Starbucks rewards changes start today with new tiers: How to tell if you’re Green, Gold, or Reserve

Your morning cup of coffee will now come with a whole new loyalty system for collecting Starbucks “stars.” We’ll help you break down how it works.

Starbucks customers who love collecting the company’s loyalty rewards stars for each dollar they spend are in for a change this morning.

America’s No. 1 coffee chain is launching its revamped rewards program today, March 10. With it comes a tiered loyalty membership program and a new structure for earning stars and new rewards. Here’s what you need to know.

The former Starbucks loyalty rewards system is no more

Before today’s launch of the new rewards program, Starbucks’s previous loyalty system was more straightforward. Under the old system, which was in place from around 2019 until yesterday, there were no membership tiers.

In that program, all Starbucks customers were equal because they earned the same number of stars for dollars spent. Under the old system, rewards members earned 1 star for every $1 spent or 2 stars for every $1 spent when paying with a pre-loaded Starbucks Card.

Stars could be redeemed for rewards, such as a free extra shot of syrup (25 stars), free drinks (100 to 200 stars), and even free merch (400 stars). However, no matter how many stars a person earned, they needed to redeem those stars within six months, or they expired.

But in January, Starbucks announced it was doing away with its reward program, which had treated every member equally.

In its place, the company said it would launch a new rewards program that had three tiers of membership. Under the new program, the more loyal you are to the company (i.e., the more you spend), the greater your rewards will be.

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