Starbucks consolidates loyalty card programs

Starbucks Friday announced that its new customer loyalty card program, called My Starbucks Rewards, will launch on Dec. 26, 2009 in all U.S. Starbucks stores.

The new streamlined program consolidates the chain’s two current popular programs, Starbucks Card Rewards and Starbucks Gold card. It has no annual fee, allows members to use one registered card (any Starbucks Card) and provides customized rewards that increase with frequency of use.

Benefits are offered in levels that accumulate and range from the welcome level, which includes a free birthday beverage when card is initially registered, to the gold level, where members will earn a free drink after every 15 purchases. To qualify for gold, a customer needs to visit 30 times in a year (which averages less than three visits per month).

“Our Starbucks Card Rewards and Gold Card programs have been successful, but the more than 3 million members have asked us to create a simpler, easier to access program that rewards them based on their frequency,” said Terry Davenport, senior VP, marketing, Starbucks Coffee Co. “We believe the new My Starbucks Rewards program, which is free at all levels, will help deepen our relationship with our most loyal customers while also encouraging more customers to join the program.”