Announced a few months ago, Starbucks and Chase have finally launched their new co-branded Starbucks Visa rewards credit card, which is integrated with the Starbucks Rewards loyalty program. Customers earn Starbucks Stars on all of their purchases, which they then can redeem for food and beverage purchases at over 8,000 Starbucks locations.
"It’s important to us to make earning Rewards as easy for our customers as possible, and the Starbucks Rewards Visa Card is a powerful tool for us to do that because of how easily it fits into their daily lives," said Matt Ryan, executive vice president and chief strategy officer for Starbucks, in a press release. "This credit card also makes every day more rewarding for Starbucks and Chase customers through the ability to quickly earn Stars and benefits - including more food and beverage Rewards for any occasion."
The Starbucks Visa allows cardholders to earn different levels of points on any purchase they make, whether or not it's at a Starbucks. Use the Starbucks Visa to load money onto your Starbucks Card within the Starbucks mobile app, and you'll get one star per dollar loaded. That's on top of the two stars per dollar that you get when you pay with the Starbucks Card. Got that? Use your credit card to load your loyalty card and pay for your coffee with the loyalty card for those two stars.
The amount of points you can earn on a non-Starbucks purchase is pretty slim. For every four dollars you spend outside of a Starbucks, you'll get one star. So outside purchases are worth one-quarter of a star.
"We want to give cardmembers who can’t live without their Starbucks beverage an easy way to earn more Rewards," said Jennifer Roberts, head of Digital Products for Chase, in a press release. "The Starbucks Rewards Visa Card lets them earn Stars on every purchase they make so their next cup is that much more rewarding.
The Visa card comes with other perks, including eight barista-selected food or beverage rewards. Visa cardholders also get instant Starbucks Rewards Gold Status, which includes access to monthly double star-earning days, a free birthday rewards, free in-store refills and a personalized gold card. Perhaps more importantly, you earn rewards for every 125 stars you earn.
The card has a couple of bonus offers tied to it too. Cardholders get 250 stars the first time they use the Visa card to load money onto their Starbucks loyalty card. Also, new cardmembers can get 2,500 stars--or 20 food and beverage items--if they spend $500 in purchases during the first three months they have the card.
The Visa card does have a $49 annual fee, which is probably about the equivalent of 15 tall lattes, so applicants should take that into consideration to see whether or not the amount of rewards they'd likely earn is enough to offset that cost.
Take a careful look at the fees and terms for this Visa card before you apply. Along with the annual fee are fees for balance transfers, cash advances, foreign transactions, late payments and returned payments.
The interest rate varies from 17.24% to 24.24%, depending on creditworthiness. Even the better interest rate for this card is on the higher end of the scale, so whether or not you're likely to carry a balance is another thing to keep in mind when considering to apply for this card. Racking up the stars for free coffee beverages might be great, but not if your latte habit will put you into debt that offsets the rewards you earn.
