Why The Dutch Bros Rewards Program Isn't As Good As It Used To Be, According To Fans

Dutch Bros is slowly but surely becoming one of the major coffee chain competitors, popping up all over the country with its wacky drink combos, colorful straws, and friendly broistas. As any good chain, Dutch Bros implemented a rewards program in early 2021, promising free drinks after specific amounts of points and general incentives for customer loyalty. This was all fine and dandy for quite a few years, but a change to the way the company dishes out points for cash spent has completely changed the way fans talk about Dutch Rewards.

"I haven't gone to Dutch as much since they changed the point system," a customer on Reddit lamented on a thread discussing the changes that have befallen Dutch Rewards. The summed-up version of events is that when it was first introduced in 2021, Dutch Rewards offered five points for every $1 spent. But in 2023, that changed to three points for every $1 spent. While this may not seem like a huge change, fans can certainly feel the difference, with one Redditor saying that to meet the 250-point minimum for a free drink "you have to spend about $83.33 to get one now... so instead of 10 drinks, it's more like 16–20, depending on what you order." Back in the day, a large banana bread iced latte (one of the best Dutch Bros iced coffee drinks) might have garnered you roughly 25 points, but today it would only equate to roughly 15.

Besides the fluctuating points equivalency, fans are also frustrated with Dutch Bros' change in the way points are stored. The Dutch Rewards' current policy states that customers have 180 days to convert their points to rewards and redeem said rewards, but before the whole system changed, some customers racked up their points into the 10s of thousands. "It was implemented to prevent point hoarding," said one fan on Reddit, though another Redditor argued, "What's wrong with point hoarding? You earned them. It's not like people stole points."

Dutch Bros fans have also been consistently disappointed in the "rewards" offered through the app, which might just help prove why Starbucks offers a better rewards program. "Why is this a reward?" one fan asked on Reddit, posting a screenshot of an "app sticker" that their Dutch Rewards app prompted they download, continuing, "Give me points or a discount or something worthwhile. This is even more stupid than the actual stickers." Another Reddit user agreed about the lack of incentivized rewards, saying "[Dutch Bros] are literally disincentivizing their loyal customers from ever returning." Despite complaints, Dutch Rewards made up 72% of system transactions in the second quarter of 2025, according to a report from Zacks, meaning the majority of sales come through the Dutch Rewards program, among 14 other things all coffee lovers should know about Dutch Bros.