COSTA fans are only just realising the chain is making a big change to its rewards scheme in weeks – and they’re furious.
The company currently gives customers a free drink after collecting eight beans – one after every drink.
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But from August 1, coffee fans will have to collect 10 before being offered a free beverage.
It means diners will have to buy two more coffees at one of the chain’s 2,600 outlets before bagging a freebie.
Shoppers were left fuming after the chain made the announcement, but some are only just realising – and they’re not happy.
Taking to Twitter today, one said: “Why yous changing your eight beans = a free coffee to now 10 beans = a free coffee.”
They added: “So you have to spend like around £35 to £50 on coffee to get one free drink now!! Disgusting.”
Another said: “Changing from eight beans to 10.. prices already ridiculous for a coffee and you make this worse.”
Meanwhile a third furious diner said: “Proper stingy now you need 10 beans rather than eight for the free coffee!!
“How much you turning over I think you’re doing all right c’mon.”
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Susanah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, previously told The Sun Costa’s move was “not a surprise” due to the rising cost of labour and packaging costs for coffee roasters.
However, Marc Gander of the Consumer Action Group, added: “These [reward schemes] are meant to encourage customer loyalty towards Costa Coffee.
“Costa, like most other stores, hasn’t understood that it is they who should be loyal to their customers and they probably reckon that the Costa loyalty is too costly for them but not for their customers.”
In July last year, Costa hiked its prices again, taking the the price of some drinks soaring past £6.
In April, the chain was slammed for slapping a 10p “surcharge” on the price of drinks at NHS outlets.
Costa has defended the changes to its rewards scheme.
A spokeswoman said: “We’ve made some changes to Costa Club, including how many Beans customers need to collect before they can redeem a free drink in store.
“They’ll still collect one Bean for every handcrafted drink they buy in a store or from a Costa Express machine but will need to collect 10 Beans to get a free drink.”
She added that customers will continue to collect an extra Bean in store when using a reusable cup.
In other news, people are just realising about a Costa trick to get a free coffee sooner – and it could save you £15.
Plus, we tested a number of canned coffees including Starbucks and Costa – and a supermarket version came out on top.
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This post first appeared on thesun.co.uk
