As soon as I have $20 in Bitcoins (I finished my last freelance job yesterday and the company I was working for decided to ignore my request to be paid in USD and sent it in Euros... even though they are based in Toronto?  CAD I would at least understand, no idea how long EUR will take to clear their bank, intermediary banks in both countries and then land in mine) I will be picking up a code for sure.

I read more into Starbucks Partner benefits (there is a whole subreddit) and it's pretty cool how Partner Numbers are never removed from the system's backend (so if you were to quit, apply for a job again in a year and get rehired, you would have your same number), which IMO makes this method a solid way to go.  I don't know how much Spotify really cares (i.e. monitors) about the active status after you bump a free account up to premium with this program (my guess is not at all - like you said, your friend's account is still working this much later), and now that I think about it, it might not even be legal to query such information so win for us!

♪ヽ( ⌒o⌒)人(⌒-⌒ )v ♪