don’t have to travel all the way across town to find a Starbucks. I guess I’ll just stick with their deals.
I didn’t use the free syrups, I usually ask for a specialty with 1/2 the syrup, which of course I didn’t get a discount for. As for people thinking they could try $$ food for their birthday, I think that option is limited to some cheaper snack items.
Who knew that Starbucks hates vegans and the lactose intolerant? I am dying laughing at the “waaaaah I can’t get my soy milk” posts 🙂
To the person who said soy is cheaper then regular milk… think again! It is not cheaper at all! It actually cost the store MORE not less.
@Brock, you obviously don’t HAVE drink lactose free or soy, and you haven’t had to pay an extra $0.60 for each shot of it. I can’t drink milk and I don’t mind paying extra for soy or lactose free, but $0.60 is a little high when you can buy 2 L of it for $2. If you order 4 coffee’s with 4 shots (about a tablespoon size each) you’ll pay $2.40. The free soy/lactose free shot was the only reason I signed up for the Rewards program. I won’t be reloading my card anytime soon.
noo i`m going to miss the post cards! i get all my free drinks that way! (a person in my apartment building always recycles the cards, i average 1 card about every two weeks!)
to summarize 95% of above: whine whine whine. find another store that’ll give this to you – oh, there isn’t one. I wonder why?
and especially for the lactose intolerant: maybe just avoid the dairy drinks entirely? Have a plain coffee.
@elizabeth: thanks for letting us know, so we can get our coffee without the pretentious hipsters around.
Amazing, SB thinks that the changes they made are positive? Bull! I did the math…for myself, it’s going to cost me $30+ more a month now if I continue, regardless what they say is positive, it’s only positive for Starbucks. I’ve spent over $35,000 at Starbucks over the years and they keep making these bad decisions. As of the day when these changes take place, I will be cutting my visits by 50% as well as a lot of my friends who go there. It will probably save me money anyway cutting my visits down.
Good news! Looks like it covers most food items, the exclusion found in their terms of use was: The complimentary item may be redeemed at participating Canadian Starbucks stores only, and excludes: multi-serving food items (for example, a tray of Cranberry Bliss® Bars; and ready-to-drink bottled beverages.
I have really enjoyed the rewards program, I think having a free drink every 12 is great, and it is also awesome that it goes directly onto the card 🙂 I don’t have any specialty milk, or syrup so I am fortunate that way I guess. 🙂 Also in case you don’t know this… when you combine drinks on an order you are only awarded ONE star per ORDER!! which I think is a bigger inconvenience!! I always order EVERY drink for every member of my family on a separate transaction… I have at times ordered 6-8 drinks and was only awarded ONE star and could not figure out why… I would of preferred if they added one more change to give a star PER drink, so that I don’t have to do separate transactions… but I am sure excited about a free drink every 2 weeks or so 🙂 Thanks Starbucks!
The FREE rewards, will now be directly loaded onto your card so that when you go into the store and use your card it will come up automatically as a free drink. The idea is to go paperless, and you receive a notice by email just to let you know that you’ve earned it.
To play the devils advocate here as I work at a busy Starbucks location and am also studying business, for every 10 registered card members we serve in store only about 3 of them order drinks with lactose free/soy. Now that they have made this change to the rewards program, this customer group has become more vocal because they disapprove of the change because it is effecting them so it seems like a lot of people. When in reality for Starbucks this is a very small loss compared to the millions of customers that frequent their stores. In their books, this change is benefiting the majority of their customers. You are not hearing from these people in regards to the changes because they are not negatively effected.
Well, you can call us whiners if you want, but I was faithful to SB because of the free soy (which is not an option for me). I now have to pay .60 for each drink – I can get my latte for less somewhere else at that rate. I justified buying the beans for my hubby occassionally because of the free drink, but that’s not going to be happening anymore. We’ll buy all coffee beans at Costco now because their house brand is really good and half the price.
Using the ‘stars’ for free food is pointless to me. I never buy the food because it’s too expensive.
I guess they needed to up their profits, but I’ll be visiting less often, for sure. Which means my points will accumulate really slowly. Which means my incentive for visiting at all will be really diminished. And here I was looking forward to the end of the postcard thing . . . Well, it was fun while it lasted!
Anybody get their email yet for their free drink?
I just got my card for the free Soy and now they change it. Not impressed!
I Like soy milk because it kicks up the flavour. Some people like soy because they get milk & sugar in one product. Others use soy because of health issues or life style issues. But .60 per shot? WTF. Major money grab for the 3 out of 10 who use it. 30 %. That’s a huge number of people. Guess Starbucks’ quarterly results just weren’t high enough. Try a local coffee house. Most offer no charge for soy (even if they post a charge on their rate board) although many don’t offer lactose-free milk. And the money you spend stays in your community.
#firstworldproblems
I’m done with Starbucks. Way to reward people that are supporting animal rights and environmental sustainability by avoiding animal products. I used to drink soy lattes but I will be taking my business elsewhere. Big Fail.