It’s lots of fun to spend your birthday scooping up your favorite rewards from restaurants and stores, and some are even kind enough to give a longer deadline to redeem them.
But as of the end of September, Starbucks limits the redemption window from one week around your birthday to just four days.
Starbucks just changed its birthday rewards program. The program awards customers with a free beverage on their birthday every year.
Customers previously had seven days to redeem the reward, meaning they could get a free drink at any time during the week of their birthday. As of September 30, however, that policy has changed.
This information comes from the blog Starbucks Melody, which reports that Starbucks has narrowed the birthday reward redemption window to two days before your birthday, the day itself, and the day after.
Why did Starbucks make the change? They say that they wanted to make the reward more about customers’ actual birthdays, and not their birth week.
"The reason for the change is that these rewards are meant to be a true celebration of our customers' birthdays. We absolutely want our customers to be aware of this and are updating our FAQs and terms of use," a Starbucks spokeswoman told Overton.
Starbucks’ rewards are now digital, and have to be connected to either a smartphone app or a registered Starbucks gift card. In order to redeem a free birthday drink, customers must be a registered member of Starbucks' rewards program.
One customer made headlines recently for hacking the rewards program and getting a free drink every day by lying about his birth date.
A man in the running for the worst customer ever figured out a way to get a free drink every day of the year, according to Starbucks barista Brad Halsey
Every day Brad deals with the world's most infuriating customer — a man who has found a loophole to Starbucks into giving him free birthday coffee every day for a year.
He allegedly purchased 365 Starbucks gift cards and "registered every one of them online with a different birthday so that he gets a ‘free birthday drink' EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR," Brad recounts.
