Starbucks announced on Monday it is making a change to its reward program, and customers are not happy.
In the existing My Starbucks Rewards program, when a customer makes a purchase, they are earn one star (the point system used) no matter how much they spend. Now the coffee company revealed that customers will earn reward stars based on the amount of money that is spent per order. This means coffee customers no longer have to pay separately for their beverage and spinach and feta breakfast wrap as their way of cheating the system.
Launching in April, the rebranded program — which will now be called just Starbucks Rewards — will allow users to earn two stars for each dollar spent.
While this sounds like it will be much easier for customers to get free coffee, many customers aren't so happy with the changes. This is because Gold members will now need 125 stars instead of just 12 to redeem their free menu item.
If you do the math, in the existing program a Starbucks customers would be able to get a free drink or food item after they spent $2 each time during 12 visits. This would be the equivalent of spending roughly $24 to get the freebie. In the new Starbucks Reward program, customers would have to spend more than $62 dollars to reach 125 points and get their free item.
The announcement has led many customers to take to social media to complain about the changes.
This new @Starbucks rewards program is messed up. Thanks for spinning this as something great, but if you do the math, it is a cheat.
— Steven Cholak (@Cholakst) February 23, 2016
@starbucks you are pushing out your customers on fixed incomes #nonewrewards program ... as long time gold, we just can't afford you now! — Marsha Lakes (@mo_I_am1950) February 23, 2016
Not cool @Starbucks. Now I have to spend 3X as much to gain any rewards..... Sincerely, a tall dark roast drinker
— Steven Bowman (@StevenABowman) February 22, 2016
Starbucks is sticking to its decision to change the program. The company said that earning stars based on what customers buy and not how often they visit was the number one request from members. The company also responded to Facebook comments that criticized the amount customers needed to spend to get a reward by writing that customers would "get there faster because there are so many other ways to earn stars."
To sort of sweeten the blow, Starbucks also announced that Gold members will be able to take advantage of monthly "Double-Star Days," and that it is also upgrading all Welcome-level members to Green level so that they can get more benefits more quickly.
Starbucks revealed back in January that its My Starbucks Reward program had 11.1 million members in the U.S. While this might be a whole lot of coffee drinkers that now may potentially be pissed off, Starbucks said it will continue to share updates and ideas on "how we plan to make our rewards program even more rewarding for all members in the near future."
Source: Starbucks
Photo: ND Strupler | Flickr
