I can't believe I haven't found this thread before. I miss the days of star laundering. It was essentially manufactured spend for Starbucks. Back before the current program (where in the previous program, you just needed 12 stars for a free drink. Star Dashes rewarded stars as codes to enter, and those stars counted towards future star dashes. So, I would start out with a star dash, make actual purchases, and receive a code to redeem the stars from that star dash (usually something like 20 stars or more if the star dash rewarded a free drink as well). Instead of redeeming it right away, I would hold onto it (they did have expiration dates that I took note of) and usually another star dash would occur before the previous code expired. I would join the second star dash, and then redeem the code from the first star dash to fulfill the requirements of the second star dash, and repeat this over and over again to effectively launder my star dash rewards into more and more stars, while redeeming the leftover stars for drinks.

Since they went to the new program, I can't do that anymore, but now my office has moved to a location with a (licensed) Starbucks 50 feet away from my office, so I've been earning rewards and haven't been able to redeem them yet since the licensed locations are earn only. I still fulfill the terms of most star dashes though, as they usually involve counting visits, and each transaction is a "visit." So, I'd order my usual, and once I finish it, I go back and ask for a refill and insist that they charge me for the refill (they usually don't) so that I could get a transaction for the star dash.

I've noticed that successive star dashes tend to be less and less rewarding, but if I miss one or two, it resets. Star dashes that require purchasing particular products are ones that I can never fulfill at work (since it's licensed, the POS doesn't report the items purchased to Starbucks when they run my Starbucks card, only a total)