When Company Tech Fails-its usually human error! (Starbucks)

I recently witnessed an epic fail with regards to Starbucks and their ability to provide my friend with a free coffee for her birthday, which was emailed to her and also showed up in her iphone app. She is a Gold Card holder of Starbuck so no stranger to their store... the problem was when she went in on her birthday to redeem her free coffee the (stupid) employee clicked on the app and couldn't find any 'barcode' and stated she needed the barcode to complete the transaction.  My friend looked puzzled and then called up the email that was also sent to her. This too did not have the appropriate barcode that this employee required.  Meanwhile I remained in the parking lot waiting for her to complete her transaction and after about 7-10 minutes she appeared WITHOUT HER COFFEE!  I asked what happened and her response was "the stupid girl wouldn't give me my free coffee because there was no bar code" and upon calling up the app to show me, she became quite irate to note that the free birthday drink had now been removed from her iphone app.. obviously there is no barcode for this and the fact that it showed as a free drink in the app was all that was required since the (stupid) employee clicked on it and therefore removed it from the device.  So here we are, 10 minutes later with no product and lost time that will never be recovered and in my honest opinion just one more reason to avoid Starbucks at all costs!  Yes, I have purchased coffee from them but only when completely desperate  typically in an airport where I had no other options. It's bad enough paying over $2 for a bottle of water but over $5 for a simple coffee is just crazy in my opinion of course, but to have someone that is obviously a patron of the system, complete with a Starbucks Gold Card, get an email and credit for a coffee only to be refused in this manner, only because the employee was uninformed of what to do with birthday credits and/or the iphone app itself... just unacceptable in todays society!