If you’re someone who loves to travel, there is no doubt that you’ve wondered what it would be like to travel First Class on a long-haul flight at least once in your life. It turns out, it is a dream you can make a reality if you shopped a little smarter.
Aussie traveller Olivia Gordon told Yahoo Lifestyle that she “never imagined” she would one day be able to fly Business or First Class. However, she soon realised she could earn a lot of frequent flyer points thanks to Coles and Woolworths.
Olivia noticed that if she stopped shopping at one of the supermarkets, they would try to “win her back” by offering her more points than you would traditionally earn at the supermarket.
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Coles uses Flybuys to track points and spending, while Woolworths uses the Everyday Rewards program.
Olivia believes you can get up to 40,000 bonus points a month with her strategy, which you can then convert into Qantas and Velocity points to fly Business or even First Class.
But it’s all down to the way you shop.
She claimed that if you are constantly shopping with one supermarket, you’re deemed a “safe” customer.
As a result, she didn’t get any high-point offers from that company.
“But what I noticed – when you stop shopping at Woolies, and start shopping at Coles, they move you from the category of a ‘loyal shopper’, into an ‘at risk’ category, and that’s when the ‘win back’ offers start rolling in,” the Brisbane resident said.
If you haven’t got your Coles shop connected to Flybuys, you could be missing out on a lot of points! Photo: Yahoo Lifestyle
She initially chose where to shop based on the bonus offers in the Coles and Woolies’ apps, and the sales items they each had. But then she “started noticing a pattern”.
“Whenever I spent more at Coles, Woolies would suddenly send me better personalised bonus offers, almost like they were trying to pull my spend back up,” she told Yahoo Lifestyle.
“So then I’d switch my main shop over to Woolies. I’d still do a small Coles shop, but then Coles would start increasing their bonus offers again.
“So I’d jump back to Coles for my main shop, and the cycle repeated.”
She initially thought this was just odd timing or a strange coincidence.
“But the offers were getting bigger and bigger. For example, in October, I earned 44,000 bonus points across both Woolies and Coles,” she said. “This month I’m on track for 35,000 to 40,000 bonus points again.”
Coles and Woolworths refuse to deny hack to get more points
While Coles and Woolworths wouldn’t confirm whether this strategy was true, neither of them denied it.
“We value every one of our Everyday Rewards members, and every week each member receives multiple bonus points offers to give them even more value when they shop with us,” an Everyday Rewards spokesperson told Yahoo Lifestyle.
“We know it is common for families to shop across a number of retailers, which is why we work hard to remain competitive and offer not only great value on the shelf, but also in our Everyday Rewards program.”
Coles told us they are “committed to helping customers get more value every time they shop with us”.
“In addition to earning one point for every dollar spent at Coles supermarkets or Liquorland, Flybuys members can activate personalised offers to earn bonus points, money off their shop, and free products – providing our customers with more reasons to shop at Coles,” a spokesperson said.
Olivia stressed that these offers aren’t “offical or guaranteed”, but added that there “seems to be a real behavioural pattern” from what she had personally noticed.
As an example, the young Aussie revealed that at Woolworths, she received a 12,000 point offer last month, this month she’s been sent a 16,000 point offer, and then on top of that, she has also regularly gets smaller bonuses.
At Coles, Olivia received a 20,000 point offer last month, then this month, she received both a 10,000 point offer and a 6,000 point offer.
Olivia said she can’t say “there’s a strict pattern”, but shared her findings.
“When I shift more of my spending to one supermarket for a week or two, the other supermarket usually starts sending me noticeably better personalised offers within that same one to two week window,” she said.
“It’s not exact, and I’m not claiming it’s guaranteed – it’s just the trend I’ve observed in my own accounts while testing this.”
If you have enough points, a Business Class flight can be cheaper than economy. Photo: Supplied
Given you don’t need a credit card to earn thousands of points, Olivia told us she believes it’s “one of the easiest ways to earn a large amount of points quickly”.
“Everyone buys groceries, so it’s one of the most accessible entry points into points earning.”
How many points do I need to fly Business Class?
You can get yourself a Singapore Airlines Business Class reward seat from Brisbane to Milan using 158,500 Virgin Velocity points plus $618 in taxes.
Similarly, with Qantas Frequent Flyer Points, you could get a business class seat on an Emirates flight from Adelaide to Amsterdam for 166,300 plus $1907 in taxes.
According to Qantas, 2,000 Everyday Rewards points gets converted to 1,000 Qantas points. So, you would only have to do this shopping hack for a few months before you racked up enough points to score that flight.
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But, it’s worth mentioning that flights like these are competitive, so you need to be flexible with dates and departure cities to get the most out of your points.
“It takes time, patience and strategy,” Olivia said.
“You won’t win every time, but once you understand how the system works, you realise just how powerful your points can be.”
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