I’m sort of annoyed with Chevron and sort of not.

The first time I went into the ExtraMile (that’s the convenience store at Chevron gas stations) to buy a cup of coffee, they gave me a punch card. Buy six coffees, get the seventh free. So here we are, a month or two later, and I recently acquired my sixth punch.

I went into the ExtraMile tonight and poured my seventh cup, and I brought it up to the cashier with my fully-punched card. “We don’t take those,” he informed me.

“But I got the card here,” I pointed out. “You’ve punched most of these yourself.”

“Yeah, we punch them, but we don’t give the free one. Any other ExtraMile will though,” he claimed.

Thoroughly annoyed with this suspicious lack of full participation, I reluctantly handed over my Chevron gift card to pay. The cashier went through the motions, printed out my receipt, and then stood there looking at it for a while. The card was pre-authorized, but then it charged me $0.00 for no apparent reason (even though the gift card has well over fifty dollars left on it). I offered to try paying again, but he told me to just take the coffee and not to worry about it.

So although I’m annoyed with their questionable “participation” in their own loyalty program, I did come away with a free coffee after all was said and done. And on top of that, I still have my fully-punched card, which means I still get another free coffee… if I can find an ExtraMile that participates in the redemption part of the punch card.