Grifting Starbucks

So here is the deal. Starbucks is offering a couple of different promotions right now. One, they've dropped the price of their default blend (Pike Place Roast) by fifty cents. Two, they're offering a coffee of the week promotion that culminates in the award of a free bag of coffee. It's this latter promotion I'm interested in.

Starbucks is promoting a different Bold blend every week. If you buy a bold coffee, you get a little "passport" featuring eight coffees, one for each week for eight weeks. When you buy a bold coffee in a given week, you get a little stamp to add to your passport (shades of "collect them all"). At the end of the eight weeks, you can present your passport to a Starbucks to receive, gratis, one bag of your choice of bold coffees.

Thing is, you only get one stamp a week. Once your Yukon blend is stamped, you're done till the next week.

Here is where I come in. I like Starbucks. I like their bold coffees. Every morning, I buy a tall toffee nut bold coffee to start my day. Most days, the clerks don't even bother asking what I want. I am that predictable.

I also work in Penn Plaza, and there are easily half a dozen Starbucks within walking distance of work. I don't have to go far out of my way to visit a different every morning of the week. So, I'm basically planning to tote around five passports, order the same coffee I would normally order, and collect five pounds of coffee (MSRP ~$50) in two months.

It's free, because I'm not doing anything more than I would normally do, except visit other stores. Well, maybe not totally free. I didn't figure this out until halfway through the first week, so I had to buy two coffees I otherwise would not have bought (even the Short, which is smaller than the Tall, counts). So I'm out $3.52 that I would otherwise not have spent.

So we'll see how it goes. I have to say, I'm not a fan of the Yukon blend, but I do like the Italian Roast and the Cafe Verona blends. I am looking forward to the Gold Coast blend; I like the art.