About 15 years ago I was working in NYC and I would take advantage of the free refills that Starbucks had for drip coffee. The offer was really meant for people sitting in the store but I would buy coffee in the morning and then bring my cup back around 1 or 2p for another cup. Apparently in NYC, they weren’t allowed to actually refill the cup for health code reasons or something. So they’d throw out the cup and give you a new one. That’s when I realized there was a loophole here.
I kept five cups and brought them home. Then I started bringing one in the morning to Starbucks and I’d get a free “refill”. I’d do this every day and I’d end up with 5 gross paper Starbucks cups at work and then I’d bring them home on Friday and repeat the next week. I did this for months, not paying for coffee at all, until one day I brought in my cup and handed it to the barista for a refill only to realize that all of the cups behind the counter were different. It was getting close to the holidays and they’d switched to their holiday logo cups. Well, color me embarrassed. I started paying for coffee again after that. It was a good run though.
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In this economy.. this shouldn’t be a confession it should be a r/LifeProTips 😂
I did this too! Only for a week as a tourist though but I saved so much money 😂
I see this as a personality trait. I don’t like it when people feel entitled and take advantage of people or businesses. No, I don’t think Starbucks had a negative impact from it. But the fact that you thought you were entitled to take advantage of a loophole to get yourself free coffee says a lot about you as a person. You are a taker, selfish, and put yourself above everyone else. Probably in all your relationships…. personal, work, etc. The world had all kinds of people, which is great. I steer clear of people like you.
Well played
Pretty sure homeless people do this at mcdonalds
The easier thing about it is the employees give zero shit and they get a cup of coke by themselves
Nice. 👍
My husband always attempts a 50¢ refill.
👏
Ex Starbucks worker here: We know people did this. It was irritating if they were annoying about it or if our manager was near (bc then we had to give a fuck), but other than those cases we really didn’t give a fuck.
Why are you keeping all the cups throughout the week? You need one to exchange? What is the point of the other four?
How did you do this for month? Store opens, Op “id like my refill”. We just opened there was never a fill yet.
Month of this, every employee would know you and know you never pay.
Good on you. Drip coffee should be free anyways. Let the customers ordering caramel frappecinos or matcha lattes sponsor the peasants who just want a cup of coffee. Oh and btw, Starbucks has one of the worst drip coffees and it’s intentional (so you buy more costly stuff).
My uncle used to do this with bags of popcorn at the movie theatre back in the day. He would keep his bag from the past visit, purchase a ticket, and then approach the concessions stand and request a popcorn refill and offer them his old empty bag in exchange. Same concept
It worked well until an employee pointed out that his bag was an outdated design and that he couldn’t give him a free refill.
I will say you probably could have gotten around the awkwardness of the design switch by saying “Oh, I expected to pay for the refill I just thought you offered a bring your own cup discount I just called it a refill as you don’t need to provide me with a new cup” given a lot of businesses now have programs that offer you like 20 cents off a drink if you bring your own cup as an environment saving initiative. They may commend you for saving your old used disposable cup if you could reframe it that way.
Six months of free coffee is 100% worth the one embarrassing interaction though!
But then you have to drink Starbucks coffee.
And what’s the point of saving five cups? You could have easily done the same thing with a single cup.
Nothing wrong or bad here, but honestly you’re no master criminal either. The store does not give two fucks about free refills and no one is checking anyways
So to anyone contemplating this “scam” go ahead, it’s not gonna catch up to you
This goes hard
I used to work in a movie theater and a lady brought in a popcorn tub for a free refill, but we weren’t using that design anymore. I told her that free refills are only good for the same day and she got mad at me. She said “but I’ve always done it before and no one said anything” – yeah because they didn’t know, lol. Then she bought another tub and said “I’ll just bring this one next time”.
Congratulations. You got free garbage.
I worked for starbucks in Seattle back then and had a customer that did this. We all knew what he was up to, but he was nice to talk to and tipped on his free coffee so we didn’t mind. Honestly I’m sure your store knew and appreciated thar you didn’t make a huge deal about anything. We’re all just people trying to get by.
I told my coworker about the free refill and saved him $12 a day. He used to buy 3 cold brews everyday from Starbucks. He felt bad for cheating them until I reminded him its Starbucks dude.
Let’s call a spade a spade. Title should be, “I stole coffee from Starbucks for about 6 months”
Whether the coffee was going to be thrown out, Starbucks charges too much, the coffee isn’t good, etc. isn’t relevant.
Not that I care or that most people in reddit will care. There’s something about taking advantage of corporations that Reddit loves.
with all they charge for all the other drinks at starbucks, im pretty sure if they just gave out free drip coffee to people any time they wanted it and charged for everything else, theyd still do fine.
I did this with iced coffee. Trenta clear plastic cup.
Did something similar with chipotle. If you didn’t have enough on your gift card to pay for your meal on he app, you would just get it for free.
When I worked at Starbucks and people brought the cup from a different day (date on the sticker) for a hot drip coffee I ALWAYS refilled it. We’d have to brew fresh coffee every 30 minutes. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH HOT COFFEE GETS DUMPED DOWN THE DRAIN
everyone got free refills. Idc if your cup was from last month and crusty as hell.
Not worth it.
I used to go to a coffee shop with a loyalty card they’d stamp after every purchase and after every 8 you get a free drink. I’d always ask them to freshly ink the stamp so it isn’t faded and they’d always say sure then give me my stamp…..I’d then press my thumb into the wet ink and stamp the rest of the card. You’d easily get all the stamps from it.
So was getting half off coffee until I moved away.
The Aven app gives you free Starbucks $5 every week. I’m sure it’s stealing my data but I don’t really care and I like free coffee. Obligatory I have a code if you want one.
Do they still do refills?
So you stole coffee from Starbucks – gotcha.
Keep playing this game! Good for you!
You and every single homeless person with access to a Starbucks. We didn’t give a single shit if you wanted free burnt bean water.
Starbucks dumps so much coffee down the drain. What you did was water conservation!
I keep a large soft drink cup from McDonalds in my car for free refills on the go 🤪
Get the free refill but leave them a tip!
So you are bragging about how you stole coffee. How about being a responsible adult and pay for what you get?
I lived in New York during this time period and also beside a small Iranian corner shop that had a refill option for regulars (they would just give you one if you brought up your cup) and the coffee was 10/10! I miss NYC. My wife refuses to move back.
as a starbucks barista, this is genius lmao
lol that’s actually hilarious 😭 kinda genius tbh… totally took advantage of a loophole until the holiday cups exposed u 😂 it really was a good run!
Llamar barista a quien te pone un café en el Starbucks me ha hecho gracia.
When will Starbucks do something better for the environment than this disposable plastic situation?
What did the barista say to you? What was your reply?
Damn
you know what, hell yeah dude
Free Starbucks is still over priced!
☕️🤮
I thought they only give refills to people who stay in store, using the provided glassware? That’s how all my local stores are now. No paper cups for dine in.
You should have bought a holiday cup too, continue the coffee grind!
When I worked at a hospital with a Starbucks I did this because it was encouraged as a perk for the workers who kept the hospital running.
Then they got a new manager and he said once we left the shop no more. The older employees didn’t give a fuck though and often wouldn’t charge me for my afternoon coffee break.
Refills are for same store visits only. So you’ll probably get denied by some
This is peak NYC ingenuity finding a loophole optimizing it and riding it out until the branding changed. Respect the hustle! holiday cups really came in like the IRS
Sonic used to have a survey you could fill out on the receipt to get a free 44 oz drink. I’d do the survey and go to Sonic, and just get the free drink. They’d bring it out, and even though it cost me nothing, they’d give me another receipt with a survey for a free 44 oz drink. Wash, rinse repeat. Did this nearly every day for a year, until Sonic finally stopped putting the survey on the receipt
I worked at Starbucks and there was a guy who did this. It was annoying
I used to do the same thing with iced tea refills at the on campus Panera when I was desperately poor in college. They had a little drink station separate from the counter so all I had to do was walk up there and fill the old cup I carried in my backpack to “refill “.
The only downside here is that you had to drink Starbucks
I know right. I can’t count the number of Baristas that just won’t let me pay. They just say it’s on them. I kind of love it.
I had a roommate in college that did this at our on-campus starbucks. At any one point she would have 10+ starbucks cups in our dorm of various milk curdle stages🤢
She would rinse one out in the morning and be on her way. Eventually the starbucks employees caught on and started writing the date on everybody’s cup
As a Starbucks employee, you should keep doing it. The ceo made $94 million in 4 months. Scam the man 😭
Thats thievery. Everyone else is paying the cost of your coffee. Why be a freeloader?
I had a GF years ago who did this until the Taco Bell she frequented started putting the sale date on cups.
This is hilarious
Monster!
My sister in law would wash her Starbucks cups and reuse them repeatedly.
Good for you. Why not.
I did this at Taco Bell. 32 oz plastic cup for several months, finally an employee informed me that the free refill only applies to this same visit that the drink was purchased, I acted surprised by this revelation
I used to do this too but my 2 local Starbucks charged .50 for a refill 🙁
Ex worker here. We had homeless people come in at 5 fucking AM right at open doing this. Gave them the coffee anyway.
If you knew how much black coffee gets dumped every day there you would not feel bad.
Ooooooh I’m telling
My grandfather used to do this 17 or so years ago, he would buy a latte for my grandma and then bring his cup in for a refill, he didn’t buy coffee for himself for awhile
Anyone remember when Graveyardgirl absolutely lost it because they stopped giving her free refills of her fancy drinks? Driving around a Porsche and crying over a $8 drink.