In an aggressive marketing push, Starbucks is now offering free wi-fi at all its 650+ branches in the UK to holders of its customer loyalty program, the Starbucks Reward Card.

The best thing of all is that the card is free from ANY Starbucks store; all you have to do is to load the card with an initial £5.00 and register the card online, and you can log-on for free wifi as long as you are inside a Starbucks store!

No purchase is necessary to use the free wifi (although you might get evil stares from the staff). The instructions to get free wifi are very simple too: all you need to do is to connect to the BT Openzone network in-store, open up your browser, click on the Starbucks Reward logo on the landing page, and enter in your username and password that you used to register your Starbucks Card.

This offers massive savings for those that travel regularly, as although there are many coffee shops out there with free wifi, there is a Starbucks cafe literally everywhere so no matter where you go in the UK you have the comfort of at least knowing that you can get online quite easily, and for free too. This is especially good if you are looking for free wifi in London as I swear there is literally a Starbucks at every street corner.

The Starbucks Reward Card also gives you free extra benefits instore; such as a free extra shot in your coffee, free extra syrups (the caramel or hazelnut ones are amazing), and best of all if you buy a bag of coffee (costing as little as £3.50) you can get a free complimentary drink of your choice, even the large uber-expensive limited edition frappuccinos!

The £5 that you have to load on the card initially has no expiry date (I think), and can be used on anything instore, and can even be refunded eventually, if you so wish. For Starbucks, they probably have to pay BT Openzone to allow their customers to use wifi for free, but their thinking probably goes that the free wifi will bring in customers through the door, and they can sell more coffees and sign up more members to their reward card. So next time you’re toting around your iPhone (available from O2), MacBook, or Windows laptop, look out for the Starbucks cafe logo which now means free internet!

I would love to see Cafe Nero, Costa, and Coffee Republic follow suit! To find a Starbucks store near you, use the UK Starbucks store locator/finder.