Well, you wouldn't do it voluntarily surely

Here we go again with the Starbucks bashing. Is it authentic Italian espresso? No. Is it a lot better than most of the other options in many places? Yes.

I have 15 more stars to go for gold this year again (haven't been going to Sbux much of late - and my old office had a barista). I'll just almost make it!

Have you been getting the bonus star offers in your email?

I have been getting a ton of bonus offers lately. What's up with that?

They're offering three stars for ordering Reserve here in Korea. Thursdays via Siren Order.

I've used the UK card in US, Canada, Hong Kong and Australia.

Got the reward stars for all those transactions. Topped it up in all of the above countries as well.

No! How do I do that?

A little more than usual, I'd say.

Do you have some sort of settings on your starbucks card where they aren't sending you promos via email? Apparently some of us are getting bonus star offers(buy certain things and get extra stars, do mobile ordering and get extra stars etc..)

Check your account and make sure you've opted in to all emails from SBUX.

I get an offer for *something* basically every week. A few weeks ago it was 3-4 bonus stars for every purchase over $15, this week it is 25% off any lunch item.

A few weeks ago they had two or three promos running at the same time. One was 5 or 6 stars for ordering an iced drink and a breakfast item in one transaction, which I had planned to do anyways. The other was 15 bonus stars for 10 days in a row of purchases, in addition to the 10 stars you get from the purchases.

I had a few freebies saved up, and then immediately recieves three more on the same day.

I used all but one at once on a business trip, much to the surprise of the barista.

Spent a small fortune on Starbucks while in Seoul earlier this year, and Starbucks rewarded me by taking all my stars from my US-based account when I returned.

Loyalty programs that are counterproductive are dumb.

They're separate entities. How did that happen? Well, I can tell you contacting Starbucks corporate through email is pointless but shaming them on Instagram might be more effective. Those stars count for something!

From the perspective of the man-on-the-street, separate corporate entities is their problem; they appear to be the same corporate entity. I suppose it happened because I wasn't frequent enough, or didn't claim the rewards frequently enough. But the timing made it extra annoying. Where we stayed in Yonshinnae in Seoul, the Starbucks was too convenient, or we would have patronized some other coffee seller.

You're quite right that emailing them via customer service was a waste of time. But on the whole I regard their action as a positive, if only because it dissuaded me from buying their overly-roasted coffee on occasion.

Still, if you have a loyalty program that works to turn business away, isn't that sort of pointless?

Truly. Use it or lose it is stupid.

Which location in Germany? SBUX seems to have the same type of loyalty program in Germany like in the US.

Also, I logged in to my SBUX account on their German site and it gave me an option to load my card in EUR. Has anyone tried this? If yes comment your exprerience and tell me if it credited a Star or not.