Weekly supermarket gift card offers with Flybuys and Everyday Rewards

Supermarket gift card offers are one of the least complicated ways to accumulate frequent flyer points in Australia. Coles runs promotions through Flybuys, Woolworths runs them through Everyday Rewards, and both rotate a fresh set of participating gift cards each week. Because Flybuys points can be moved to Velocity and Everyday Rewards points can be moved to Qantas Frequent Flyer, a gift card you were going to buy anyway can quietly turn into airline currency.

The appeal is that no credit card is required. You need a Flybuys card or an Everyday Rewards card, a scan at the register, and a purchase that falls inside the promotional window. That makes these offers accessible to people who have no interest in points-earning cards at all, and a useful supplement for people who do.

How the two supermarket schemes differ

The mechanics are close to symmetrical, which makes them easy to learn once and apply weekly.

The conversion step is what makes the multiplier offers worth paying attention to. A 20x Flybuys points promotion works out at roughly 10 Velocity Points per dollar spent on the participating gift card. A 20x Everyday Rewards points promotion works out at roughly 10 Qantas Points per dollar. Those are unusually strong earn figures by the standards of everyday Australian spending, and they apply to the face value of the card rather than to some narrower category of purchase.

The four shapes an offer takes

Once you have watched the weekly cycle for a while, almost every promotion falls into one of four buckets.

Points multipliers. The headline format. A multiplier is applied to the base points you would otherwise earn on the purchase, and it is usually attached to a named list of gift cards rather than the whole rack. Multipliers at the higher end are the ones worth planning around.

Fixed bonus points. Instead of a multiplier, the offer grants a set number of bonus points per qualifying card, often tied to specific denominations. These frequently appear on prepaid Visa, Mastercard and eftpos gift cards, where a purchase fee usually applies and needs to be netted off before you decide whether the offer is worthwhile.

Percentage discounts. Some weeks there are no bonus points at all and the promotion is simply money off the face value. A discount is not points, but for a gift card you would have bought regardless it is a direct saving, and it is easier to value than points.

Bonus value. Closely related to a discount, but the benefit arrives as extra credit loaded onto the card rather than as a reduction at the till. Department store cards are the usual home for this format.

Which brands come up again and again

The rotation is wide but not random. Apple gift cards are the most reliably recurring subject of a high multiplier, appearing at one supermarket or the other on a regular cadence through the year. The TCN family of cards — the themed range covering categories such as Him, Her, Kids, Teen, Baby, Shop, Active, Pamper, Cinema, Party, Good Food, Pub & Bar, Restaurant, Deluxe and Holiday & Hotel — supplies the bulk of the remaining weeks, usually in clusters of five or six cards at a time. The Ultimate range plays the same role with its own set of themes.

Beyond those, the regulars include Google Play, Uber and Uber Eats, DoorDash, Netflix, Stan, Xbox, Nintendo eShop, Hoyts, Event Cinemas, Village Cinemas, Myer, David Jones, Peter Alexander, Country Road, The Iconic, IKEA, Dymocks, Timezone, RedBalloon, Webjet, Luxury Escapes, Drummond Golf, TK Maxx, Bunnings, Supercheap Auto, Rebel, BCF and the Super Card that covers the Supercheap Auto, BCF, Rebel and Macpac group. Prepaid Visa, Mastercard and eftpos cards appear on their own cycle, generally with a fixed bonus rather than a multiplier.

Purchase limits are the real constraint

Every offer carries limits, and they are the reason a promotion that looks enormous on paper is usually modest in practice. The limits take a few recognisable forms:

• A cap on the number of gift cards per customer, sometimes per day and sometimes across the whole promotional period.
• A tighter cap on variable-load cards, which can be loaded with a large amount and are therefore restricted more aggressively than fixed-denomination cards.
• A ceiling on total bonus points earned across the promotional period, which caps the offer regardless of how many cards you buy.
• Exclusions for particular products within an otherwise eligible range, most often the variable-load version of a card that is included in its fixed denominations.

Read the limits before you plan a run. A per-day limit and a per-period limit are very different propositions, and the difference determines whether an offer is worth a single visit or several.

Working out whether an offer is worth taking

Three questions settle most cases.

First, would you have spent the money anyway? A gift card for a retailer you use routinely converts a planned purchase into points at no extra cost. A gift card for a retailer you rarely visit is not a bargain at any multiplier, because unspent balances and forgotten cards destroy far more value than the bonus creates.

Second, what is the offer actually worth once fees are removed? Prepaid Visa, Mastercard and eftpos gift cards typically carry a purchase fee, and that fee has to come off the top before the bonus points mean anything. Retailer-specific cards generally do not carry a fee, which is part of why multiplier offers on them look so much better.

Third, how do you value the points? A points multiplier and a percentage discount are not directly comparable until you put a figure on a Velocity or Qantas Point, and reasonable people land in different places. If you are unsure, the discount is the safer choice, because its value is certain and immediate.

Practical cautions

Offers are published in the supermarket catalogues and signposted in store during the promotional period. In-store signage and the catalogue are the authoritative source; a third-party summary is a guide only, and errors are possible. Confirm the offer at the shelf before you buy, and for online purchases check the terms on the offer page.

Scan your loyalty card. It sounds obvious, but bonus points on gift cards are awarded against a Flybuys or Everyday Rewards membership, and a transaction without a scan cannot be retrospectively attached to an account with any reliability. Keep the receipt until the points appear, because bonus points frequently post days after the base points do.

Finally, treat gift cards as a spending commitment rather than a store of value. They are a good way to shift points earning onto purchases you were already making. They are a poor way to hold money.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a credit card to benefit from supermarket gift card offers? No. These promotions are tied to your Flybuys or Everyday Rewards membership, not to how you pay. A points-earning credit card can add a second layer of earn on the same transaction, but it is not required.

How do Flybuys points become Velocity Points? Flybuys allows members to convert their balance to Velocity Frequent Flyer points, which is why Coles promotions are usually quoted with a Velocity equivalent alongside the Flybuys figure.

How do Everyday Rewards points become Qantas Points? Everyday Rewards members can convert their balance to Qantas Frequent Flyer points, which is why Woolworths promotions are commonly expressed as a Qantas Points earn per dollar.

Why do some weeks have no bonus points at all? Because the supermarkets alternate between points promotions and price promotions. A week with a straight percentage discount on gift cards is still an offer; it simply pays in savings rather than points.

Are variable-load gift cards treated differently? Usually yes. Cards that let you choose the load amount attract tighter purchase limits than fixed-denomination cards, and they are sometimes excluded from an offer that otherwise covers the same brand.

What should I do if the bonus points do not appear? Keep the receipt and contact the relevant loyalty programme. Points are awarded by Flybuys or Everyday Rewards, not by any publication that lists the offers, and the receipt is the evidence that the purchase fell inside the promotional period.

This information is general in nature. It does not take your personal circumstances into account.