I get it. Starbucks is a company, and their sole reason for existence is to make money. I can work around the new changes without it affecting my life that much.
However, what kind of annoys me about this change is that I had 11/12 stars before they did it. They doubled those stars so that I now have 22 stars. But now, instead of having to just buy one more Venti coffee, like I usually did, I have to spend $52.00 to get the remaining 103 stars needed for the free coffee I would have gotten tomorrow. You know what that's called? Sour grapes. It will take me a very, very long time to get the sour taste out of my mouth. Until then, my Starbucks days are over.
They should have done something different to handle existing star balances. What they did do basically rendered currently accumulated stars completely worthless. Something like this would have been better, and probably gone a long way to restoring customer good will about this change:
1. Current star balance greater than 8 stars? Convert to free item, reset balance to 0, and start new program.
2. Current star balance greater than 4 stars, and less than 8? Convert existing star balance to half required number of stars needed to get a reward (63 stars.)
3. Current star balance less than 4 stars? Double it, no free item.