And speaking of Starbucks
Aug. 27th, 2019 05:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brin_bellway[cw: food]
[Blogspot; Wayback] (by JP Koning; h/t Matt Levine)
I have a similar "I...*guess* there are people who don't think about this?" reaction to this post as I do to the subscription audit post, but with rather less surprise because this *is* a more advanced technique. But yes, I *do* view gift cards as a loan to the store in question, will only willingly obtain them in exchange for some consideration, and try to keep the amount of gift-card assets I hold to a minimum except when there's a reason not to.
I bought a Starbucks gift card two months ago, because their loyalty program requires that you pay in store credit. I bought a $5 card (paying for it with a credit card, and yes I *did* get cashback) and immediately spent $2.78 of it on the Yearly Starbucks Purchase (to maintain eligibility for the birthday reward: if you buy exactly one item at Starbucks per year, it's effectively buy-one-get-one-free! except you get to have the buy-one and the get-one at different times rather than ending up with two muffins at once, and *you* decide what time of year to make the Yearly Starbucks Purchase rather than them going "hey, today only we're doing a BOGO sale").
And yeah, I *know* they're tracking my spending habits, but I am willing to sell information about a single transaction for the price of one muffin, and a similar-but-scaled-up willingness for other loyalty programs.
(though there *do* exist programs whose offers I consider unacceptable: I won't use Drop, for example)
[Blogspot; Wayback] (by JP Koning; h/t Matt Levine)
I have a similar "I...*guess* there are people who don't think about this?" reaction to this post as I do to the subscription audit post, but with rather less surprise because this *is* a more advanced technique. But yes, I *do* view gift cards as a loan to the store in question, will only willingly obtain them in exchange for some consideration, and try to keep the amount of gift-card assets I hold to a minimum except when there's a reason not to.
I bought a Starbucks gift card two months ago, because their loyalty program requires that you pay in store credit. I bought a $5 card (paying for it with a credit card, and yes I *did* get cashback) and immediately spent $2.78 of it on the Yearly Starbucks Purchase (to maintain eligibility for the birthday reward: if you buy exactly one item at Starbucks per year, it's effectively buy-one-get-one-free! except you get to have the buy-one and the get-one at different times rather than ending up with two muffins at once, and *you* decide what time of year to make the Yearly Starbucks Purchase rather than them going "hey, today only we're doing a BOGO sale").
And yeah, I *know* they're tracking my spending habits, but I am willing to sell information about a single transaction for the price of one muffin, and a similar-but-scaled-up willingness for other loyalty programs.
(though there *do* exist programs whose offers I consider unacceptable: I won't use Drop, for example)
