February 4, 2026
Image Courtesy of Starbucks
Are Starbucks’ Three-Tiered Rewards Better Than One?
Reversing a change made six years ago, Starbucks is replacing its popular one-tier rewards program with a three-tier platform in a bid to better reward bigger spenders and encourage more visits.
In 2019, the coffee giant shifted from a two-tiered system to a single system that allowed all members to earn and redeem Stars and cash in on rewards (i.e., food and drink freebies) immediately after joining the program. Previously, members could only start redeeming rewards once they accrued 300 Stars (spent $150 in the year).
The change to a single system was meant to encourage new members to become more engaged, although the changes miffed those who had committed to accruing 300 Stars.
The updated three-tier program skews bigger reward benefits to more frequent customers, seeking to better incentive customers to reach higher status levels.
“Our current program has a one size fits all approach, regardless of whether you use it once a year or once a day,” Starbucks global chief brand officer, Tressie Lieberman, said in an Investor Day presentation, according to Nation’s Restaurant’s News. “Listening to feedback, we saw a huge opportunity to make the experience more personal and more engaging. We also saw the opportunity to drive spend frequency through tailored benefits and focus discount dollars on what our members value most.”
The three tiers include:
- Green (members accruing fewer than 500 Stars): Enjoy a free drink or food item on their birthday, receive early access to select menu items and get personalized offers. Stars won’t expire for six months and can be kept from expiring in several ways, like redeeming a reward or making a purchase. Members earn 1 Star per dollar spent and can earn Stars faster by digitally reloading a Starbucks Card.
- Gold (members accruing with between 500 to 2,500 Stars): In addition to Green tier benefits, Gold members’ Stars never expire, and members earn a seven-day window to redeem their free birthday treat. Gold members earn 1.2 Stars per dollar spent and receive at least four additional Double Star Days annually.
- Reserve (members accruing over 2,500 Stars): In addition to Green and Gold tier benefits, members at this level receive a 30-day window to redeem their free birthday treat and at least six additional Double Star Days annually. They also gain access to exclusive merchandise and curated events, including all-expenses paid trips to exciting destinations like Tokyo, Milan or Costa Rica to explore coffee culture. Reserve members earn 1.7 Stars per dollar spent.
In fiscal 2025, transactions linked to the rewards program accounted for 60% of Starbucks’ revenue.
Loyalty experts said tiered programs can drive repeat purchases and foster long-term brand loyalty, but a major downside is the added complexity. Zsuzsa Kecsmar, chief strategy officer of Antavo AI Loyalty Cloud, wrote in a Forbes column, “Introducing multiple tiers can sometimes confuse customers, especially if the tiers aren’t unique enough or the benefits and requirements are merely incremental.”
Tiered programs can also be expensive to maintain. Kognitiv, a provider of loyalty solutions, wrote in a blog entry, “If the cost of rewards outweighs the benefits of increased customer engagement and spending, you may need to rethink your approach.”Other suggestions include ensuring each tier has enough differentiation to incentive members to reach higher status levels as well as having the top tier feel exclusive.
Said Mastercard, “If that top tier gets too crowded with new members, adding another lower tier will help avoid the perception of diluting premium status.”
BrainTrust
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Discussion Questions
Will Starbucks’ shift to three-tier rewards program likely complicate or energize its loyalty efforts?
How would you sum up the benefits and drawbacks of multi-tiered loyalty programs?
Poll
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Generally, tiered programs nudge consumer behavior in terms of both loyalty and spending as consumers try to level up. And this is what Starbucks is hoping for in terms of enlarging its share of wallet among existing customers. Having a new top-tier also gives Starbucks a way of rewarding its very best customers. However, to make this work really well, Starbucks also needs to improve experience and value perceptions – which it is starting to address. No loyalty program can cut through a broken proposition.
Tiers are contrived. They don’t need to give more Stars to their top Reserve customer. Beverage consumption is a bit “capped”. Tiers are for those who truly see value in spending more to get to the next tier. In this case, not motivating “enough”.
Starbucks’ shift to a three-tier rewards structure will likely boost engagement among its most loyal customers, even if it adds some complexity for casual users. The move toward Green, Gold, and Reserve tiers — with faster earning rates, exclusive perks, and experiential rewards — signals a deliberate effort to deepen emotional connection and drive frequency, rather than just offering blanket discounts. Multi-tier programs are common in travel and hospitality because they tap into aspirational behavior, and Starbucks appears to be borrowing from that playbook to encourage customers to “level up” through more consistent engagement. That said, any tiered structure risks alienating occasional customers if the benefits feel too weighted toward heavy spenders — and early commentary suggests some consumers may perceive earning changes as a devaluation unless the experiential perks clearly resonate.
More broadly, multi-tier loyalty programs bring clear advantages and trade-offs. On the positive side, they create gamification, emotional status, and differentiated benefits that help brands reward their most valuable customers without over-discounting everyone else. They also open the door to personalization, which Starbucks explicitly says is a core goal of the redesign. The downside is complexity: shoppers need to understand where they stand, how to progress, and what the real value is — otherwise, the program risks becoming confusing or exclusionary. In retail, especially, there’s a fine line between motivating customers and overwhelming them with rules or thresholds that dilute the sense of immediate reward.
Ultimately, whether Starbucks’ three-tier approach succeeds will come down to execution and clarity. If the tiers genuinely deliver meaningful experiential value — not just incremental discounts — the structure could strengthen loyalty and frequency over time. But if the program becomes too difficult to navigate or feels overly skewed toward high spenders, it could introduce friction into what has historically been one of the industry’s most accessible loyalty ecosystems. The strongest multi-tier programs strike a balance: aspirational enough to motivate progression, but simple enough that every customer still feels valued at entry level.
The value proposition in the case of Starbucks is so painfully weak that your observations while very solid in general practice will not yield the magnitude of lift that perhaps they aspire to achieve. Indeed multiple tiers are a bit passe, less about published tiers and more about leveraging analytics, AI, Machine Learning and more to personalize the experience without artificial segments that once published fall into the background soon enough.
Simplicity is the key to success in any kind of ‘Rewards’ program, so I’m not sure reversion to a complex – or at least “not as simple” – model is a good thing; what people want, of course is to be rewarded for their own particular circumstances, and whether this will accomplish that is something the numbers will have to show.
Starbucks is in a dilemma that is somewhat of its own making (by having helped popularize premium coffee): while essentially paying people to be a customer might seem something we’d expect from a desperate retailer, in a highly competitive environment small differences help to differentiate.
Agree 100%. Keep it simple!
I don’t believe the added complexity of a 3-tiered loyalty program will be a negative for most Starbucks’ customers. If anything, the ones that feel this is too complex were likely the customers not earning a significant number of stars anyway and the program wasn’t doing anything to encourage more sales from them. On the other hand, for their loyal customers, this may incentivize them to “level up” to achieve the higher tiers. The key to that is Starbucks differentiating the Gold and Reserve tiers enough to make it worth while for the customer. Starbucks also should look at other ways they can gamify the tiers to encourage more engagement and therefore more sales!
Starbucks’ loyalty program has come full circle: from tiered, to flat, and back to tiered again. Rewarding your best customers still matters; if the perks are good, this program will likely re-energize customer loyalty.
Google claims the most expensive Starbucks drink, a crazy customized Venti Matcha Crème Frappuccino, runs about $45, but even a $5 daily coffee adds up fast. Customers that loyal deserve a reward.
I’d like to know more about the Reserve tier “all-expenses paid trips to exciting destinations like Tokyo, Milan or Costa Rica to explore coffee culture”. From what I have read online, these trips are among the exclusive opportunities offered, but they are not automatically awarded to every Reserve member. What’s up with that?
Be still my heart…Starbucks is relaunching their vaunted loyalty program on March 10th! You may have received a special note from the company who closed their sweet note by saying they like me…they really like me.
>Anyone planning to mark their calendars for what’s to come?
>Don’t we all have more important things to anticipate and plan for?
Reading into what was shared, based on your past behavior you will discover your new status.
>We will have tiers – Reserve level earns more Stars based on your value to the brand.
>Load $30+ on your app or handy reloadable gift card and get bonus stars, and you are capped at redeeming up to $2 on a purchase (got that…nope)
>Options to keep your Stars from expiring – why do they have to expire at all?
>Once a month, no up charge for a “mod”/custom order – why charge at all?
Interestingly, a brand struggling with traffic, closing stores and less traffic due to the cost of a beverage will be capping redemption options at a dollar amount – so Stars plus cash – no free orders – how customer friendly is that?
I honestly don’t get it, but they’ve got lots of brilliant people in coffee land so I have to assume they’ve researched this before going live – right?
What do you think? Did you get the same e-mail? Did you wonder what’s up? Do you think you will be more or less “loyal” to the brand post March 10th.
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Generally, tiered programs nudge consumer behavior in terms of both loyalty and spending as consumers try to level up. And this is what Starbucks is hoping for in terms of enlarging its share of wallet among existing customers. Having a new top-tier also gives Starbucks a way of rewarding its very best customers. However, to make this work really well, Starbucks also needs to improve experience and value perceptions – which it is starting to address. No loyalty program can cut through a broken proposition.
Tiers are contrived. They don’t need to give more Stars to their top Reserve customer. Beverage consumption is a bit “capped”. Tiers are for those who truly see value in spending more to get to the next tier. In this case, not motivating “enough”.
Starbucks’ shift to a three-tier rewards structure will likely boost engagement among its most loyal customers, even if it adds some complexity for casual users. The move toward Green, Gold, and Reserve tiers — with faster earning rates, exclusive perks, and experiential rewards — signals a deliberate effort to deepen emotional connection and drive frequency, rather than just offering blanket discounts. Multi-tier programs are common in travel and hospitality because they tap into aspirational behavior, and Starbucks appears to be borrowing from that playbook to encourage customers to “level up” through more consistent engagement. That said, any tiered structure risks alienating occasional customers if the benefits feel too weighted toward heavy spenders — and early commentary suggests some consumers may perceive earning changes as a devaluation unless the experiential perks clearly resonate.
More broadly, multi-tier loyalty programs bring clear advantages and trade-offs. On the positive side, they create gamification, emotional status, and differentiated benefits that help brands reward their most valuable customers without over-discounting everyone else. They also open the door to personalization, which Starbucks explicitly says is a core goal of the redesign. The downside is complexity: shoppers need to understand where they stand, how to progress, and what the real value is — otherwise, the program risks becoming confusing or exclusionary. In retail, especially, there’s a fine line between motivating customers and overwhelming them with rules or thresholds that dilute the sense of immediate reward.
Ultimately, whether Starbucks’ three-tier approach succeeds will come down to execution and clarity. If the tiers genuinely deliver meaningful experiential value — not just incremental discounts — the structure could strengthen loyalty and frequency over time. But if the program becomes too difficult to navigate or feels overly skewed toward high spenders, it could introduce friction into what has historically been one of the industry’s most accessible loyalty ecosystems. The strongest multi-tier programs strike a balance: aspirational enough to motivate progression, but simple enough that every customer still feels valued at entry level.
The value proposition in the case of Starbucks is so painfully weak that your observations while very solid in general practice will not yield the magnitude of lift that perhaps they aspire to achieve. Indeed multiple tiers are a bit passe, less about published tiers and more about leveraging analytics, AI, Machine Learning and more to personalize the experience without artificial segments that once published fall into the background soon enough.
Simplicity is the key to success in any kind of ‘Rewards’ program, so I’m not sure reversion to a complex – or at least “not as simple” – model is a good thing; what people want, of course is to be rewarded for their own particular circumstances, and whether this will accomplish that is something the numbers will have to show.
Starbucks is in a dilemma that is somewhat of its own making (by having helped popularize premium coffee): while essentially paying people to be a customer might seem something we’d expect from a desperate retailer, in a highly competitive environment small differences help to differentiate.
Agree 100%. Keep it simple!
I don’t believe the added complexity of a 3-tiered loyalty program will be a negative for most Starbucks’ customers. If anything, the ones that feel this is too complex were likely the customers not earning a significant number of stars anyway and the program wasn’t doing anything to encourage more sales from them. On the other hand, for their loyal customers, this may incentivize them to “level up” to achieve the higher tiers. The key to that is Starbucks differentiating the Gold and Reserve tiers enough to make it worth while for the customer. Starbucks also should look at other ways they can gamify the tiers to encourage more engagement and therefore more sales!
Starbucks’ loyalty program has come full circle: from tiered, to flat, and back to tiered again. Rewarding your best customers still matters; if the perks are good, this program will likely re-energize customer loyalty.
Google claims the most expensive Starbucks drink, a crazy customized Venti Matcha Crème Frappuccino, runs about $45, but even a $5 daily coffee adds up fast. Customers that loyal deserve a reward.
I’d like to know more about the Reserve tier “all-expenses paid trips to exciting destinations like Tokyo, Milan or Costa Rica to explore coffee culture”. From what I have read online, these trips are among the exclusive opportunities offered, but they are not automatically awarded to every Reserve member. What’s up with that?
Be still my heart…Starbucks is relaunching their vaunted loyalty program on March 10th! You may have received a special note from the company who closed their sweet note by saying they like me…they really like me.
>Anyone planning to mark their calendars for what’s to come?
>Don’t we all have more important things to anticipate and plan for?
Reading into what was shared, based on your past behavior you will discover your new status.
>We will have tiers – Reserve level earns more Stars based on your value to the brand.
>Load $30+ on your app or handy reloadable gift card and get bonus stars, and you are capped at redeeming up to $2 on a purchase (got that…nope)
>Options to keep your Stars from expiring – why do they have to expire at all?
>Once a month, no up charge for a “mod”/custom order – why charge at all?
Interestingly, a brand struggling with traffic, closing stores and less traffic due to the cost of a beverage will be capping redemption options at a dollar amount – so Stars plus cash – no free orders – how customer friendly is that?
I honestly don’t get it, but they’ve got lots of brilliant people in coffee land so I have to assume they’ve researched this before going live – right?
What do you think? Did you get the same e-mail? Did you wonder what’s up? Do you think you will be more or less “loyal” to the brand post March 10th.