Costa Coffee is set to shake-up its loyalty scheme from 29 September and account holders with the chain are not pleased about the new system.
The high street coffee shop giant's loyalty account holders will be moved to a new membership scheme and instead of earning 'points', customers will instead be given 'beans' based on purchases.
Costa says that their new scheme means that shoppers can earn freebies faster but, controversially, there are no rewards being dished out for anything other than drinks.
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Consumer experts are urging fans of the hot drinks giant to cash in any points while they can before their account is changed to the new format.
Once a Costa Club member has earned eight beans, customers will then receive a voucher to redeem a free barista-crafted beverage of any size in store.
Every time you bring in a reusable cup into stores, you can get two beans per time.
On social media, one Costa fan worked out the differences: "Currently if you have £6 worth of points, which allows you to buy 2.26 cups of a regular drink such as a Large Americano in a reusable cup at £2.65, under the new scheme this converts to 1.87 cups @ 40 points = 1 bean, and 8 beans to a cup. When this scheme goes ahead it equals to a 20% reduction in rewards currently earned, this is particularly painful if you have a large rewards saved up, it goes to prove loyal doesn’t pay."
A Costa Coffee spokesperson said: “Our Costa Club rewards scheme is one of the most competitive loyalty programmes in retail, but it’s vital that we grow and evolve our scheme to offer more rich rewards for our members – we ultimately wanted to thank our existing customers for their loyalty to Costa Coffee with the most generous scheme yet!
“Not only will Costa Club members be competitively rewarded for the purchases they make, but using our Costa Club app, they can skip the queue or pay via contactless. We hope customers enjoy the updated scheme and collecting Beans - taking a well-earned break out of their busy days to enjoy a cup of their favourite Costa Coffee.”
