I love Starbucks. Dont get me wrong I’m not a guy who will travel miles just to get my fix of a caramel latte and the stamps in my Starbucks rewards card, but I do love stopping in for a hot drink when out shopping or during those cold days when I happen to be out in town.
My favorite which is the caramel Macchiato is a whopping £3.30 for a grande. This is quite a chunk of cash especially if you were the person who needs one per day. That would work out to nearly £100 per month. Or £1200 per year. Ouch!!
Anyway, what we really want to know is how to save money on our favorite coffees. In certain cases how to get a cheeky free coffee.
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How To Save On Coffee?
There are a few ways to save money on your coffee. You can apply any one of them to try and make some savings.
The most common one is obviously the loyalty card. Most coffee places, especially the bigger ones such as Starbucks and Costa, have a loyalty program that offers you a reward card with which you can then start collecting stamps towards a free coffee.
Starbuck’s rewards cards are the best place to start in order to get yourself some savings.
How Do Starbucks Rewards Cards Work?
So it may seem like an obvious question but each establishment will have different rules that apply to their loyalty cards. For instance, Starbucks rewards will work differently to Costa rewards.
So in regards to how to get a Starbucks card. You can pick these up in-store or get them online. Simply head over to the online Starbucks site and register your Starbucks card.
Registration can sometimes take 24 hours to be recognized but any purchases made in that time will be redeemed.
You collect stars and these can be tracked online or via the mobile app. There is also a costa app should that coffee house be your one of choice.
With the Starbucks loyalty program there are two levels, Green and gold. Let’s talk about the green first.
Green Rewards Level
The green Starbucks rewards level is easy, just register and use your card once. Hey, presto you are now a green level rewards holder. After this, it’s just a case of collecting your stars.
When you use your card 15 times your next Starbucks is free of charge. You will receive an email when your free drink is redeemable. You can also use the Starbucks app to order your drink ahead of when you want it and then skip the queue when you arrive to pick it up.
Gold Rewards Level
Gold Starbucks rewards can be earned by making 50 transactions in 12 months from the date you got your card. The benefits of the gold membership are the same as the green one but you get some free extras.
Some of the free extras you get are free selected syrups. You can also get free extra shots of espresso and toppings such as Whipped cream.
So on average 1 Starbucks coffee per week will entitle you to the gold membership. That is when you can really start making some savings.
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Other Ways To Save:
There are certain job roles that can entitle you to 10% off. Emergency services, NHS workers and the armed forces can all get 10% off their bill.
Most people dont know but if you bring a reusable mug for your coffee you can get 25pence off of your drink.
If you have registered for a Starbucks card then on your birthday you can receive a free drink of your choice.
Should you happen to order filter coffee. You can get free refills throughout the day so long as you dont leave the premises. If you combine this with your own mug to save another 25pence, then the free refills will end up only costing you around £1.30. Great saving.
Here are some more ways to get free coffees or savings on your favorite Starbuck specialty drink.
Swagbucks:
Did you know that if you sign up to Swagbucks you can do a few surveys or search the internet via their site and receive free coffee from Starbucks!
Ive been a Swagbucks member for a few years now and even if you’re not doing it for the free coffee ( I totally am). Then it is still worth your time and effort as you could bag some great stuff especially in the run-up to Christmas.
Simply sign up for a free account here and you can start earning Swagbucks now. You can then get Starbucks gift cards to use on your lovely morning coffee.
You just simply do the things you would normally do whilst watching Television such as surfing the net doing a few surveys etc and boosting your Swagbucks wallet while you’re at it. Then just swap them in for anything up to a £25 Starbucks card.
That is a whole lot of free coffee for just typing out some surveys. There are other ways to be rewarded through Swagbucks but we are just here for the free coffee.
You can earn extra Swagbucks on your birthday and they do bonus Bucks every day whereby by performing certain tasks you can gain extra Swagbucks.
Drop:
Drop is an app for your phone that allows you to buy stuff like you normally would but you get rewards, cash back, and coupons for doing so which you can then use to grab those free Starbucks coffee’s.
The Drop app basically tracks all of your debit or credit card spendings and you earn points as you are doing so. This then allows you to redeem those points and spend on stuff you like (In my case my coffee)
The Drop app links your debit or credit card then tracks this spending and rewards you accordingly. The app uses the same security as the banks do so it is perfectly safe to do. None of your bank login details are ever stored so dont panic.
There is a list of retailers on the Drop app and if you regularly shop at say, 4 or 5 of these retailers then the chances are you are going to build your Drop balance quite quickly.
Quidco:
Quidco is a Cashback site that rewards you with Cashback when you do any form of online shopping.
For example, I recently went online shopping for some Christmas presents and got around £18 Cashback. Combine this with large Cashback sums like when I swapped my car insurance and not only saved money but also got £80 Cashback for switching.
As you can see it is quite easy to rack up £100 or more throughout the year and then use this Cashback to spend on all the coffee you could desire.
My favorite Cashback site and the one that seems to be on the top of everyone’s list is Quidco. You can sign up here for free.
Holiday Specials:
One of the times that I really appreciate a good Starbucks is around now when I’m out in town in the cold with my wife doing some Christmas shopping in the run-up to the festive season and we stop in for a nice hot drink to warm ourselves up with.
This also happens to be one of the times when you can bag yourself either a great new specialty drink or take advantage of one of Starbuck’s buy one get one free offers.
The buy one get one free offers usually happen around Christmas time, certainly in my area anyway. Sometimes there can be other offers around this time such as buy a coffee and get rewarded with 2 stars on your Starbucks rewards card.
However, you decide to get free coffees or discounted drinks from your favorite coffee house, treat it as a great money saver and maybe put the extra money you would have spent into a pot for future use.
Enjoy your discounted coffee!
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