Flybuys is one of Australia’s biggest loyalty program, active in various forms since 1994. There are more than 10 million members across the nation, earning points with Coles Supermarkets and many other partners.
Recently, Flybuys scoured its membership base and picked out 50 of its top points-earning members with interesting backstories. Nicknamed the ‘Flybuys 50’, this group are at the top of their game. We’ve taken a look at some of their stories and share with you the great lessons hidden within.
We’re so excited to introduce the inaugural ‘Flybuys 50’ list and we hope that everyone is inspired by our members’ amazing tips and tricks on how to ‘Give A Flybuys’ and take more rewards. Finding the ‘Flybuys 50’ amongst our community of over 8 million active members has been an incredible journey, and it’s been a pleasure uncovering the unique ways that members are collecting points and redeeming rewards.
– John Merakovsky, Flybuys CEO, 7 July 2021
1. Velocity Points are one of the best Flybuys rewards
We’re particularly drawn to Shady from NSW, ‘The Hustler’. He’s a self-described points guru and doesn’t fly in Economy ever since he started transferring Flybuys points to Velocity Frequent Flyer. Some of his tips include:
- Using the Coles Rewards Mastercard to double-dip on purchases
- He waits for transfer offers before sending points to Velocity
- He’ll swipe his card whenever he can, including with fuel and liquor
Point Hacks analysis: Shady’s strategies are essentially what we would recommend to our readers as well – Velocity reward flights can be one the best uses of Flybuys points.
Unfortunately, we don’t expect there will be many Flybuys-Velocity transfer bonuses anymore. This is because the conversion rate was permanently bumped to 2:1 in early 2021. Finally, always use a points-earning card with your purchases to ensure you earn points on the transaction.
Also read: how to upgrade your Virgin Australia flight with Velocity Points →
2. Flybuys Travel is your ticket to more points
Enter: Larry, ‘The Agent’ from NSW. He utilises a sneaky tactic that we wholeheartedly approve of – booking travel for other family members and collecting the points.
- With Flybuys Travel, he can make the booking and earn the points while the family member still pays with their own card
- He activates and uses bonus offers when shopping, rather than relying on normal spend
- He uses his Flybuys points for groceries at Coles, and creates points-funded ‘hampers’ for his boys every so often.
Point Hacks analysis: Larry’s on the right track with Flybuys Travel. He earns 1 Flybuys point per dollar spent, even for other people. Remember that the person travelling can still earn frequent flyer points from the flight itself, and bonus points through a rewards credit card. This example also highlights another decent use of Flybuys points – for discounts at the checkout. Read our Flybuys guide to learn more.
3. Bonus offers are the key to big rewards
Tuyen is ‘The Hacker’ from NSW. She’s also more affectionately known as ‘The Coles Girl’ by her friends. She brings a calculator to the shops and ensures she meets the minimum spend requirements for weekly offers.
- Tuyen activates offers both via email and through the app, as those deals might be different
- She does her research beforehand and knows what offers she’ll utilise before heading out
- Her household is linked under the same Flybuys account, so the points build up faster.
Point Hacks analysis: Bonus point offers are the best way to boost your Flybuys balance, otherwise you’ll spend a long time collecting one point per dollar at a time. We’re sure Tuyen is an avid user of the Coles four-weekly challenge which dishes out 10,000 bonus points if you meet a certain minimum spend per week.
Summing up
Flybuys has great potential – you just need to be able to utilise bonus point offers often. Be sure to pair any purchase with a points-earning credit card where possible, and also scan or enter your Flybuys number when spending at partners such as Coles, Kmart, Liquorland, Coles Express fuel and more.
You’re not locked into any particular reward, so we advise you keep your Flybuys points in your account until needed. Then, if you’re ready to travel, send some across to Velocity Frequent Flyer. Or, if you need some extra help with the grocery bills this week, then convert some to Flybuys dollars and spend away.
Which of these three 'Flybuys 50' members match your strategy the closest?
Point Hacks is not affiliated with Flybuys or the ‘Flybuys 50’.
IMO it is unethical to be nicking someone elses potential flybuys points by paying for their stuff. It would serve a much better to purpose to educate the freinds and family how to earn the flybuys points themselves. Consider it a community service.
Yes I know some people dont want to be bothered with earning points. If that was the case, then use the rewards to pay them back 🙂
Oh yeah – these offers come though by email – you need to keep an eye on them and then activate them. You can double check on your Flybuys dashboard.
Coles / Flybuys use some sort of algorithm to generate personalised bonus offers. Some are one-offs and some require spend for each week for four weeks. The deals are designed to push the customer up in spend – initially $50 per shop, but increasing step by step to $300 or more per spend. The trick is to enrol more than one household / family member into Flybuys. Then you can watch and learn the system. Sometimes you get stackable bonuses – a one-off bonus usually for 3 days, which can be added to the week by week bonus. Yesterday my wife and I secured a 6,800 point one-off bonus for $210 spend combined with a 5,000 bonus for one part of 4-week $250 spend. So approximately 14,000 Flybuys or 7,000 Velocity points in one $250 Coles shop. Sometimes you can also add specific product bonuses to stack on top of that. These can be boosters on Flybuy earn rates (say X50 per dollar) or a lump bonus, say 500 Flybuys per item. Some of those bonuses are only redeemable once and others multiple. We’ve been known to stock up on cans of dogwood and Lindt dark chocolate Easter bunnies to secure bonuses. The bottom line is that it can be possible to earn 40 Flybuys points (20 Velocity points) per dollar on fairly regular basis. Now that the cap on transfers from Flybuys to Velocity has been removed you can easily amass 100,000s of Velocity points just on regular groceries shop. The key is is not to activate the offers once you’ve been pushed too high in spend. My wife is at the $250 level at the moment, but I pulled back for a month or two and my offers were eventually was reset back to $50, then (as now) $90 spend threshold. This shows the value in using more tan one account strategically. These tricks accelerate your point earn about 20 to 40 fold from 0.5 Velocity points per dollar to around 10 to 20 Velocity points per dollar. You can then add a few points per dollar depending on your credit card choice.
I wonder how much points did they make vs spend in a year?