Chipotle Rewards Program: Guac or Not?
(This review was updated on August 27, 2025 with additional benefits)
🌯Chipotle Rewards launched in 2019 and has been one of the fastest-growing loyalty programs in the quick-service restaurant space. The company has cited that well over one-third of their sales are from loyalty members, so it has a big following. But how meaty is this program?. Read on to find out.
Image Credit: iStock
How it works:
Chipotle Rewards is free program that customers can join online, in the app, or in store. Customers earn 10 points for every $1 they spend as long as they transact as a member (online logged in or via an app scanned in store). To keep things spicy, Chipotle often runs promotions and challenges to drive point multipliers. There are birthday freebies, too.
In August 2025 Chipotle launched Chipotle U Rewards, which is a companion to their regular program. You have to verify youself as a college student through ID.me and you will earn 1000 bonus points and 12 points per $ instead of 10.
But don’t get enamored of (or with) point tallies. It’s like eating a huge meal, racking up calories but never feeling full. The real nourishment of any rewards program lies in the redemption value of your points.
Chipotle has 11 redemption categories that cover almost all of their menu.
What’s the value?
(When we calculate “return value”, we mean how much you got free relative to how much you had to spend to earn it. For example, if we said a redemption gives 10% return value,, it means for every $100 you spent in earning points, you got $10 worth in free redemption.)
Chipotle’s value is where things get stingier than their quac portions 🥑. In our analysis, we are assuming the average Chipotle customer spends $18 per visit, which is in line with previous public statements by the company. A good return value for restaurant programs should at least be in the high single digit percentages and hopefully go over 10% for very frequent customers. How does Chipotle do?
• After spending $35 (about two visits), you’ll earn enough points for some free chips. Hooray? Nah. That’s a ~5% return value which isn’t that great.
• Want a free side of guac to go with those chips? You’ll need to spend $50 over three visits to earn enough to redeem. That’s a ~6% return value. Slightly better, but still not great.
• Craving something meaningful like a free entrée? Better start saving—$162 spent at Chipotle gets you that reward. Your return value? Somewhere between 5% and 8%, depending on what you order. If you’re that $18/visit spender that could take you minimum 9 trips to earn enough points for a free entrée. That’s a lot of trips to earn a free entrée.
If you’re a college student and part of Chipotle U these return values go up by 1-2% so definetely makes a difference.
The best redemption value is on fountain drinks at ~9% return value and some of the extra protein options. But having to use a reward for extra protein just feels stingy.
(Note: Menu prices can vary among different Chipotle restaurants. The prices we used are estimated based on what we are seeing in our home city and available internet information. So return value is approx).
If you’re rolling up to Chipotle weekly—or multiple times a week—first of all, congrats on hitting those protein macros👏🏼 . Second, get ready to celebrate… with a bag of free chips (but hold the guac, that’s not included). Realistically, you’ll be cashing in small rewards every 2-3 visits, and waiting weeks for that free entrée. Amazing…no. Bad…also no.
Ease of Use:
Chipotle gets higher marks for the ease of points usage. You can convert points to rewards right in their app and then apply them upon checkout in store or online. Putting you in control of your points and rewards. And opting into promos or deals, and adding promo codes for further discounts is all easy and straightforward.
🕵️♂️ ANY Fine Print?
A mixed bag of rules, some good some not so good. Points don’t expire as long as you’re active every six months, and rewards are good for 60 days after redemption. That’s pretty generous. They also allow you to put in missing points request if you forget to scan.
The major negative is you CANNOT stack rewards when ordering online 😡. So if you cash in for your free entrée you’ll have to pay for a drink to wash it down. This feels stingy considering the value of the program is just so-so but unfortunately is a bad trend, as both Cava and McDonald’s don’t allow stacking either.
summary:
Purely from a basic earning and redemption perspective, this program is pretty good, not stellar. Particularly due to:
Lower return values on some of the most popular items and
Because you can’t stack rewards to get a full outing free.
Unless you’re a weekly regular, the rewards aren’t going to blow your mind But, since Chipotle loves to drop frequent member-exclusive deals, you might want to sign up just to take advantage of those sporadic deals.
👩🏻⚖️ Our Verdict:
Meh. We think Chipotle could do better here. For the persistent customer (and for college students) it inches into the Rewarding category, but that takes a lot of effort.
Leave us a comment! Do you agree or disagree? Any further tips about Chipotle Rewards?
