Yay! My second win from the Starbucks for Life contest is a free tall coffee. Seemingly, I’m behind the winning curve with others getting a variety of small goodies. With purchases and daily free codes, this is my second win in over 15 attempts.
Not so fast. Don’t just yet try to get a free entry for the Win Starbucks for Life contest. You’ll see this message about the site being down.
What would you do if you won Starbucks for Life? The first two winners have been announced.
I think I’d have a nervous breakdown – from the shock of winning and eventually from digesting all that caffeine. Or I could gain weight from daily caramel macchiatos.
Don’t forget to enter today!
Wait, what was that again?
So if you’ve been entering the Win Starbucks for Life contest, you’ve experienced the CAPTCHAs getting harder and harder. In the first few days, the image-based CAPTCHAs used to verify your contest entry were of one group of numbers like an address on a house.
Today, the CAPTCHAs evolved to two words, not just one grouping of numbers, and one of the words is usually gibberish. Not only is one word gibberish, the look is so distorted that it’s really hard to discern the letters. So I switched to the audio mode of the CAPTCHA. The system reads aloud a set of numbers, and you have to type in those numbers. Sounds easier right? Here’s the audio CAPTCHA I was given.
Can you solve this audio CAPTCHA?! Say what???
For the next month, you can win Starbucks food or drinks for life if you can face they enemy known as “bah humbug.” I mean it’s really easy to enter the Win Starbucks for Life contest. Heck, you don’t even need to make a purchase to enter, but you do have to overcome your own lethargy.
Say you do make a purchase at Starbucks, don’t just walk away from the register after paying. Ask for your printed receipt that has a contest entry code at the bottom. That’s the only way to enter when making a transaction at Starbucks – the code on the receipt. With the receipt, you have to manually enter that 22-digit code at starbucks.com/play along with your email address and an increasingly challenging CAPTCHA code. Bah humbug!
Then you need to acknowledge the conditions of the contest and opt in/out of a Starbucks newsletter (each and everytime you enter). And I’m guessing with up to two entries per day, these codes expire each day, so you shouldn’t be lazy and check your codes tomorrow. Do it today. Bah humbug!
As of Starbucks iOS mobile app version 3.2, I can’t see a way to virtually retrieve codes found on the printed receipts. The codes can only be found on old school receipts that you remembered to ask for and didn’t throw away. Bah humbug!
But remember, you don’t have to purchase anything at Starbucks to enter the contest. You can get a free code online daily… if you’re willing to provide your first name, last name, email address, and mailing address each and every day. Then you may need to wait up to one hour for your code to arrive via email. Don’t let your full inbox make you forget about this code! Bah humbug!
But maybe, just maybe, you do win free food or drinks from Starbucks for the next 30 years. All is forgiven right? Bah humbug!
…a Peppermint Brownie Cake Pop. Nope, not the free Starbucks for Life grand prize. Seems like every Starbucks Rewards member got a free code, but I didn’t win. My win came from an iced coffee purchase and entering in the long code on the bottom of the receipt.
Playing this contest is kinda weird. First you go to the Starbucks Play site. Then you enter in a long, long code (or copy & paste from an email). Then you have to answer a CAPTCHA-like question.
Getting past this CAPTCHA on a mobile device, you then erase the glitter to see what’s underneath. On mobile Safari, don’t get too excited with your swipes and trigger a back swipe in the browser.
Most times, you’ll see the consolation entry for a chance at the Starbucks for Life giveaway. Hopefully, you do see a prize or two (like a cake pop) come your way.
Up to two entries per day, and I don’t know if the codes expire at the end of the day, meaning be sure to enter your codes right away. You can also request a code without making a purchase. Good luck!
Yes, Starbucks is doing another free-coffee-refills-in-January tumbler, and yes, they are now available in Hawaii. There seemed to be a slight delay in Hawaii, but the special $30 tumblers did release over the Thanksgiving weekend. You may have to try different locations, but when you find them, you may find a lot of them.
The small location in Enchanted Lakes, Kailua, had an entire basket of these available. Check out the Starbucks Melody blog post about the restrictions and limitations of this tumbler.
It’s getting there. I’m not sure when the new Starbucks Drive Thru in Kahala Mall is supposed to open, but it might beat the end of 2014. I thought this new store was going to be more in the corner of the Kahala Mall parking lot, but it’s on the side of the mall.
And according to the Pacific Business News, this location is only a drive thru. You can’t walk up and order a drink. That’s kinda too bad since the inside Starbucks location is typically swamped, and a second location would offer some relief.
After gagging on my first (icded) Starbucks Chestnut Praline Latte, my second experience with a hot CPL was much better. This drink is definitely better hot than cold. You can smell the spices and appreciate the scents accentuating the mild nutty flavors. And without a straw for this hot CPL, I wasn’t concerned about sucking up and gagging on a praline crumb sunken on the bottom of the drink.
So if you haven’t yet sampled the CPL, my suggestions is try it hot but still be wary of a wayward praline crumb. 🙂
Even if you peeked and saw the oodles of cups, mugs, and tumblers Starbucks is offering in its Dot Colleciton, there’s still more out there. You can see and buy them all online.
Hey, who peeked?!? The boxes at Starbucks explicitly say no peeking until November 12. Today’s still Veterans Day, November 11.
But if your Starbucks did set up their Holiday display just a tad early, it may look like this…
Or you could go to starbucks.com/shop for a preview as well. You can say this much, Starbucks is going all out with its Dot Collection for 2014. I lost count on all the cups, tumblers, and travelers offered, but I am liking the Black Stripes tumbler.
Sounds worse that it was, but it’s the truth. Upon my first sip of a cold Chestnut Praline Latte, I sucked in a praline crumb (which I wasn’t expecting) and coughed and hacked it out. I just wasn’t expecting a hard item in my CPL so it caught me off guard.
The drink itself isn’t bad. It’s very nutty and kinda vanilla-ish (to me but I guess that would be the caramelized chestnut and spice flavors). It seems like I’ve tasted a variation of this drink before in the past. Not overly sweet like the Pumpkin Spice Latte or the Salted Caramel Mocha. I haven’t tried the hot version and not all stores are selling the CPL before the official November 12 launch.
When you take your first sip of a CPL, watch out for them praline crumbs. 😉