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Unfortunately, the quick deal we posted yesterday for a $20 Starbucks gift card for $10 has sold out. However, a consolation prize might be the chance to win some free coffee. George over at Travel Blogger Buzz found a way to game the Starbucks summer game. His method was reported in detail at Extreme Hotel Deals last night. As I was completing the steps, I believe Starbucks might have begun capping this, but you may still be able to win a gold star or two or some coffee. And I don’t know about you, but when I travel domestically, I make some Starbucks stops.
The Game
Starbucks is running a summer game. There are challenges like “Spend $X each time for Y number of times” or “Make 3 transactions on Thursday afternoons that fall on odd-number dates” or things like that which require you to go to Starbucks and spend money. But George figured out that you can play online for free — and you can (possibly) get quite a few entries.
First, sign up for the game here.
It will give you 3 free plays to start (see the “3” in the top right”. Click “Play” to “shake the coffee”.
Then you’ll “move ahead” some number of spaces on a gameboard.
You might win a coffee or a gold star….or more likely, it will give you some encouraging philosophical message about enjoying your summer. Once you finish your three free plays, you’ll see this screen — you’re looking for that fine white font on yellow background that says “Click here” after “No purchase necessary”. While there is no purchase necessary, laser vision is apparently a requirement. It’s easier to see if you click and drag to highlight.
That brings you to a form for “another way to play”. You should be able to fill out this form 2 times for each game in the drop-down menu.
This will email you a link for another free play. I was able to play those two plays for the first two games,
After I played about 4 more times, it started shutting me down and giving me this message:
However, it was my mistake. Here’s the secret: After you have taken your two “shakes” to move forward on the game board, scroll to the bottom and fine the “No purchase – click here” button again. I was just going back to the same page for the form, but when I started using the “click here” at the bottom of the game board, I was able to start playing again. You can easily collect a bunch of stars and may win other prizes — I haven’t finished the game, but comments at Travel Blogger Buzz and Extreme Hotel Deals lead me to believe it can be completed in about an hour of play and many people seemed happy with their results.
Bottom line
I didn’t finish the game, but it seems like you can win some coffee. Getting coffee for free beats paying for coffee. It’s easy to do and a nice Wednesday afternoon way to kill some time if you’re bored :-).
H/T: Travel Blogger Buzz and Extreme Hotel Deals
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I played couple of times and I got 11 stars enough to get me to bronze level and unlimited free refills so that’s worth something.
Man, I have to agree with a lot of the other comments here. I put a sad amount of time into this for what I’ve gotten out of it. So far a total of 3 stars, completed all “challenges”, and am stalled out about halfway through the final section. Very disappointing. I was thinking surely for playing all the way through they would give you something but from what I’m reading in the comments that’s not true either…
I realized early on in playing the game that you could “play” all the challenges. I made exactly 1 in-store purchase – all the rest were game plays online. I finished the game in 63 moves, won a whopping 13 stars, and that’s it – done and dusted.
As for how long it takes for the emails to show up, sometimes right away for daily and challenge plays, sometimes hours for them. Seemed random. Might have something to do with how many are playing at a particular time.
But did you know you don’t have to fill out the form completely? You can just type something like your house number and first letter of your street and the first letter of your city. You do have to select the state, and I believe you have to input the full 5 digit zip. Time-saver!
I was able to play 80% the games on the scroll down menu and won total 3 star and reach to level 4 but couldn’t finish the game.
[…] you might be able to play their summer game to earn “Stars” without a purchase. Frequent Miler has the […]
I followed the instructions and it still didn’t give me extra plays.
I finished the game with legit plays. I won nothing, just a few “You won 1 star” spaces along the way. In total, I won maybe half a coffee?
I think this is very YMMV. I’ve been trying to claim extra no purchase necessary entries each day and it keep telling me I’ve exceeded my quota for the day even if it is my first time filling out the form. :/