The weak, plasticky and unsatisfactory in-room coffee experience
As you may have read in previous issues, The TICKET has partnered with Starbucks to get the word out about VIA, its new line of instant coffee, among frequent travelers like YOU!
Starbucks VIA is perfect for those times you find yourself deprived of good coffee on the road. You know what I mean…like when your only option is that weak tea-like brew you find on hotel breakfast bars. Or worse, when you don’t have time (or money!) for room service and the stuff produced by the “coffee” maker in your hotel room is your only option. Ick! Then there are also those times when the coffee urn runs dry at that all-morning meeting…
With Starbucks VIA, just keep a pack in your briefcase or carry-on bag to ensure a really good cup of coffee no matter where you are. All you have to do is add hot or cold water. The taste is amazing—I honestly have a tough time telling the difference between VIA and the real thing. (>>>Click on the ad to the right for more info about VIA>>>)
How would you like to give Starbucks VIA a try for a month, for free?
Here’s all you have to do:
Leave a comment below or send me an email describing a travel situation where you WISHED you had a pack of Starbucks VIA to get your day off to a good start with a REAL cup of coffee. THAT’S IT!
Just two or three lines are all I’m looking for. But if you are feeling especially creative, send it along as a poem…or haiku*…or a photo. If you are already a fan of VIA, tell us why.
I’ll pick what I feel are the top three entries, and those folks will get a one-month supply of Starbucks VIA and a nice new mug sent to them. Easy!
I look forward to hearing from you!
*HAIKU: a 3 line, one stanza poem with a syllable count of 5, 7, 5.
Thanks, everyone for some excellent comments! You all are are so creative! This competition is now closed. Stay tuned to THE TICKET for the announcement regarding winners!
Best,
Chris
I travel alone by wheelchair and usually stop and get a coffee at starbucks on the way to the departure area, as you know the people who push you have to leave you and do there jobs. I am 72 yrs old and always get there way to early and if I had via with me I could always bring a second cup of hot water when I got my first coffee and could drink all the way to my destination as I love starbucks, but have priced the via and it does not fit into a old ladys budget.love your site and all your bloggers.
Sung to Rubber Ducky….
Starbucks Via, Your the one
That makes my coffee drinking Fun
Starbuck Via, I’m awfully fond of you
When I’m flying round this land
I know to keep you close at hand
Starbuck’s Via, I’ll never fly without you..
I was on a business trip with two colleagues. They had rented cars and I had not. They both decided to fly home early leaving me stranded at my hotel without wheels. How I wished I could have found some good coffee like Starbucks, but I was at the mercy of whatever the hotel had to offer. Starbucks VIA would have really perked up my day!
Correction
Early AM flight
Without potable water
No VIA. Bummer.
Early AM flight,
No potable water,
No VIA. Bummer
I visited family in Istanbul, and all they had was tea and Turkish coffee. Boy how I wish I would have packed VIA!
I often travel to the High Tatras in Slovakia to teach English Camps to students. The first morning we didn’t have coffee and all of the Americans were going nuts. The next a coffee pot and some coffee was brought in and the line was crazy just to get a cup. It still wasn’t great coffee but anything was better than nothing. Now how joyous all would have been to have some Starbucks 🙂
My wife and I were leaving Sydney on a Hawaiian RED EYE flight the last day of our 10-day trip Down Under, the flight was delayed a couple hours due to a mechanical – that ended up being ALL NIGHT as the airport has a departure curfew and we missed that – so, 22 hours later, we took off. (NEED VIA!)
Wait, it gets better . . . our connection in Honolulu wasn’t for another 4 hours (now that we missed our relaxing 35-hour stay in paradise) so we fight to stay awake (VIA PLEASE!) then board our 1:30 PM flight to Los Angeles which actually left on time . . . well, an hour into the flight, the crew asks if a doctor is on board . . . to make a long flight – I mean, story short – we ended up turning the aircraft around 2 hours into the flight, for the 2 hour flight BACK to Honolulu to take a passenger off for a medical emergency. We landed, sat on the plane for an hour (WHERE’s OUR VIA????) then took off for our 5 hour flight home – arriving at the oh so fun hour of 3:30 AM (VIA!!!!)
Oh, as a side note – I left the next morning on a business trip to Montreal (Where I am now) still groggy from our Hawaiian Airline adventure, (more VIA now!) arriving at the customs area to find 3000+ passengers in line to clear (that is NOT an exaggeration) – half were returning residents, the other was for visitors – it took 1 hour and 42 minutes to plow through my 1500 arriving passengers ahead of me before I finally get out of the airport . . .
so really, who needs VIA more than I?
I’m just saying . . . .
From Evansville, I fly.
RJ coffee, I avoid.
Decaf Via, I need.
When would I have loved a Via? Let me count the ways:
Ooops, not enough fingers, toes, and strands of hair, my precious…
I’ve never tried VIA, but it sure sounds like something we need to take on our camping trips! When you poke your head out of your sleeping bag and the coldness hits your face, it’s hard to get up and get out. When you do get up, it’s nice to start out with a nice hot cup of coffee. The sun is coming through the trees, there’s a dead quietness, as other campers are still sleeping. I try not to rattle my pans around too much, but I have to get out the pan to heat up some water. The instant coffees we’ve tried just haven’t been very appealing. But when it’s all you’ve got, and there’s no warm hotel room or cabin to escape to, it will have to do. Our last camping trip was 2 weeks ago. Sounds like we need to incorporate VIA into our next camping experience! :o)
In October I will be traveling to North Carolina( Cashiers to be exact) to stay for a week at a condo in the mountains. I can think of no greater pleasure than to have Starbucks coffee when I wake up in the mornings or before a fire at night. Please consider me as a candidate for the Starbucks product which I am sure will live up to the other products I have used before. I am 75 years old and will be traveling with my friend, Bill, whom I have known for 70 years however we were both married to other people ( recently died). Seems like a romantic thing to do-have a Starbucks coffee by the fireplace.
I love Starbucks VIA! I was VERY skeptical about the product when I first heard about it. My only experience with instant coffee had been Sanka-yuck! Now I don’t need to make an entire pot for my afternoon pick-me-up!
I read your article about the VIA with interest while on a flight from Seattle to Atlanta last week and ironically enough the cup of coffee I got after we departed tasted and smelled like absolute sewage water.
The flight attendant brought a second cup and agreed, we weren’t sure if it was the water, the coffee or the cup itself but it was so dreadful even he admitted he wouldn’t drink it. As I was going through this situation I was reading your article about VIA and frankly at that point I would have given anything for a great cup of coffee, I will certainly buy some and keep it with me for these cases.
About Starbuck’s Via: I travel with it all the time! So many hotels have one-cup coffee makers (with a single serving packet) in the rooms that it’s annoying if I want a second cup, or, heaven forbid, if it’s a leisure trip and there are two of us in the room!
I wish I had a really good cup of coffee when I woke up at 6:00 AM to go mountain gorilla tracking in Uganda. I needed to start this adventurous trek with gusto, and the taste and aroma of Starbucks in this remote location would have made my day.
We got off the 8am flight right after we got on. The toilet’s lovely blue was overfilled during flight prep and had to be drained and rechecked. In the time they took to “repair” the toilet, they discovered the pilot’s windshield was cracked. The hour in line I waited to find out what flight I would actually be taking would have been a great time for a Starbucks VIA.
This most recent issue of your blog was excellent, and I found that I had comments in most every section, so an email may work better. For context, I’m a 3MM, Diamond Medallion with 300K MQMs already this year, and Platinum status with both Marriott and Starwood, so here goes…
– Starbucks Via – YES! Love it…I could have used it when I stayed at Le Meridien and had to wait 25 minutes for a coffee pot to be delivered to my room. At that point I was ready to walk out the door to go to work.
You asked us to describe a travel situation where we WISHED we had a pack of Starbucks VIA. Well, how about every day?! I’m a flight attendant for World Airways, a charter airline. I’m liable to start my day at 3am or 3pm & it’s liable to start in Leipzig, Germany or Atlanta, Georgia. It would be fabulous to have the consistency of great tasting Starbuck’s coffee and the ease of using VIA on a regular basis no matter where I am or what time I’m starting my day!
On the road I go
With my morning cup o’ joe.
It’s Starbucks Via!
Sent via email by reader GARY:
I would like to give VIA a try! I will no longer have to drive around or ask the front desk where the closest Starbucks is.
Sent via email by reader ADAM:
Hating hotel joe?
Good Starbucks instant coffee:
A goddamn godsend.
Sent via email from reader Jay:
On what was supposed to be a direct afternoon flight from Atlanta to Aspen, we were delayed and stranded overnight at the Denver International airport, with no tickets issued for making the connection to Aspen next morning. Having to spend the rest of the night/early hours of the next morning with coats laid out on the floor of the Denver airport with a 4 year old made us wish we had instant coffee – so we could use the hot water in the airport faucets to keep ourselves alert and figure out a way out of the mess.
From reader DB
Ok this is no brainer..
ever tried free coffee at the hotels? i would accept lousy lumpy bed for a good cup of starbucks any time any place.
From reader MJB
My job takes me to all areas in the southeast, but my home office is in Wisconsin, so I go there a couple of times a year. I only drink decaf coffee. I have found that the VIA packets are PERFECT for me when I travel. Recently though I was in a situation where I didn’t have a VIA packet…I was at my home office in Wisconsin and everyone was having their morning jolt of coffee; I went searching for my VIA packet and didn’t have one! I would have paid BIG BUCKS for one of those tiny little packets that day!
After writing this e-mail and thinking back to that morning/day, I am going to get up from desk right now and go and fix myself a decaf VIA cup of coffee!
From reader Mark:
What I generally do on morning flights is get to the airport and wait to get passed security, so I can enjoy a nice cup of Starbucks before I get on the plane. what bugs me most is when I realized that the airline I booked on is in a terminal that doesn’t have Starbucks but rather some knock off like Paablo’s cuban or Miami’s best. 🙂 I might have been better served to start the morning with a cup of Starbucks Via.
From reader MS:
travelling early
my brain is not yet engaged
need Starbucks VIA
The coffee on this airline is lacking
Need my VIA so I will quit hacking.
but I left it at home,
so I’m on the roam…
the Via in 2A I’M tracking!!!!
(true story…ATL-CAK)but they didn’t have any more(so they said;(.
Morning away from home
The mirror tells a story bleak
Coffee is my reboot
For those of you unfamiliar with traveling in East Asia, the hotel rooms generally have an electric kettle to boil water for tea instead of a coffeemaker. In the cases where coffee is even an option, it is typically Sanka or Nescafe instant. Last week in Seoul my room at The Shilla — considered one of the best hotels in Seoul — had the ubiquitous electric kettle and “coffee bags” (like tea bags except with coffee grounds). This was perhaps the WORST in-room coffee experience I’ve ever encountered! Fortunately, I had tossed an 8-pack of Starbucks VIA that I had spotted at my local grocery store into my carry-on just prior to this trip. My only problem was rationing out the 8 packets over a 6-day stay…
East Asia travel
No coffeemaker in room
Starbucks VIA for me!
Check out the haiku sent to us from reader RG:
1>
I’m in such a rush.
Oh, this security line.
I need my VIA!
2>
Always on the go,
I really need my VIA.
It’s my sustenance.
3>
Always on the go,
I really need my VIA.
It keeps me going.
4>
My mind’s on coffee,
Waiting in security.
Gotta be VIA
Every trip I take I wish I had my via. I travel a ton internationally, and to quote larry above “coffee is not coffee”. I’ve started carrying a package in my briefcase and my day is never the same if I run out.
I always travel with my Starbucks french press Travel mug. I would not travel without it!
I wish I had packed a VIA last week on our trip in Napa. The coffee at the hotel was horrible. I could have saved $17 in room service & 30 minutes on deliver if only I brought a VIA. next time…
Here’s a situation wear I wish I had some starbucks. A few months ago, I was on a 6 a.m. flight from Atlanta to New York. I think a fuse went out or there was some malfunction in the galley and they ran out of coffee. The person next to me got the last half a cup. I got a diet coke. Not the way I wanted to start my day.
Coffee or not coffee. That is the question. That “not coffee” stuff I find on the road makes me sad. A month of Starbucks coffee would make me happy!
Babies cry, women shudder and men look away when I enter the hotel breakfast bar or the corner Starbucks with nappy head and sleepy eyes. A month of VIA would protect the traveling public from my non-caffeinated morning moments.