Starbucks customers furious about new rewards program

Currently, it takes 30 visits to earn “gold” status, and then another 12 visits to earn a free drink or treat. The new system will require customers to earn 300 stars to merely reach “gold” status, and then earn an additional 125 stars to receive a freebie.

In a move to revamp its customer loyalty program, Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX) has changed the mechanism to “per dollar spent” from the “per visit” system introduced in 2009. Once you reach gold level, every 125 stars will earn you a free reward-rather than the current 12-and you can politely demand anything on the menu for free.

To put it simply, in order to get rewards, customers will have to spend more money.

Accepting the company’s estimate that the typical customer spends about $5 per visit, that’s still about 30 visits to get gold but roughly 12.5 visits to get a bonus.

But for customers who spend $4 per transaction, that means they’ll have to visit a Starbucks store more than 15 times to reap the benefits of the new rewards program.

Someone who purchases a latte at the price of $44.5 now spends approximately $53.40 during one dozen visits, prior to getting one free item.

As you’d imagine, plenty of customers took to social media channels to broadcast their outrage. “Great way to save some money and calories!” In April, under the new program, it will take 300 stars. “People have come in here angry at me”, an employee at a Times Square area store told Yahoo Finance. The new program reflects the number 1 request we heard from members: “more stars awarded based on what you buy, no matter how often you visit”.

It’s no secret that the previous system had flaws.

But even big spenders were annoyed by the change, with one customer writing on Facebook, “A venti espresso drink is around $4.65ish pre-tax in my neck of the woods”.

That might not sound bad, but the catch comes in how Starbucks will start doling out rewards based on stars. According to Starbucks Chief Stragety Officer Mattthew Ryan, this accounted for about 1% of all transactions.

On Monday, Starbucks announced a new rewards program that will begin in April.

The company is also rolling out monthly “Double-Star Days” on which the amount of stars customers can collect will-you guessed it-double. Members now spend around three times as much as non-members.

However, he acknowledged that the change will affect a small minority of the more than 11 million active users of Starbucks’ reward program. “With everything going on in the world, this is very low on the totem pole”.