Many people don’t know this, but you can buy a Starbucks gift card (minimum $5) and register it for FREE at Starbucks.com/card and after your first five purchases you’ll begin to save money on almost every drink! As far as I know, Starbucks doesn’t really promote this. The only way I found out about this program was through a friend who use to work at Starbucks.

Here’s how it works: Pickup a Starbucks gift card and load it with at least $5. Once you have the gift card, go home and register it on Starbucks.com/card. Then, going forward, use the gift card to purchase all of your coffee drinks. When you need to put more money on the gift card, simply re-load it with a Starbucks cashier before making your purchase. Or you can log into your Starbucks.com account and reload using your debit/credit card or use PayPal. After you’ve purchased five drinks you’ll begin receiving money off all future drinks (depending on what you get).

For instance, I typically only have these two drinks when I visit Starbucks:

  1. Venti, no foam, sugar free vanilla latte, with soy milk.
  2. Venti, 5 pump, sugar free vanilla iced coffee, with soy milk.
When I use my Starbucks gift card to make these purchases, I get FREE syrup and FREE soy milk. This takes off at least $1 every time I order something at Starbucks! Then, once you’ve reached 30 stars (or 30 drinks) you then move on up to the Gold level. This means you’ll get a free coffee after you’ve purchased 15 and you’ll get your own personalized Starbucks Gold card which will looking something like this:

 

You’ll also receive free refills on brewed coffee, 2 free hours of wifi each day, a free birthday drink, and a free tall beverage with every pound of ground coffee purchased. As mentioned earlier, this program is completely free to join!

 

I don’t drink Starbucks every day, because it’d cost too much. However, I do go there often enough to save money on each drink. If I’m already going to go there, why not get $1 or more off every drink? The free syrup saves me at least $0.50 and the free soy milk saves me an additional $0.60 – $0.75.

 

Helpful hint: If you receive a Starbucks gift card as a “gift” you can transfer that money to your registered gift card. This way you only have to manage one card, which makes sense.