For the first time in over six months, earn 2,000 bonus Flybuys points on $100 and $250 Coles Mastercard gift cards at Coles.
You can use these gift cards almost anywhere Mastercard is accepted both in-store and online. They even seem to work when paying the ATO by phone (but not online).
If you purchased five of the $100 Mastercards, you would earn a total of 10,525 Flybuys points (equal to $52.63 or 5,000+ Velocity points) for just $25 in purchase fees.
Here are the details:
- Runs from Wed 5 Aug to Tue 11 Aug 2026
- Only available in-store at Coles
- Limit of five gift cards per Flybuys account
- $5 fee on $100 card, $7 fee on $250 card
- This offer is open to everyone and does not require activation
- Points usually credit in 1-3 days
How it works
Scan your Flybuys card when you buy $100 or $250 Mastercard gift cards in-store at Coles between 5 Aug and 11 Aug 2026.
The bonus points usually credit to your account the following day at around 5-6pm, although delays of a few extra days aren’t uncommon.
You can only earn the 2,000 bonus points up to five times. That’s five times in total, not five per day or five of each denomination of Coles Mastercard.
If you want to purchase more than five of these Mastercard gift cards, your only option is to use another Flybuys account, although you may need to make multiple trips to Coles as most staff won’t let you buy more than five in one day.
This offer will be advertised in the Coles catalogue and on posters at the in-store gift card display. You won’t see it in your Flybuys app. You do not need to activate anything as all Flybuys members are eligible to earn the bonus points.
The $100 Mastercard is the preferred choice as it earns the same 2,000 points bonus as the more expensive $250 card. That being said, the $100 denomination usually sells out much faster so sometimes you have no choice but to buy the $250 denomination.
To use a Coles Mastercard in-store, simply swipe it at the payment terminal and select Credit. If you’re prompted for a PIN, whatever four digit number you enter the first time becomes that card’s PIN.
Note that these Mastercard gift cards no longer work on the ATO or Goverment EasyPay websites but you can apparently still use them to pay the ATO over the phone.
Warning: It’s a good idea to open up each Mastercard after you scan it at the checkout so that you can check for signs of tampering. It’s easier to do this if you buy each gift card separately. More information about this scam can be found here.
Also, you should always try to spend prepaid Mastercard and Visa gift cards sooner rather than later as the longer they sit idle, the higher the chance of a BIN attack (scammers brute force card number combinations until they find ones that work).
Points calculator
In addition to the 2,000 bonus points, you’ll also collect 1x Flybuys point per dollar spent.
More information
If you’re new to these offers, check out our step-by-step guide on how to earn points by buying gift cards.
If you want to know how frequently certain gift cards are included in these offers, see our Gift Card Offer History tool.
To be kept informed about future gift card promotions, follow us on Facebook and Instagram or subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
51 Responses
Can these cards be used for online shopping?
Yes and no. Yes in the sense that they can technically be used online, no because most online merchants don’t allow split card payments and in some cases they may just block prepaid gift cards altogether.
They’re generally much easier to use in-store.
Has anyone had recent success using these to pay the ATO over the phone? Worked for me about a year ago, but then did not work more recently.
It worked for me today.
Thank you. Wondering if there’s any difference between paying with a prepaid Visa (which from memory is the one that was declined for me) vs a prepaid Mastercard (which I think worked for me) when paying by phone?
Is that using the government easy pay service? How does that work when you need to use multiple cards? Do you just repeatedly enter the different card details and specify the amount each time?
Yes. It is laborious.
I got the cards this morning and successfully paid via phone to ATO.
Can these cards be purchased by using the same Coles Mastercard gift cards?
Even if it did work it would be a challenge to pull off since you can’t split card payments when buying gift cards at Coles without going through a staffed checkout and asking if you can pay with two cards.
If it still works you can recycle the card if you split payment at a self-serve checkout that accepts cash. At the cash terminal select Mixed Payment -> Cash -> Insert $5. Then go back and select card and pay the remaining $100 with your prepaid card. Thankfully on the newer cards (the ones with 3032 as their expiry if I remember correctly) you can set up a pin to use with the card, the older ones you had to sign and that would sometimes trigger the staff member to ask you if you are using a gift card to buy a gift card.
Coles Mastercard gift cards have always supported PIN verification. The very first one I bought back in June 2022 allowed me to set a PIN on it.
It sounds like you have confused them with Vanilla Visa gift cards, as only ones with 2030 expiry (or later) support PIN verification.
Could you use these cards to buy Wish gift cards on Qantas Marketplace.?
I believe Coles/Vanilla Mastercard gift cards stopped working on Qantas Marketplace in October 2024 and haven’t worked since.
I tried to use these cards on the Qantas marketplace the last time this deal ran, and the transaction was declined.
Thank you ☺️
Can these gift cards be used to purchase other gift cards? (20x tcn vouchers currently advertised)
Yes
Thank you!
In most cases they can but there are some exceptions (e.g. you can’t use them to buy other prepaid Visa/Mastercard/Eftpos gift cards at Woolworths).
Can this be used to pay for fines (presumably at Aus Post)? Just got speeding fine recently!
Hi, I just bought 5 of the $100 MasterCards. Can they be added as payment cards to Google wallet?
I don’t believe so. These gift cards have never officially supported mobile wallets but for a while they did work on Google Pay for some reason. However, that’s no longer the case last I checked.
You can add them, but physical/contactless doesn’t work (something about unable to verify), so they can only be used to pay via Google pay online on websites/apps. Not sure about which merchants are accepted though.
Has anyone encountered the card is showing “declined” after paying? Paid for 5 in one go but one of the card is showing as “declined”. The customer service asked to contact the number which I’ve yet to do.
If the gift card declines to activate they’re supposed to refund you on the spot. It’s actually a good thing because you get your money back and still get to keep the points – or at least that’s how it’s worked in previous offers at Coles.
Same thing happened to me and they refunded me on the spot in this situation. So all good, but the staff member suggested to try buying in groups of 3 or less next time the promotion is on. So 2x purchases of 3 + 2 to get 5 total. Unconfirmed by me though.
I bought 5 and 1 also got declined. I had to ring coles customer service. They emailed the store to authorise a refund. I went in store and got the refund no problem.
Will be interesting if I keep the points for it.
Yes, I’m keen to know this too about the points.
They didn’t refund on the spot, they said to ring customer service THEN we can go back to the store to get a refund.
I received the points for my refunded card
Yes I did. They asked me to try it. Still said invalid so they refunded me the store
Hi’ does it take over 24 hours for even normal fly bus points to show on the account t
Yes. Your standard points will appear the following day at around 5-6pm. Hopefully the bonus points will credit then too but sometimes they lag behind by a day or two.
I just went to my local and they were out of stock. Do we know when they get restocked usually?
Ask staff to check inside the gift card cabinet. There’s usually always additional stock in there.
3 Coles today, all “we aren’t participating in that promotion”
I would’ve thought that all Coles nationally would be participating in the promotion. Anyway, I could not find the $100 gift cards anywhere today (I went to 4 Coles today), and ended up buying the $250 gift cards coz I had some large expenses to be paid anyway.
It is a national promotion. However, most staff have zero clue about these gift card offers so they’ll tell you all sorts of things that aren’t true.
Did you look inside the gift card cabinet?
Coles stores in Geelong have withdrawn the $100 cards because of the high number of refunds having to be issued for the “failed to load” issue. Seems to be lots of problems with the $100 cards – i had 7 out of 12 failed to load (family accounts)
Hi, how do you check the balance of the gift card? I went to the http://www.mybalancenow.com website but kept getting a system error message
Sometimes if you press the button again it’ll work. You could also try it on another device or call the number on the back of the card.
Try this. Use Google Chrome, open new Incognito window, check the card balance
Hi I scanned my card and purchased 3 gift cards and it says my flybys card number on the receipt but didn’t show what points I just earned, is that normal?
That’s normal. As mentioned in the article, the points usually arrive within 1-3 days.
Is anyone else having issues using these cards today?
I bought one yesterday and successfully used it last night on DEFT.
I bought 4 more $250 cards today and none of them work on either DEFT or Medibank, both platforms give messages to contact the card issues.
The Check Balance page shows all are activated and have the full $250 balance.
No issues on deft, used 20 today
I also bought 5 and had the last one declined. They refunded it and swapped it out for another one at the store. Hoping bonus points still come thru as they haven’t appeared in account yet
Bonus points arrived a day later!
Has everyone received the bonus points yet ? Mine have still not come through
I’m in the same boat and across all 3 of our flybys accounts. I assume by this evening or tomorrow they’ll be showing
Went to 5 different Coles stores and grabbed the last 5 $100 cards at the 5th. Points took 2 days to award