Every Starbucks employee's worst nightmare has come true for Brad Halsey, who shared his predicament in an email to the website Kitchenette for its "Horrible Restaurant Customers" series.
One of Halsey's most excruciating customers — let's call him "Mr. X" — is also the most brilliant. He figured out a way to game the Starbucks Card so he gets a free drink every day of his life.
As Halsey explains, Mr. X bought 365 Starbucks Cards and registered each one for a different birthday — so he gets a free birthday drink every day of the year.
"Even though I know exactly how he 'beat the system,' he pretends that his app is just malfunctioning and it magically gives him the same free birthday drink every day," Halsey wrote in the email to Kitchenette.
Not only does Mr. X get a free coffee every day, but he's particular about his order, the barista says. He orders his iced quad Venti vanilla white mocha with heavy cream instead of milk. So first, he asks Halsey for a venti cup and a marker.
Then he "draws lines and arrows and writes all over the cup," instructing Halsey to get his order perfectly jotted down as follows:
Two pumps of white mocha here, then add five pumps of vanilla. That should take us to this line here where you’re gonna add cold heavy cream up to this ridge here ... it should be halfway between this line and this line. Make sure to add the heavy whipping cream before the espresso; it changes the taste if you do it out of order. Then add your four shots — three regular and one long shot. That long shot is important, since you guys reformulated your machines, it’s been hell trying to get my drink right. That long shot helps balance it. Then stir it for me, Mister Brad. Now do me a favor and add ice to the top there and it’ll be easy as pie. I’m not picky so don’t worry about shaking it or anything like that.
In case you thought that was it, Mr. X then asks Halsey to ring it up as "one quad espresso, add white mocha, sub vanilla, sub heavy cream" so it's $3 instead of $6.50.
We should point out that while Mr. X did indeed seem to find a Starbucks hack, don't feel inclined to follow in his footsteps. A move like this could be considered fraud.
Is that all he has going on in his life? I can't imagine going to Starbucks every single day anyway, much less being THAT particular about my drink.
ETA: regarding thwarting him, can't they just check his ID? Everyone knows he doesn't have a birthday every day, so they'd have cause. At $6.50, he's cheating them out of almost $2800 a year.
Post by sweetcheeks on Aug 22, 2015 9:18:19 GMT -5
It looks like he's in violation of the terms and conditions of the rewards card. From their website: "All of your Starbucks Cards can be activated and registered for use in My Starbucks Rewards, but you may only have one (1) account that is personal to you."
I want to know what this guy looks like because ij would weigh 500 pounds if I drank that 365 days a year. Heavy cream???
I learned from MMM a couple of weeks ago it is lower in sugar than milk. Though if he's pumping all that syrup in, he can't be too concerned. Unless this is like ordering a Big Mac meal supersized with a Diet Coke?
I want to know what this guy looks like because ij would weigh 500 pounds if I drank that 365 days a year. Heavy cream???
I learned from MMM a couple of weeks ago it is lower in sugar than milk. Though if he's pumping all that syrup in, he can't be too concerned. Unless this is like ordering a Big Mac meal supersized with a Diet Coke?
Right? At first I was like, well maybe he's doing Atkins or something, but the massive amounts of syrup pumps seem to kill that theory.
I feel like that drink would be something that would taste sooo good and then halfway through I'd want to throw up.
See, I should think the manager could have a talk with him and nip this in the bud. And if they're worried about public opinion, I think his drink order alone would get the masses on the side of Starbucks, overpriced coffee or no.
Im fine with gaming the system because 1. I have a hard time caring about corporations in general and 2. Most corporations happily game the system for themselves.
I am not fine with then being a dick about it and making life a misery for low level employees.
See, I should think the manager could have a talk with him and nip this in the bud. And if they're worried about public opinion, I think his drink order alone would get the masses on the side of Starbucks, overpriced coffee or no.
Right? Because who the fuck wants to be behind that douche in line? All I want is a regular ol' latte.
See, I should think the manager could have a talk with him and nip this in the bud. And if they're worried about public opinion, I think his drink order alone would get the masses on the side of Starbucks, overpriced coffee or no.
Yeah, he's a customer I would be willing and happy to lose.
It just occurred to me that, if Starbucks has a policy for staff to never badmouth customers online, the barista might get in trouble. Remember the Applebee's waitress who got canned for posting the receipt?
What's the minimum charge for a card? Even at $5 that's a big outlay up front.
Anyway, people who lie to game the system are annoying.
Nothing. You get the card for free.
I tried to register a new card with $0 on it to my account and it wouldn't let me. The card needed to be activated in store and I had to put $5 on it to activate it.