Chase Starbucks Credit Card Review (2022.12 Update: Discontinued)

physixfan 2022-12-30 2022-12-30

2022.12 Update: This card seems discontinued. Also, the Stars will devalue in 2023.2.13, see announcement.

2019.3 Update: The new offer is now 6,500 Stars, worth about $260… But still not recommend to apply.

2018.7 Update: The new offer is now 4,500 Stars. BTW, data points show that this card is affected by the Chase 5/24 rule.

Application Link

Benefits

Complimentary Starbucks Gold status. Personally I don’t think it is useful. The most important benefit is that you can redeem for a free drink with 125 Stars. Considering a free drink is worth about $5, the value of a Star is about $0.04.
6,500 Stars offer: earn 6,500 Stars after spending $500 in 3 months. These 6,500 Stars is equivalent to 52 free drinks, and they are worth about $260.
Earn 250 Stars the first time you use your this credit card to digitally load your registered Starbucks Card in your App. These 250 Stars is equivalent to 2 free drinks, and they are worth about $10.
Earn 1 Star for every $1 you digitally load to your registered Starbucks Card on your App with this credit card. That’s about 4% in return if you value a free drink as $5. (The official website says “up to 3 Stars”, but remember you can always earn 2 Stars in Starbucks with or without this credit card. So this card can only provide you 1 extra Star when loading.)
Earn 1 Star for every $4 you spend everywhere. That’s about 1% in return if you value a free drink as $5.
8 Barista Picks per year (12 months period beginning 45 days following the opening of your account). Note that the Barista Pick will expire in 30 days, so you can not collect and use them together.
The Stars will not expire if you have this card.

Disadvantages

Annual fee $49, NOT waived for first year.
It has foreign transaction fee, so it’s not a good choice outside the US.
If you don’t keep this card any more, the Stars will expire in 6 months, and you can not postpone the expiration date.

Recommended Application Time

[5/24 Rule] If you have 5 or more new accounts opened in the past 24 months, Chase will not approve your application on this card, no matter how high your credit score is. The number of new accounts includes all credit card accounts, not only Chase accounts. See this post for details about how to possibly bypass this rule.
This product is available to you if you do not have this card and have not received a new cardmember bonus for this card in the past 24 months. Note that what matters here is the time you got the sign-up bonus, not the time you open the account or close the account.
Don’t apply for more than 2 Chase credit cards within 30 days, it’s highly likely that you will get rejected.
We recommend you to apply for this card after you have a credit history for more than a year.

Summary

Considering the amount of the sign-up bonus and the rewards structure, if it is a no annual fee card, then it is OK. But it has a $49 annual fee? Are you joking Starbucks?! The conclusion is: don’t apply! Don’t apply! DON’T APPLY!

Recommended Downgrade Options

You can not downgrade this card to any card with no annual fee, so I suggest you close it when you don’t want to keep it any longer.

After Applying

Call 800-436-7927 to check Chase application status. This is an automated telephone line, and the information has the following meanings: Receive decision in 2 weeks means your application is probably approved; Receive decision in 7-10 days means your application is probably rejected; Receive decision in 30 days simply means your application requires further review and there’s nothing to tell you for now.
Chase reconsideration backdoor number: 888-270-2127 or 888-609-7805. Call it if you didn’t get approve immediately. Your personal information will be acquired and they will then review it. You seldom answer questions, instead, just enjoy the music and then you get approved or rejected, or further information is needed to be hand in to the branch or faxed.