The Coles Flybuys & Woolworths Everyday Rewards programs can turn your weekly grocery shop into flights around the world! The key is knowing how to game the system to maximise the value in these loyalty programs, such as Flybuys hacks to earn free flights for shopping at Coles.
This guide will show you how to earn up to 50 times more points for your grocery shopping, and how to redeem your Flybuys & Everyday Rewards points for high-value rewards!
Earning More Flybuys & Everyday Rewards Points
Both the Woolies and Coles loyalty programs award 1 point for every dollar spent when you scan your card. After earning 2,000 points, you’ll get $10 off your shopping. That’s equivalent to a discount of just 0.5%, which isn’t really superb value.
But by gaming the system, you can earn as many as 100,000 Flybuys points for your $2,000 Coles spend. That’s equivalent to 50,000 Velocity points, which is more than enough points for a return Business Class flight from Brisbane to Cairns, Adelaide to Alice Springs, or Melbourne to Sunshine Coast.
Here’s the trick: Loyalty is not rewarded!
Flybuys and Everyday Rewards may be “loyalty” programs. But in reality, they are NOT actually designed to reward loyalty! Rather, they are designed to entice you to shop more often and spend more each time you visit the store.
Both loyalty programs send targeted email offers to their members. These targeted offers can be extremely generous and are where the true value lies in Flybuys & Everyday Rewards.
Most targeted bonus offers are sent by email or made available in the Flybuys or Everyday Rewards smartphone Apps. You may also get offers on your receipts or via coupons in the mail. These offers are tailored to individual customers based on their spending habits.
For example, Coles regularly sends personalised offers such as “spend $50 per week for 4 weeks to receive 10,000 bonus Flybuys points. With this deal, you would receive 10,200 Flybuys points for spending just $200 at Coles. That’s 5,100% more Flybuys points than you would earn by spending $200 without any bonus offer!
Woolworths also sends targeted offers including “Points Boosters”, although the Flybuys bonuses are often more generous.
To take advantage of any targeted offer from Flybuys or Everyday Rewards, you’ll usually need to activate the offer by clicking the link in the email or activating it in the App before completing your shop.
The supermarket loyalty programs generally try to entice you to spend a little more than the supermarket thinks you normally do. For example, a shopper who regularly spends $200 per week on groceries is likely to get an offer of bonus points for spending $250. But a shopper that occasionally spends $30 might receive an incentive to spend just $40 or $50.
These offers are tailored to your usual spending habits, so it’s in your best interest to make the loyalty program’s algorithms think you spend very little and regularly shop with competitors.
By spending smaller amounts per shop, splitting your shopping between multiple supermarket chains and scanning your loyalty card less frequently, you can “trick” the supermarket loyalty programs into sending you better and more frequent offers!
Earn more points by shopping with program partners
Don’t forget that you can also earn Flybuys and Everyday Rewards points at stores other than Coles and Woolworths!
Flybuys is one of Australia’s largest coalition loyalty programs, offering ways to earn points at many retailers. Flybuys partners include Kmart, Target, Shell Coles Express, Liquorland, Bunnings Warehouse and Officeworks. You can also earn Flybuys points by purchasing Coles Insurance products or getting a Coles Rewards Mastercard (which also happens to have no international transaction fees).
Other ways to earn Everyday Rewards points include shopping at Big W or BWS.
Redeeming Woolworths Everyday Rewards Points
So, that’s how to earn more loyalty points at the supermarket. But what are the best ways of redeeming points?
Let’s start with Woolworths Everyday Rewards, which offers three ways to redeem points:
- Convert every 2,000 Everyday Rewards points to 1,000 Qantas Frequent Flyer points
- Redeem 2,000 Everyday Rewards points for a $10 discount at Woolworths
- Bank your points for Christmas, meaning they will become available to redeem at Woolworths in December
If you prefer to save money on your groceries, you may choose to use your Everyday Rewards points at the Woolies checkout. Alternatively, you could trade off a $10 discount for 1,000 Qantas points.
If you’re planning to redeem your Qantas Frequent Flyer points for a reward flight or upgrade, converting your Everyday Rewards points to Qantas points is probably better value. But if you would be redeeming your Qantas points for gift cards or products from the Qantas Rewards Store, you would likely get less than $10 in value for every 1,000 Qantas redeemed – meaning you’re better off taking the Woolworths discount.
Redeeming Coles Flybuys Points
2,000 Flybuys points are worth $10 off your shop at Coles. But there are many other ways to redeem Flybuys points.
Flybuys has an extensive rewards store selling everything from toasters to gift vouchers. You can also redeem your points towards a flight or hotel booking with Flybuys Travel. Regardless of how you spend your points, your Flybuys points will be worth exactly half a cent.
This means 200 Flybuys points are worth $1, and 1,000 Flybuys points are worth $5.
Alternatively, you may be able to get better value for your Flybuys points by transferring them to the Velocity Frequent Flyer program.
Transferring Flybuys Points to Virgin Australia Velocity
You can transfer Flybuys points to the Velocity Frequent Flyer program at a rate of 2,000 Flybuys points = 1,000 Velocity points. You can choose to transfer Flybuys points manually, as you need them, or set up Velocity Auto Transfer.
Velocity points can be redeemed for flights and upgrades on Virgin Australia. You can also use Velocity points to book flights on Virgin’s partner airlines including Etihad Airways, Delta, Air Canada, Hawaiian Airlines and South African Airways.
If you’d prefer to use your Flybuys points on flights or upgrades, transferring them to Velocity Frequent Flyer is likely to offer better overall value. You can also sometimes get bonus points or other freebies by transferring Flybuys points to Velocity during a special promotion.
Is it better to join Flybuys or Everyday Rewards?
If you have a preference for Coles over Woolworths, or Qantas over Virgin Australia, this could of course impact your decision.
Overall, we rank Flybuys as a slightly more competitive program than Everyday Rewards. There are a few main reasons for this:
- There are more ways to earn Flybuys points
- Flybuys tends to run better and more frequent targeted bonus point offers
- Flybuys also offers the opportunity to earn Virgin Australia status credits by shopping at Coles
That said, the best strategy is to join both Everyday Rewards and Flybuys. By being a member of both loyalty programs and splitting your shopping between Woolworths and Coles, you can trick both programs into thinking your household spend is only half of what it really is – resulting in far better offers overall!
I don’t shop at Coles like I used to because you can only transfer your points to Virgin and are no longer able to on transfer them to Singapore Airlines which offers a vastly better network with a lower points cost per kilometre.
I do most of my shopping at Woolworths as the points can be transferred to Qantas – a much better option. However, when you receive your ‘Points Boosters’ from Woolworths you find the products have returned to full price, so, you might be getting additional points but you are paying a hefty price for same.