Whoah! Starbucks Alert

Ok, maybe I'm a moron here and you all already know about this. Me? I'll admit to being a bit out of the loop. Karen mentioned the other day that she used her Gold Starbucks card to get 10% off her drink. Hmm....

Me, always being on the lookout for cool things like, ohhh I don't know, 10% off at Starbucks -- where I only drink the frou frou $4.60 or whatever yummy things. I asked her what she did to get a Gold card, and she said she just bought one for $25.

Interesting. That of course prompted a visit to the Starbucks website for me to further investigate. I don't have a Starbucks habit -- I'm not big on caffeine, it's expensive and oh yeah it has a lot of calories when I drink it -- but I certainly go there periodically, as does my husband.

Yep, she's right. You can buy a $25 Gold card. So what do you get for your Gold card?

1) Buy it in the store and you get a free drink (any size, any drink) immediately ($25 - $4.60 = $20.40 cost so far)

2) On your birthday, you get a free drink, again any size of any drink. ($20.40 - $4.60 = $15.80 cost now)

3) 10% off almost anything you buy in the store. I thought initially it was only for drinks, but exclusions are just for gift cards, the membership, books and magazines, and digital downloads. That means I could get the Starbucks mug or a CD or coffee and get 10% off those, too. I know me though, and I'll just be buying my usual. With the cost effectively at $15.80, I only have to buy four drinks over the course of a year to make money. Errr save money, I mean.

4) You get up to two free hours of wireless access via AT&T each day. You have to register with AT&T and all, but what a great way to encourage people to hang out and get some more of perk number three! The only downside is that it's one shot of access per day, so you can't go in for an hour in the morning and then for another hour later in the day. I'm ok with that though.

5) Apparently I'll get other "exclusive offers and discounts" throughout the year. These aren't specified, and they may be worthless to me (which is why I didn't include it in the above calculation), but if it's 20% off the first Tuesday of the month or upgrade a grande to a venti for free during spring break or something along those lines, I'm good with it. Hmm, maybe I should go work for Starbucks in their marketing department.

And this isn't the only kind of thing Starbucks has. You can also register your gift cards with Starbucks and get free stuff. It sounds as thought you can only do the Gold card or their Starbucks Card Rewards for a single purchase, but I still need to go into a Starbucks to verify that (hey, if anyone knows all this already, pipe up!).

So why would you want the Starbucks Card Rewards instead? Here, you get some different benefits that may be more beneficial based on how and what you buy. You do have to use the registered gift card (and you can register up to three at a time) for at least part of the purchase. Details include:

1) When you buy a drink, you can get an add-in for free. I can't tell if it's only one add-in, or if you can do as many as you want to really customize your coffee. Again, I'll have to verify. If it's anything, I'd get my venti brewed coffee and pop in some caramel syrup, hazelnut, and soy and be good to go. That would be cheaper than the 10% off my venti caramel macciatto.

2) When you're hanging out at Starbucks (and when the wee ones are in school and I have time to myself, I will become one of these moms!), you get free refills of brewed coffee (hot or iced) for as long as you're there. I can't tell if you also get the free add-ins, but hmmm....

3) When you buy coffee beans there, you get a free tall cup of whatever you want with your one pound purchase. Of course if I were to buy Starbucks beans (for my husband), I'd buy them at Costco where (shhhh) they're far cheaper, but still not a bad perk for those who buy their beans at Starbucks!

4) The same free wireless offer as the Gold Card.

Maybe I'm totally out of the loop, and yes, that's not out of the realm of possibility, but if this is news to you, how cool is this? And if everyone in the world knew about this already but me, can you at least not rub it in too badly?

Any guesses as to what I'm doing once Little Miss wakes up from her nap today? Actually, scratch that. I can't have caffeine past about noon. Let's try this again. Anyone know what I'm doing tomorrow morning once I drop Mister Man off at daycare?