Okay, this might have been painfully obvious to everyone but me–it wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened–but sitting here in Starbucks this morning I was stymied by a broken process. How do you get the two promised free hours of Starbucks from your Starbucks gold card? You’ve already registered, now what? If you check out the FAQ, it says you have to register for a free AT&T WiFi account and then you can login. Of course, you have to have used your card in the last thirty days–no problems here. But where the hell do you register for this legendary WiFi account? The guys at the Starbucks, while friendly and helpful, didn’t know that there was a step missing. And the obvious thing–stick the link in the answer to the question in the FAQ–nobody had done. So.
After some trial and error, for those who had run into same problem as me and are sitting in a Starbucks going WTF WTF, here you go. This is current as of today. You know they might change the site setup any minute, so YMMV. Also, this assumes that you’ve got your Starbucks Gold card registered. That happens at StarbucksGold.com.
(I’ve included both the instructions on how to navigate and direct links for where I wound up…so if this does get changed, you might be able to find your way even if it gets broken.)
[ad#rightpost]1. Go to Starbucks.com. Even without being logged in, the network will let you do that.
2. Click Starbucks Card on the menu.
3. On the next screen, click Discover Starbucks Card Rewards.
4. On the next screen, look for “Add WiFi to Your Existing Card Account?” At the moment, it’s towards the lower left of the content area.
5. On the next screen, click Sign Up, right now it’s in the lower right.
6. On the next screen, proceed using either your existing Starbucks.com account or create one. I already had one, so I just used mine.
7. From there, you’re on your own linkwise since you have to have logged in. Once logged in, you confirm your personal information and then it will show you the card that it shows as active, tied to your Starbucks.com account.
8. Click to continue, and you should see the ATTWiFi account that’s been created. When you then go back to a website (like this one, for example), it will send you back to the login screen for the Starbucks and you can sign in with your newly created account.
9. Also, you’ll be sent an e-mail validation message, although I’m not sure what the hell it’s for considering I had to be logged in to get to it.
That’s the piece I was missing–and once fixed, well, here I am writing this up. Hoobah lovely.
Thank you SO much for this helpful walk-through! I’m sitting in a Starbucks now, online thanks to your accurate and clear advice.
Happy Holidays!
You’re quite welcome, Jonathan. Glad it helped somebody out.
Brilliant! Many thanks for explaining the intentionally difficult and not so painfuly obvious process!
I have this since Dec 2009 and have been using it at the store on Kingshighway in St Louis Mo.. They told me I should be getting a Gold card with points on it, Please let me know how to do this. I drive throught there three times a week when I work. Thank you Tammy Porter
I understand the gold card is *supposed* to work the same as the black card, but I haven’t been able to get my account associated with the new gold card and email support has been decidedly unhelpful. I would try the process as outlined and if there’s a problem, call support. Don’t email. The email support people don’t take the time to read and understand what’s going on before responding. Hope that is somewhat helpful.