11 September, 2009

Spam for Coffee...

So, Bev and I like coffee. In the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening. We also like sleep, and so our coffee time in the morning often results in getting 2 to go. Which is fine, because BP’s Wild Bean coffee is actually pretty good, and as we have travel mugs, quite reasonably priced.

We collect the free coffee cards, and enjoy it. Except this morning, we notice that they’re phasing out the paper system in favor for a keyfob barcode. It’s ok though, if you register your keyfob online, you still get 6 for the price of 5, contradictory to the way Subway did it when they introduced their Subcard, when Subway sneakily increased the cost of a free lunch.

But the BP offer isn’t without a catch. To get the 6 for the price of 5 deal, you have to not only give them your email address, but also opt-in to their… well, it doesn’t actually say what I’m opting-into. For all I know I’m opting into daily advertising, or perhaps a free coffee on my birthday, or perhaps they’ll forget about it entirely and we’ll all just go about our days.

Will people accept Spam for slightly cheaper Coffee? It’s an interesting concept, I wonder how effective it will be…