Coles Flybuys and Everyday Rewards both give you a way to earn points when you shop at the supermarket and with program partners. They also allow you to get frequent flyer points for your spending, as you can transfer Flybuys points to Velocity Points or Everyday Rewards points to Qantas Points.
But how do the other features of these two loyalty programs compare? Let's take a look.
| Program feature | Coles Flybuys | Everyday Rewards |
|---|---|---|
| Earning points at the supermarket | 1 point per $1 spent No minimum spend | 1 point per $1 spent No minimum spend |
| Cash off shop rewards | 2,000 points = $10 value | 2,000 points = $10 value |
| Frequent flyer rewards | 2,000 Flybuys points = 1,000 Velocity Points | 2,000 Everyday Rewards points = 1,000 Qantas Points |
| Reward options | Rewards you can get with your points include:
| There are three reward options:
|
| Program partners | You can also earn points with many other brands, including:
| You can also earn points for spending with partner brands, including:
|
| Member offers | Offers are sent by email and include bonus point promotions. You can also view offers in the Flybuys app. | Offers are sent by email and include bonus point promotions. You can also view offers in the Everyday Rewards app. |
| Point expiry | Flybuys points don't expire as long as you collect or redeem them at least once a year. | Any unused points balance of less than 2,000 points may be set to expire 18 months from the date on which you last scanned your rewards card at a participating store. |
The Coles Flybuys rewards program is free to join, with options to sign up online or in-person at participating stores. It has more than 8 million active members across Australia and over 20 program partners.
Below, we've covered the highlights of this program. You can also check out the full guide to Flybuys for more details about the program.
At Coles supermarkets (including online), you'll earn 1 point per $1 spent when you scan your Flybuys card before paying. The same earn rate applies when you're shopping at Liquorland, First Choice Liquor and First Choice Liquor Market, as well as Kmart and Target.
You can also earn points per $1 spent with a number of other partners, which could cover your spending in the following major categories:
With so many different partners, the Flybuys program also offers many ways to use your points. Popular options include:
A unique feature of the Flybuys loyalty program is that it allows you to earn Velocity Status Credits for your shopping at Coles, Liquorland and First Choice Liquor.
All you need to do is add your Velocity details to your Flybuys account and scan your Flybuys card when you shop with one of these partners. You'll then earn 1 Status Credit for every $100 you spend, across multiple transactions, up to 10 Status Credits per month. This is one of the only ongoing ways to earn Status Credits when you're not flying, making it a key benefit for Velocity members.
Graham Cooke's experience
I use both the Flybuys and Everyday Rewards programs. While Flybuys can be used at more retailers, Everyday Rewards tends to offer a better return. It's even better if you exchange your rewards for Qantas Points. Doing this and using points for airline upgrades can give you double the value of spending on groceries.— Graham Cooke, Finder crew member
The Everyday Rewards program is also free to join either online or in a participating Woolworths Group store. As of 2018, Everyday Rewards has 11 million members across Australia. Although Woolworths hasn't said whether these members are all active, it does suggest it has more members than Flybuys.
While you can get all the details of the Everyday Rewards program in our guide, here we've picked out the key features to compare with Flybuys.
Everyday Rewards offers you points for your everyday spending at the following stores:
You can also earn bonus points on fresh fruit, veggies and Macro Wholefoods bought at Woolworths if you link your Everyday Rewards account to a Bupa health insurance account.
While these partners do give you a mix of ways to earn points, there are fewer partners compared to Flybuys.
Another major difference to Flybuys is that Everyday Rewards only offers three ways to use your points – two of which involve getting cash off your shop. The options are:
What about Woolworths credit cards?
As of 2023, there are no Woolworths credit cards on the market in Australia. Before this, the Woolworths credit cards available offered a choice of points that were converted to shopping gift cards or Qantas Points. They also included your Everyday Rewards membership barcode and offered 10% off one supermarket shop at Woolworths each month.
If you want to focus on earning points through just one of these programs, asking the following questions can help you choose between them:
While you can get more benefits and value from focusing on just one rewards scheme, it may be worth joining both Flybuys and Everyday Rewards so you can earn points when you shop at either supermarket. Just remember to keep your membership card or details handy so you actually earn points for your spending.
Australia's two largest supermarkets both have frequent flyer alliances for their loyalty programs. Everyday Rewards lets you earn Qantas Frequent Flyer points, while Coles' Flybuys lets you earn Virgin Australia Velocity points. Both partnerships let you earn 1 point per dollar spent in store, as well as running regular bonus offers. But which one actually offers better value for money? We've crunched the numbers to help you decide.
Both schemes use an indirect earn model: you don't score airline points directly, but can convert your supermarket points into rewards points. The details are essentially identical: for each 2,000 reward points you transfer into the relevant frequent flyer scheme and you get 1,000 points in return. So this means you earn this many points:
Note that Flybuys often runs bonus points promotions that earn extra points when you make transfers. For Flybuys, there is an annual cap on how many points you can transfer of 138,000 points per calendar year. (Some promotions let you transfer points above that cap, however, so it pays to read the details carefully.)
With Velocity, your points are added whenever you make a transfer, which you need to do manually. With Everyday Rewards, you choose to opt in for Qantas Frequent Flyer points rather than Woolworths Dollars, and you'll have points transferred automatically each quarter. You can't control when this happens, however.
Realistically, how many frequent flyer points could the average Australian earn purely from supermarket shopping? As an example, say you spend an average of $250 a week on groceries, including any alcohol you buy. That works out to around $13,000 per year.
Using our reward points calculators for Flybuys and Everyday Rewards, spending this much would earn you 250 Flybuys or Everyday Rewards each week and 13,000 points each year. At an exchange rate of 2,000 supermarket points for 1,000 frequent flyer points, you'd earn around 125 Velocity or Qantas Points per week, or 6,500 airline loyalty points per year. (While both schemes will occasionally offer bonus points deals for buying particular products, we're sticking to what you're guaranteed to earn for this comparison.)
We're going to focus on using your points for flights, since that offers the best value. With Velocity flights start from 7,800 points and with Qantas they start from 8,000 points. (In both cases, you'll need to pay carrier charges.)
That could give you between $100 and $500 value for your points, depending on how much flights would cost to buy at the time.
To put this in perspective with other supermarket rewards, if you used 16,000 Everyday Rewards points to get cash off your shop, you'd get $80 value. But if you transferred those points to Qantas Frequent Flyer, you'd get 8,000 points – enough for a one-way flight from Sydney to Melbourne or Brisbane. It's rare to see a Qantas flight on these routes for less than $80, which means you'll typically get more value from a flight reward than cash off your shop.
The key lesson here? Supermarket shopping on its own won't get you a free flight quickly. However, if you're also accumulating points from flying, credit card activity or other options, it's a very useful way to supplement your total.
Because the earn rates are essentially identical, there's no real reason to prefer one supermarket alliance over the other. But if you're already concentrating your points earning efforts on a single airline, it does make sense to shop in the "matching" supermarket, provided you have one that's conveniently located.
Whichever scheme you're in, using your points for flights definitely offers the best return. Both supermarket schemes will be, at best, a small supplement to what you can earn through regular flying or a points-earning credit card.
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