Why is Starbucks so expensive sometimes $7-$9 dollars for a drink?

Starbucks filings show comparable transactions fell 10% in North America while average ticket rose 4% net revenue still declined. This implies they've moved past the revenue maximising point on the demand curve, where marginal willingness to pay among lost customers was lower than the current price, but the volume loss is outrunning the per-unit gain.

With product and distribution costs at only ~31% of revenue, gross margin sits around 69%. At that contribution margin, even a $1 price reduction that recovered a meaningful portion of lost transaction volume would likely increase total gross profit. The elasticity math seems to favour stimulating demand over extracting surplus from a shrinking loyal base.

So is Starbucks rationally sacrificing revenue to protect brand positioning i.e. pricing above the revenue-maximising point deliberately as a signal of quality or is this a genuine pricing error where they've misjudged the elasticity of their marginal customer?