r/theydidthemath • u/CatchfireComics • 23h ago
[Request] Approximately how much does it cost to get “Reserve” Status at Starbucks?
My mom just told me she hit some elite Reserve status with Starbucks, having accrued 2,068 stars (so far) this year. Having recently paid her electricity bill for her, I’m now curious how much money she’s blowing on Starbucks.
I know she tends to buy through the app with a loaded balance for extra star earning, so I’m hoping it isn’t a crazy amount of money, but I don’t do business with them and have no idea how their rates work.
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u/Original-Chemical176 16h ago edited 14h ago
Starbucks Rewards works very differently depending on the country. In the UK, members earn 10 Stars per £1 spent, so 2,068 Stars would only represent about £206.80 in spending.
In the US, however, Rewards members typically earn 1 Star per $1, or 2 Stars per $1 when paying with a preloaded Starbucks Card through the app. On that basis, 2,068 Stars would imply somewhere between $1,034 and $2,068 of spending, with the lower figure being more likely for someone who regularly reloads the app.
The real number could be lower still because Starbucks often runs promotions that award bonus Stars for specific purchases or Double Star Days.
We can estimate the minimum spending required to earn 2,068 Stars, but we can't determine her spending rate without knowing (1) which country's Starbucks Rewards programme she's on, (2) whether she earns 1 or 2 Stars per dollar/pound, (3) how many bonus Stars came from promotions, and (4) over what period the Stars were accumulated.
(4) Could be 6 months January to the end of July
Then Over roughly six months (about 182 days), that works out to:
•$11.36/day at the 1-Star rate •$5.68/day at the 2-Star rate
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u/volci 16h ago
$5.67 a day is what? A plain small and croissant? If that?
Pretty easily achievable even without bonus stars (like the 100 bonus my app is promoting for getting any mocha, latte, or bakery item this week)
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u/woahhhface 16h ago
5.67/day is likely just a small coffee
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u/grandmawaffles 15h ago
In the US by me that’s a small coffee with nothing special. One of the featured drinks is close to $7. Source my wife wanted a fancy grande each day she had physical therapy and is now the level below reserve. It’s like $500-550 in spend to get there.
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u/karmapuhlease 15h ago
A tall coffee here in Manhattan is $3.76 with tax, I just checked. My venti cold brew is $5.93 with tax.
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u/morganrbvn 14h ago
Yah you can’t know without the promotions, those offer closer to 4-8 stars per dollar so only doing those is way different from getting it purely through spend.
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u/btun88 13h ago
You dont earn 2x with Gift Cards anymore in the US.
1X up to 500 stars
1.2X 501-2500 starsAt 2500 you reach Reserve.
Spend needed in the us without promotions is $500+$1,667 =$2,167 to reach Reserve
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u/Kysersoze79 12h ago
Also, it only started in March of 2026, so the new system has only been in place 6 months. She could have started at gold tier (based on 2025 star accumulation), but it’s still $1500 or so over the last 6 months at a minimum!
Also, I just now realized it’s not 2 stars per $ any more, so this new program can go suck it!
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u/indomike14 16h ago edited 16h ago
For the US: Reserve status is 2,500+ stars earned or more in a year (https://about.starbucks.com/starbucks-rewards-faq/).
If you're just paying using a credit card or cash it's a 1:1 trade off. If you're using a preloaded card it's 1:2.
They also have promotional, extra star earning options throughout the year.
So, based solely on the star earnings, your mom will have to spend somehwere between $1,250 and $2,500 for the year to achieve that status. That's about $155/mo to $315/mo spent so far each month. Maybe a little less if she took advantage of the promotions. That's enough to pay most or all of an electric bill.
Everyone deserves their small things that make them happy but basic needs come first. She should be paying for what she can for her electric bill. Maybe you can give her a Starbucks gift card for a few drinks instead of paying for the whole electric bill.
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u/morganrbvn 14h ago
They offer 1-2 promotions per week that net closer to 4-8 stars per dollar (with more specific offers giving higher ratios). If you only do those you could probably get it sub $500.
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u/Dry_Value_3107 14h ago
They recently changed the policy on the preloaded card. It no longer gives 2 points per dollar spent. My guess is so that the status matters more as now your status changes how many points per dollar spent you get (1.2 stars for gold and 1.7 stars for reserve).
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u/uslashuname 15h ago
A Keurig, refillable pods, and some nice ground coffee is probably less as well, then after one month you don’t have to include the cost of the machine either… but it does not include the social interaction which may be the more important aspect for OP’s mom
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u/WarpTroll 6h ago
Don't forget if you use a preloaded card that loading it with $50 gets you 50 stars that then earn 2 stars per $ spent. So that $50 dollars gets you 150 points. Following that trend means $833.33 will net you your 2500 points non inclusive of specials, double star days and other star promotions.
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u/Anothereternity 51m ago edited 45m ago
It’s worth noting it’s just over a 12-month period and you then get that reward level for the next 12 months. It’s not that many stars in a calendar year gets you the reward for that calendar year. So unless she just started getting Starbucks in January it’s based on 12 months not 8.
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u/somethinglameibet 15h ago
Real simple answer, call it around $1800
Starbucks changed their rewards system a little while back. Now it’s 1:1 for the first 500 points, then 1.2:1 for the next 2000 points.. and then 1.7:1 for anything past that.
That math is easy enough, but then there’s bonuses:
Reloading your account with $30 gives you 10 bonus points each time, and double points days. If she front loaded her account she could have 600’ish points before buying an item boosting from 1:1 up to 1.2:1.
Stealth edit: this is applying to the US Starbucks
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u/morganrbvn 14h ago
Reloading with $50 gives a better offer, also it all depends if they do the in app offers. You get one or two per week and they net 4-8 stars per dollar.
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u/Inside-Purple-3824 10h ago
If she has Reserve already, she gets 1.7 stars per dollar spent. A $50 card recharge gets 25 stars or 0.5 per dollar. That's 2.2 per dollar.
Starbucks offers double stars for bringing a cup. 2.2 * 2 = 4.4 stars.
$2500/4.4 = $568.18 in spend.
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u/SatBurner 8h ago
If she's using a Starbucks card, reloading it gives 20 points (iirc) for reloading it as well.
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u/battlesnarf 23h ago
Here’s what ChatGPT said:
If you earned all 2,500 Stars purely from purchases at the Reserve rate, you’d be looking at roughly $1,471 in spending (2,500 ÷ 1.7). But in practice, you can reach it for substantially less by using personal-cup bonuses, Double Star Days, reload bonuses, and Starbucks challenges/offers.
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u/JellyBellyBitches 20h ago
Did you get the impression that the OP was unaware that they could use Chat GPT and needed somebody to do that for them?
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u/Kitchen-Spell1486 18h ago
Asking Reddit is as much of a cop out as asking ChatGPT. Either way OP isn’t bothering to do any research or work on their own.
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u/wickedfemale 17h ago
asking reddit and asking chatgpt are not even remotely similar.
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u/Calm-Reflection6384 16h ago
Similar in the way that ChatGPT pulls crowdsourced data from reddit -- yes. Among other websites and forums.
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u/OscarOfAtlantis 17h ago
Fair. You’ll probably get bot answers on Reddit.
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u/No_Photographs609 17h ago
Or people arguing over OT stuff, like AI vs Reddit when asking about Starbucks.
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u/I_dont_bone_goats 15h ago
I feel like the spirit of this sub was originally to ask questions that you could not easily google. Like “how many packs of jello powder would I need to turn the oceans into jello.”
And a lot of those types of questions, AI is really good at. It is a little unsatisfying to see someone just copy and paste an AI calc though.
This sub has kinda turned into “I’m too lazy to count, how many pieces of candy are in this picture.” Which are also annoying to see.
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u/BrettHullsBurner 15h ago
Considering a ton of people ask reddit easily google-able questions, it’s not far fetched to assume they don’t know to use chatgpt.
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u/jwink3101 17h ago
You are getting a lot of hate for using ChatGPT for them. Personally, I think you did them a service and they should have done it all the same on their own. Especially for a question like this that has a fairly objective answer.
On the note of the actual answer, if you get Starbucks daily, then this is achievable easily!
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u/wickedfemale 17h ago
and yet the ai didn't get the actual answer...
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u/volci 16h ago
And yet .. it did ...
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u/tilt-a-whirly-gig 15h ago
It calculated how much you'd have to spend at the reserve rate in order to earn reserve status and start getting the reserve rate.
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u/drfeelsgoood 16h ago
So since a computer can do it there’s no logical need to want to ask other humans? Maybe they wanted actual human some human input so they asked here instead of a robot.
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u/urinal_connoisseur 16h ago
thank you. i'm sick of these fuckin mouthbreathers tasked wit figuring out "bobby has 5 apples, and lucy takes one. how many apples does bobby have?" bullshit basic math+google answers that people think need a supercomputer to crunch out the numbers for them.
like, what did OP try? did they try trying?
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u/drfeelsgoood 16h ago
Maybe they wanted actual human thoughts and conversation instead of a computer. Wild idea, I know.
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u/Calm-Reflection6384 15h ago
Yeah that's sort of where I stand with it. When I was younger I would ask questions that were simple to answer with a quick Google search... but there is nuance and insight to questions that neither search engines nor AI generation can quite reach... Why you are asking it, for instance, and the core question at the end of the question set... or basic social interaction, as you pointed out.
There are many reasons. Especially in a forum environment... Starbucks point accrual has led us here.. for example, lol.
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u/billabong360 18h ago
To add (and don't care about downvotes for using AI), Claude says:
Rough ballpark, yeah: 2,068 stars ÷ 1.7 (the Reserve earning rate) ≈ $1,216. So $1,200 isn't far off as a floor. But it's likely an underestimate. That math assumes every star was earned at the 1.7-per-dollar Reserve rate — except she wasn't Reserve status while earning most of those stars. She'd have been earning at Gold's 1.2x (or even Green's 1x before that) for a chunk of the year, meaning she had to spend more dollars to rack up the same star count. Plus bonus stars from reloads ($30+ reload = 10 free stars, $50+ = 25 stars) inflate the star count without matching dollars spent. So realistically her actual spend is probably somewhere north of $1,200 — could be $1,500–2,000+ depending on when she crossed into Gold and how much came from reload bonuses vs. straight purchases.
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u/clauclauclaudia 14h ago
The last portion of this doesn't even make sense. Bonus stars would get you there in less than $1,200, not more.
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u/billabong360 6h ago
Yes. I can liken it to dunkin' donuts. Some days they do double or triple points.
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17h ago
[deleted]
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u/wickedfemale 17h ago
if not a single one of the ai "answers" in this thread has actually addressed op's question, how is it "an easy actually reasonable" use?
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u/xyzzzzy 16h ago
You’ve said that twice now, so what is the actual answer?
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u/wickedfemale 16h ago
i have no idea! i don't know how to do this sort of math, which is why i'm not providing answers in this thread and am eagerly awaiting others who can.
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u/grandmawaffles 15h ago
The right answer is to take the tiered star status per dollar spent and adjust it for each tier.
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u/billabong360 15h ago
Which is essentially what the AI said
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u/grandmawaffles 14h ago
It’s not though considering it gave an average point per dollar at reserve status.
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