Gen Zers couldn’t believe their eyes this morning, after waking up to an email from Pret A Manger announcing that its £30-a-month Club deal was coming to an end.
The coffee chain, which has been running the deal for the last four years, today told its customers that it was ‘time to rethink’ how its subscription works.
Youngsters took to video-sharing app TikTok to share their devastation, with some calling it ‘the most upsetting thing ever’ and wailing ‘basically the whole world is ending’.
The current deal offers subscribers any hot or iced Barista-made drink up to five times a day for £30 a month.
But it will be axed in September for what Pret is describing as a ‘simpler offer’ of five half-priced drinks a day for £10 a month. There was also a 20 per cent discount off the rest of its food and drink menu.
Some Gen Zers are now threatening to cancel their subscription or to boycott the chain.
London blogger Nairn said on TikTok: ‘Pret A Manger is dead.’
He added: ‘I don’t know how they think people will stay loyal to them after this. This subscription has been the backbone of most Gen Z and millennials, especially in big working cities in London.
‘Coffee has gotten so expensive and this was an easy way, you pay your £30 a month and you’re sorted.’
Current £30 a month Club Pret subscription
20 per cent off food and five drinks a day
New £10 a month Club Pret subscription
Five half-priced drinks a day and no discount on food
Another TikToker, Brunch in the Sun, shared a video of her looking saddened at the news, with the caption: ‘POV you just got the email about the Pret Subscription changes so now basically the whole world is ending’.
Meanwhile, TikToker Marie shared a video featuring the lyric ‘what can I do’ with the caption: ‘life since getting that one email from Pret A Manger’.
Subscribers will now be paying £205 a month for a £3.90 latte if they were to take advantage of the deal and get the full amount five times a week, compared to the £30 they pay now.
Club Pret was first introduced in the autumn of 2020 at £20 a month in a bid to get more people back to the office following the coronavirus lockdown.
The discount on food will also be culled as it was ‘something we never really got comfortable with’, Pret’s UK managing director Clare Clough said.
‘We know this is a change. But with Club Pret subscription, our coffees, teas, Coolers and iced drinks will continue to be the best offer on the high street, and at a much more accessible price than the £360 a year people have to pay for the current scheme,’ the message read.
The new deal will be priced at £5 a month for existing and new Club Pret subscribers until March 31 2025 when it will double in price.
Ms Clough added that ‘given the majority of our customers are not Club Pret subscribers, our priority now is to focus on better value for everyone’.
The news has infuriated Club Pret members further who were already irked by the coffee firm’s crackdown on people sharing their QR codes with friends so they could get in on the deal.
One customer said ‘all Londoners are united in grief’ following the announcement’, with others already quitting their subscription.
One person posted a screenshot of an email from Pret saying ‘sorry to see you go’ after they cancelled their Club Pret membership.
‘Lol at the new @Pret subscription. “commitment to providing better value” when my savings have went down from £90 a month to £47, not including food. The math ain’t mathing girl.
‘Cya,’ they wrote.
Another called the subscription changes ‘laughable’ as ‘what started off good, progressively got more expensive’.
‘Subscription going from £15 – £20 – £30. Food prices in shops rising weeks before introducing 20 per cent off so in reality there isn’t any real saving. And now this,’ they said.
Pret was warned it was making a ‘huge mistake’ by another customer who told the chain it still had time to ‘rectify this’.
‘Otherwise I am cancelling my subscription and will never step foot into any of your stores (which will quickly shut down, one by one, from September) ever again,’ they warned.
Last September Pret customers were left baffled by the £7.15 price for a baguette at one of its chain stores.
Customers reacted with dismay on social media as the eye-watering ‘dine in’ price for the chain’s ‘posh’ cheese and pickle sandwich was snapped at a London tube station branch.
The baguette costs £5.95 at transport hub stations to take away – and, when coupled with a £1.75 bag of crisps and a £5 green smoothie for a fully rounded lunch, costs £12.70.
To eat it in store, the chain then levies a £1.20 VAT charge on the sandwich – taking its price up to £7.15, and the total deal to £13.90.