Should a customer loyalty program come with fine print and what basically amounts to “black out dates”? You know, the program that offers you points or discounts by coming back, but you can only get those rewards on certain days. Or sometimes the rewards aren’t eligible during other promotions. Is this fair to your loyal customers? Here’s a better question - is it smart? Fe...

World-renown coffee chain, Starbucks, is launching a new loyalty program for 2010. Starbucks has struggled to maintain loyalty programs in the recent past, due to customer groups and their continued efforts to try and bend the rules to their favor. Under the new loyalty program plan it appears that many Starbucks customers will be losing a 10 percent discount but will be gaining a variety of benef...