Why Starbucks Rewards Devalued Again and ‘Gate Lice’ Goes Mainstream

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About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Starbucks coffee machines that give out free coffee (some f them) are only giving out 4oz of coffee and hardly anything. My guess is b/c of the Democrats messing with his machines allegedly b/c he’s running for prez.

  2. For what its worth I stopped participating in their rewards program following the devaluation several years back.

    Unfortunately the bean counters somehow overlook customers like me who are barely even customers at all anymore. Starbucks used to be a 3-4x per week thing for me. Now I’m there maybe twice a month, tops.

  3. “Critics argue that building up a database of millions of people’s photographs is a threat to civil liberties. Once you have the database, it would be easy to share it with other agencies, effectively turning it into a search tool for all law enforcement.”

    Critics are probably unaware of how many countries have already been doing this for years, but in a more organized and more systematic fashion. The US still doesn’t have exit border controls and obviously isn’t going to demand its aging airports carve out space for this in order to institute what is normally found in most countries. So instead you’ll see CBP with cameras at departure gates.

  4. The new Starbucks reward program is the biggest rip off on the planet Prior to April 16 I had 10 rewards saved in my Starbucks App (1250 bonus stars) I normally would use rewards to get a salad or a sandwich which required 125 stars usage. After April 16 I discovered that these sane stars can now buy me only 6 salads or sandwiches as under the new rules you need to use 200 stars to obtain a sandwich or a salad This represents a 40 percent devaluation in the new program. I am disgusted and I question whether I will participate in Starbucks’ program in the future. Starbucks in essence screwed loyal customers like me who would participate in bonus stars offers on a weekly basis The way I see it Starbucks owes me 500 bonus stars to compensate me for the 4 rewards that I lost when they changed the program rules last week Alternatively they should have allowed customers who earned bonus stars previously to continue using them under the old rules and imposed the new program rules on stars earned following April 16, 2019 when they initiated their new totally rip off program

  5. Correction to my previous post above. Starbucks would owe me 800 bonus stars to compensate me for the 4 rewards that I lost once they initiated their new rip off I rewards loyalty program. It’s no way to treat loyal customers

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