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TD and Starbucks Expand Partnership: Link Your Cards for More Rewards

TD and Starbucks have announced a major evolution in their loyalty partnership, offering 50% bonus rewards simply by linking their cards and accounts.

Written by Ricky Zhang

On March 1, 2022

Read time 7 mins

The partnership between Starbucks and TD Canada, first launched in 2020, is now expanding.

TD cardholders can earn accelerated Starbucks Stars by linking their TD credit or debit card to their Starbucks Rewards account, while also earning additional TD Rewards or Aeroplan points on Starbucks purchases. 

Earn 50% More Starbucks Stars as a TD Cardholder

Starbucks Rewards is the loyalty program for Starbucks. The program allows members to earn “Stars” through purchases and co-branded credit cards, which can in turn be redeemed for free food and beverages. 

Normally, Starbucks Stars can be earned on your Starbucks purchases as follows:

  • Earn 2 Starbucks Stars per dollar spent upon loading your Starbucks Card
  • Earn 1 Starbucks Star per dollar spent upon paying for your purchase using a linked card in the Starbucks app

With the expanded partnership between Starbucks and TD, eligible TD cardholders will can earn 50% more Stars upon linking their TD payment method, enabling them to reach their next reward sooner. 

Therefore, TD cardholders would enjoy the following earning rates:

  • Earn 3 Starbucks Stars per dollar spent upon loading your Starbucks Card with your TD card
  • Earn 1.5 Starbucks Stars per dollar spent upon paying for your purchase using a linked TD card in the Starbucks app

The following TD credit cards, along with TD Visa Debit cards, are eligible:

Earn 50% More TD Rewards or Aeroplan Points at Starbucks

In addition to earning bonus Stars on the Starbucks side, TD cardholders who link their cards to their Starbucks Rewards account will also earn bonus TD Rewards or Aeroplan points for Starbucks purchases.

The number of bonus points that you can earn will depend on the type of TD credit card you have. These bonus points are in addition to standard earning rates on your card, whether you’re earning Aeroplan points or TD Rewards points.

For example, the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card normally earns 1x Aeroplan points on dining purchases. Therefore, when paying for Starbucks or reloading your Starbucks Card using this card, you’ll earn a total of 1.5x Aeroplan points, which is a 50% bonus on top of the usual earning rate.

Similarly, with the TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite Card, you’d normally earn 3 TD Rewards points per dollar spent on general dining. With a Starbucks purchase after linking your card, you’ll earn a total of 4.5 TD Rewards points per dollar spent at Starbucks.

While TD Visa Debit cards are eligible to earn 50% bonus Stars upon linking, they aren’t eligible for 50% bonus points on the TD side. 

Convert TD Rewards Points to Starbucks Stars

With the expanded partnership, TD Rewards cardholders will be able to redeem points for Starbucks Stars – effectively converting TD Rewards points into Stars. You’ll be able to redeem a minimum of 700 TD Rewards points over into your Starbucks Rewards account.

The conversion ratio is subject to further confirmation, and we’ll be sure to update this section when we learn more.

However, the value proposition in these types of partnership redemptions tends not to be strongest, so it’s quite likely that the best way to use TD Rewards points will still be to redeem for travel via Expedia for TD at 0.5 cents per point (cpp).

TD Aeroplan cardholders can also redeem their rewards for Starbucks by taking advantage of the Aeroplan & Starbucks partnership, although this is again an inferior redemption method compared to redeeming Aeroplan points for travel.

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How to Redeem Starbucks Stars

With TD cardholders set to earn 50% bonus Starbucks Stars, it’s useful to figure out the best way to redeem Stars for optimum value on your Starbucks visits.

Starbucks Stars can be redeemed for free Starbucks food and drink as follows:

  • 25 Stars for beverage modifications
  • 50 Stars for any hot brewed coffee, hot steeped tea, or bakery item
  • 150 Stars for any handcrafted beverage (such as a latte or blended beverage), hot breakfast item, or packaged snack item 
  • 200 Stars for any packaged salad, lunch sandwich, or packaged protein box
  • 400 Stars for select merchandise or at-home coffee

The optimal redemption is 50 Stars for one hot coffee or tea. It takes approximately $25 to earn 50 Stars, while brewed coffee costs ~$2.35, thus locking in a return of 9.4% – the highest out of all the redemption categories.

As a TD cardholder, it takes only $16.67 to earn 50 Stars, so your rate of return increases to 14%!

Larger redemptions, such as a latte, would cost 150 Stars, which requires approximately $75 of spending to earn. At an average cost of ~$5.25 per latte, this is a much lower return on investment.

Additionally, keep in mind that you can redeem Stars for any size of beverage, so ordering the largest Venti size will always maximize your value (as well as your jitters!)

Starbucks Plans to Tokenize Starbucks Stars

Interestingly, Starbucks has announced that its partnership with TD is the program’s first step in exploring the process of tokenizing Starbucks Stars using blockchain and other types of innovative technology.

The chain currently already has payment partnerships with PayPal and Bakkt, allowing customers to reload their Starbucks Card with a range of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others.

As we’ve discussed previously, blockchain technology has the potential to transform the loyalty industry, and Starbucks hopes to be on the forefront of that innovation with its future plans for Starbucks Rewards.

Conclusion

TD and Starbucks have announced a significant evolution in their loyalty partnership, allowing Starbucks Rewards members and TD cardholders to reciprocally earn 50% bonus rewards simply by linking their cards and loyalty accounts.

In addition, Starbucks’s announcement that it intends to adopt blockchain technology and tokenize Stars in the near future makes for some very interesting implications.

With these two banking and coffee giants teaming up, along with their mutual partner and loyalty giant Aeroplan, could we begin to see Canada’s first nationwide blockchain-based loyalty ecosystem beginning to take shape?

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