This one is easy

I'm lazy this week, so here's an easy one.

When you use your registered Starbucks card for ANYTHING, it counts as one purchase. If you make 30 purchases in one year, you get 30 stars, and you're considered a "Gold Customer". Collect another 30 stars, and you retain your Gold status.

How can you take advantage of this provision?

Well, one obvious way is to buy someone a Starbucks card as a gift. But instead of making them do all the work, why don't you register it for them? No ulterior motive here... just, when they use it, the stars add up on your account!

Here's another way: let's say you buy a drink (like the poor man's London Fog) and have a bagel to go with it. If you buy these items together, you collect just the one star on your account. But... if you suspend your sense of embarassment (and heighten your sense of star collecting), you can ask to ring the items through separately. By doing so, you will now have earned two stars, instead of the one.

Turns out that according to the I Hate Starbucks BB Forum, entitled baristas hate it when you do this. They feel like you are getting too good of a deal. Don't let them tell you this is against policy. I checked with Corporate, and it isn't.

If they won't help you out, ask to speak to a manager. If they claim they are the manager, complain to their District Manager. If that doesn't work, complain to Corporate.

Or... cancel your order, and just go to another Starbucks. Or another cafe.

It's not a privilege for us to buy a Starbucks drink; it's a privilege for Starbucks to have as a customer.