Starbucks’ Red Cup Day came “roaring back” in 2024. Thursday, November 14 saw 42.4% more visits than the recent Thursday daily visit average, according to recent research from Placer.ai. The promotional day allows customers to “order a specialty holiday beverage and receive a complimentary reusable red cup.”

“And Red Cup Day didn’t just drive visits relative to a regular weekday—the promotion brought a 9.4% lift in overall weekly visits to Starbucks during the week of the event,” wrote Placer.ai.

While visits to Starbucks usually spike on its annual Red Cup Day, the chain’s Red Cup Day performance last year was relatively muted and the jump in foot traffic was not as significant as in previous years.

This year’s visit bump was “significantly higher than on Red Cup Day 2023—when visits on Thursday, November 16, 2023, were only 25.0% higher than the previous five Thursday averages—and even outshined the already strong performance of Red Cup Day 2022.”

2024’s Red Cup Day at Starbucks drove a larger visit spike than the launch of the chain’s popular Pumpkin Spice Latte (PSL): During the week of the PSL launch, visits rose 9.7% compared to the first week of H2 (July 1-7, 2024), while Red Cup Day drove a 12.9% foot traffic bump relative to that same baseline, according to Placer.ai.

This year’s Red Cup Day followed several weeks of year-over-year visit dips at Starbucks, and after new CEO Brian Niccol said Starbucks would be suspending its financial guidance for the rest of the year.