Flybuys - Points Hacking Ideas

oodian on 27/07/2016 - 18:03

I got an offer from Flybuys for 5000 bonus points for spending $50 over a three week period. I am sure many of you receive similar offers quite regularly. That 5000 points translates into $25. The problem is that I don't spend that amount of money on groceries each week.

What I think is a good idea is buying something from Coles to meet the spend requirement that can be easily sold on eBay or GumTree for a similar value or ideally a little less, perhaps reducing the $25 gain we get from the offer. So my questin is, is anyone else is taking advantage of this offer (who doesn't spend the amount on groceries anyway)? What is something I can buy that is easily sold? For those unaware, gift cards and tobacco products are excluded.

Any ideas?

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Comments

  • bdl on 27/07/2016 - 18:23

    Eneloops :)

  • [Deactivated] on 27/07/2016 - 18:59
    +2

    This sounds risky given the amount of ebay fees and risks involved in the transactions.

    I'd stock up on non perishable food which doesn't go on special, for example Coles brand toilet paper.

    If you have a store near you which sells lots of Mix clothing you can stock up on underwear or other types of clothing depening on the selection.

    • fossilfuel on 27/07/2016 - 19:19
      +11

      Please report back on what Coles brand toilet paper tastes like!

      • [Deactivated] on 27/07/2016 - 19:29
        +4

        I guess I should have written non perishable food or household daily use items.

    • inherentchoice on 28/07/2016 - 04:10
      +1

      I stock up on the non perishables but I got to the point where I had just so much food. More than enough for the zombie apocalypse…

      http://m.imgur.com/upr6DIj

      There's only so much rice/pasta/cereal/tinned soup you can stockpile before it becomes too much.

      I really like the idea of buying something to resell. But you can't really resell food so that doesn't leave a lot of other options.

      Perhaps a quality fry pan or kitchenware when it's on sale/clearance?

      • icejester on 04/08/2016 - 00:05

        Jeez I think you gotta hold back a bit on the spending lol
        That's a lot of stuff sitting around to be honest
        Ozbargain is useful if you're getting a discount on something you're going to buy right

        • inherentchoice on 04/08/2016 - 07:58

          I was going to buy that stuff. But if it's half price with a further 20‰ off then any Ozbargainer should stock up.

    • Seraphin7 on 28/07/2016 - 08:06

      This is exactly the sort of thing I do. Get a few-non-perishable items to top up to the required spend. Works every time.

      Re. the idea of the OP, by the time you stuff around with all the eBaying, etc., not to mention the risk of taking a total bath on the deal, I reckon your $25 savings will disappear pretty quickly!

  • retiredfeline on 27/07/2016 - 19:04
    +4

    Meh, if you can't think of anything, don't feed their algorithm. Next time they'll just raise the bar, say asking you to spend 3x$60. Just ignore them and they'll try again later with a lower threshold.

    • [Deactivated] on 27/07/2016 - 19:08
      +1

      On rare occasions you can get targets of $30 or $40 but they are very hard to come by. $50 offers usually give a good return but you're right that the next offer will probably be for $60.

      • retiredfeline on 27/07/2016 - 19:12
        +1

        The last batch of paper vouchers I got were 500 pts for $30. This round they've upped it to $40. So I'm going to ignore them, perhaps permanently if need be. $50 may offer a good return (I got that offer too, and their algorithm was eager to make me see it, they resent it because my mail reader doesn't download images which are tracking URLs), but it's no point if I buy things I don't need.

    • retiredfeline on 03/08/2016 - 19:42

      Ah hahaha, they just offered me $4 off $20, effectively 20% off. But have only Thu to Sun to use it.

      • [Deactivated] on 03/08/2016 - 20:03

        That's pretty good. The only offers I've heard about so far this week are triple points offers. It's also week 4 of the current 4 week promotion.

  • Euphemistic on 27/07/2016 - 20:45
    +5

    Don't do it. They are trying to lure you in to spend money you normally wouldn't.

  • fruit on 27/07/2016 - 21:00

    $50 a week for 3 weeks or $50 over 3 weeks?

    • oodian on 27/07/2016 - 21:26

      $50 per week for 3 weeks. You get 500 bonus points in Week 1, 1500 in Week 2 and 3000 in Week 3.

      • fruit on 27/07/2016 - 21:27

        How do you manage to spend so little on groceries? I wish I could

        • oodian on 27/07/2016 - 22:03
          +2

          I am quite fortunate in that my job has a fully stocked shelf of snacks, coffees/tea, beer in the fridge, team lunch every friday. Outside of that I run all of my monthly spending through a Coles CC (2FB points per $1) - health/car insurance, fuel, mobile etc., so I get a lot of FB points to spend on groceries apart from what I budget.

          I also try to live quite frugally. That doesn't mean peanut butter and jam sandwiches every day but I don't eat out too much, prepare my own cheap but healthy meals where possible. See here for inspiration: https://www.reddit.com/r/EatCheapAndHealthy/

  • djones145 on 27/07/2016 - 22:06
    +1

    Huggies nappies

    They sell quick online

    • oodian on 27/07/2016 - 22:07

      Nice one - thanks.

    • lgacb08 on 27/07/2016 - 22:35

      nah, done that before, not going quick on Gumtree.
      you'd be better off buying and return to store after receiving the bonus. I'm not sure how it applies for bonus point but my missus occasionally receive offer like spend $50 in 4 week and receive $50 off, at the 4th week of purchase, the $50 voucher got printed at the bottom of the receipt so in effect you can just spend that $50 voucher and return the goods. Coles are pretty easy, as long as it's unopened. But that's too much of a hassle, my wife tried to do that $50 spend in 4 week before once but you just ended up blowing out the monthly grocery bill with unnecessary stuff so now we don't bother.

      • djones145 on 28/07/2016 - 06:46

        Really, my friend sells left over all the time, prolly depends on the price, he was selling it at 15-20 a box, and any left overs.

      • birdnw on 31/07/2016 - 16:29

        Only reading your post for the first time now…
        We usually shop in Woolworths, but we shopped at Coles yesterday and spent $50, however end up having to returning 2 items today. However the lady in Coles asked us for our flybuys card and she entered our number to the computer.

        Did you have the same experience? I would like to know other people experience regarding refunding in Coles as well!

        • [Deactivated] on 31/07/2016 - 21:53
          +1

          It will depend on the staff member as to whether they will take your flybuys number during a refund translation. If I'm getting a scanning error refund I never let them take the flybuys card.

          I got flybuys points taken off me at Target when I got a refund on some faulty goods. I didn't give them the card but they used the number from the receipt or possibly the barcode on the receipt had the number encoded in it.

  • retiredfeline on 27/07/2016 - 23:04

    Pity these coins are sold by Woolies, otherwise if they were sold by Coles and qualified for the points, you could use them as normal cash, perhaps keeping a few for sentimental value. :)

    • lgacb08 on 28/07/2016 - 09:07

      No you wouldn't be able to to get point even if Coles sold them. They're treated as cash out and won't add to the point. The only one that probably qualify is the $15 package that had 5 coins inside but then who would be silly enough to lose $5 in exchange for undervalued points?

  • retiredfeline on 27/07/2016 - 23:05

    Hey, what about baby formula? Maybe you know some people who want to buy to take home as presents?

  • sparkles on 27/07/2016 - 23:12
    +1

    Mine is $70 per week to get the same points. Thanks Coles :\

    Do you buy razors? My email says Gilette is half price. Some products online are even better than half price ie.
    http://shop.coles.com.au/online/national/gillette-mach-3-raz…

    Also, prepaid phone credit is an option.

    • retiredfeline on 27/07/2016 - 23:32

      If recharges qualify, ticket topups might also. There are a handful of Coles that do Opal topups.

  • tassieeagle on 28/07/2016 - 02:08

    I am currently on a spend over $100 for 4 weeks, get 10,000 points run. As I mainly shop at Coles anyway I am doing it but after I will probably start not scanning my card or only scan it on small shops in the hope to lower the threshold for the next deal

    • tassieeagle on 28/07/2016 - 02:09
      +1

      I should say when these deals come along I usually stock up on non perishable half price deals or other specials like nappies and baby formula. Add up pretty quick

  • Geewhizz on 28/07/2016 - 06:22
    +2

    Phone recharges qualify.

  • Belistic on 28/07/2016 - 07:32

    Wow my offer, I had to spend $140 for 4 wks to get $50 or 10000 points.

  • geek001 on 28/07/2016 - 08:09

    Buy some milk powder and export them to China? Lol.

  • Kroniclenny on 28/07/2016 - 08:40

    Where do you find these flubuys deals? Do you have a link?

    • boomramada on 28/07/2016 - 11:41

      Registered with flybuy, opt in for emails or login to your Coles web panel and look for active offers.

    • [Deactivated] on 28/07/2016 - 12:28
      +1

      If you shop at Coles all the time, make it look like you are reducing the amount of groceries purchased there. If you aren't getting targeted offers or it your targets are too high change the amount of transactions you do and how often you swipe your flybuys card. Do 2 transactions when you do your regular shopping trip. Swipe your flybuys card for the first transaction and don't swipe it for the second transaction. Figure out what you want your target to be to get your reward and stop the first transaction $20-$50 less than that figure, depending on how high or low you want your offer target to be.

      You will miss out on base points doing things this way but eventually you will end up with more bonus points.

  • 1aimeelou1 on 28/07/2016 - 08:54
    +1

    Have you been to a supermarket lately? Not hard to spend 50 bucks. I'm sure if you chucked some deodorant, tooth paste, tooth brushes and soap in your trolley you'd almost be there.

  • chichi on 28/07/2016 - 09:05
    +3

    It's not hard for us to hit that target. After buying bread, milk, eggs and meat for lunches there isn't much more we need to spend. I usually stock up on washing powder, toothpaste, deodorant. I only buy what is on special that week though.

    We have 2 flybuys cards - one is used every week and always gets the crappy deals. The other is never used and every now and then we will get a decent offer. This time round our deal was spend $40 over 4 weeks to get 10,000 points.

    • sparkles on 28/07/2016 - 13:10

      That's actually a good deal and pretty easy to achieve even for a single person.

  • Drifta on 05/08/2016 - 15:06
    +1

    We used to shop at coles all the time, our typical spend is usually $30 a week as we buy all our fresh food from the market and things like rice is purchased from indian stores as its better quality. When these deals first started, we jumped on them and started stocking up on supplies, but soon realised they kept upping the spend requirements so we stopped. Soon the woolies deals started to get better and coupled with the 5% of wish giftcards and being able to use the cards at caltex meant we moved our weekly shopping to them. Now we shop at woolies and occasionally take advantage of the coles offers. We spend 30 a week, fill up petrol using the 4c discount plus shop instore (milk, bread) for additional 4c and pay all of it with wish cards. We buy mostly from specials each week and stock up if its a really good special. In our area the caltex petrol prices are also 2-3c cheaper than shell. We save quite a bit more in real cash instead of worrying about collecting points

  • CatLover53 on 14/09/2016 - 22:55

    Bit late to the party. I had a target of $40 and spend around $25 a week. For the remaining $15 I brought a couple of items then immediately returned them.

    • [Deactivated] on 15/09/2016 - 00:28

      They are getting better at tracking purchases like this and reversing the points. There are now barcodes on each Coles receipt which I believe also contain flybuys information. Let us know if you get the bonus points for your current promotion.

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