As part of my frugal nature and
quest for financial independence, I use company rewards cards whenever possible
(if I am interested in the reward, that is). I have gotten gas for as low as
$1.04/gallon (recently, not in 1980) using my reward from grocery shopping at
Giant, and an 84% discount on items at Kohl’s using my rewards in combination
with sale prices and coupons.
Being a single (divorced) woman,
I have from time to time thought about the possibility of dating again,
although a few attempts at online dating have proved amusing, irritating and
altogether fruitless. So, I’ve started trying to “put myself out there” as I’ve
been told by many people that I’m not going to meet anyone in my living room. Against
my frugal nature, I have started going out a little bit, which brought me,
laptop in hand, to Starbucks this Saturday morning to do some work for my “9-5”
rat race employer, write for the AIMC blog and possibly see or be seen by
viable single men.
I’ve been to Starbucks before, but
this is the first time I considered their rewards program. What I find
interesting is that their Rewards Program, unlike any of the others to which I
belong requires the purchase of a gift card (pre-payment), and subsequent
re-loading of funds on the card – quite a revenue stream for Starbucks, huh? I
wonder how much money Starbucks has in these pre-payments and how much more
money those funds are generating for Starbucks. I only put the required $5.00
on my card to activate it, but I know several people who reload $25.00 onto
their card for the convenience of having it there and to be able to just debit
down as they go. Multiply this by the number of people in the rewards program,
and I imagine that comes to quite a handsome sum for Starbucks. Kudos to them. Let's heed this mindset and continue to implement everything we can to increase our own net worth!
To note, one could simply put a very small amount on the gift card to
cover that day’s purchase and get stars, and I fully appreciate that Starbucks
is involved in many Social Impact programs, community outreach programs, etc. The
point of this posting is to identify the unique twist on their program that
undoubtedly rewards the company greatly.
It looks like I’ll need to spend
$150.00 in a year in order to earn 300 stars which will get me a free drink or
food item: not exactly a huge reward for the customer! My frugal self will
likely never get to that reward level, but I’ll still get a reward on my birthday,
and I think I’ll be eligible for free refills. Maybe my real reward will be
finding that special someone who also gave up on finding someone in their
living room.
