If you thought Starbucks had lost its mind when it introduced the $7 cup of coffee, its latest gift card is sure to have your jaw hitting the floor. Available only on luxury flash-sale website Gilt, Starbucks is selling the limited-edition $450 Starbucks Metal Card made of solid steel.
It's just what the world was missing. A Starbucks gift card that can double as a bullet-proof vest that costs more than your average car payment. Starbucks is only making 5,000 of them, which seems like a lot to me. For a metal gift card that can only get me Starbucks stuff. Aren't we worried about a double-dip recession? Who is going to buy these things???
The company says the card costs $50 to make, and it comes with $400 toward Starbucks purchases -- hence the hefty price tag. You also get a My Starbucks Rewards Gold Level membership, which gives you a free birthday drink and a free drink or snack after you get 12 stars. I'm sorry Starbucks, but for $450, I'm gonna buy my own birthday drink. (And it will probably be one that has a little booze in it. Because, you know, birthdays.)
With $7 cups of coffee and $450 gift cards on the menu, it makes me wonder what exactly Starbucks is thinking. Is there a market for this kind of thing out there? I don't actually know. There must be. But I'm not part of that market. To me, this is excessive.
"This is a card for the 1%," cultural anthropologist Robbie Blinkoff told USA Today. "It's all about status, and to tell you the truth, I don't know if I'd want to be seen with one of these."
The cards go on sale Thursday for Starbucks rewards members, and Friday for the rest of us. I mean the rest of you. Whoever you are.
Would you buy the $450 Starbucks Metal Gift Card?
Image via Starbucks
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Comments 5
hmm investment i think
It just seems insane because it's 450 upfront. If you spend anywhere from 2.08 (a grande filter coffee in Boston as of last summer) and 3.50 (for something that costs 3.50) 180 days a year you'd be spending $375 - $630. We're looking at cash flow vs. initial investment here. Debunked. Limiting it to 5,000 people is where we get into a little sociological study, though. I'll leave that for someone else.
The coffee that costs you $3.50/cup normally, is costing you $3.94/cup if you pay for it with this card. That seems like an odd gift to give someone! I guess the card itself is $50 of cool...