Every week Coles and Woolworths run promotions on various gift cards, usually in the form of bonus points. These promotions are an easy way to earn tens of thousands of Qantas, Velocity, Everyday Rewards or Flybuys points on purchases you were already going to make.
What are these promotions and how do they work?
In addition to their weekly grocery specials, Coles and Woolworths regularly run promotions on an assortment of gift cards. Big W, the Everyday Rewards app and the Woolworths Gift Cards website also run similar promotions, albeit less frequently.
Typically, these promotions offer either bonus points (e.g. 20x points per dollar spent) or a percentage discount (e.g. 10% off). For the bonus points promotions, you simply scan your Everyday Rewards or Flybuys card when buying the applicable gift cards during the promotion period and the bonus points will soon appear in your account.
Buying gift cards during bonus points offers is a highly effective way to grow your points balance by tens or even hundreds of thousands of points as they can be used to pay for a wide range of purchases that would not ordinarily accrue points.
For example, a $2,000 purchase at JB Hi-Fi could earn you 40,000 Flybuys or Everyday Rewards points if you pay using JB Hi-Fi-compatible Ultimate or TCN gift cards bought during one of the regular 20x points promotions. That’s enough points to fly business class from Sydney to Melbourne or Brisbane.
How do I know when these promotions are on?
All gift card promotions are posted on this website as soon as they become public. We also send out an email newsletter every Tuesday morning with a summary of the best points offers running that week. For a sneak peek at upcoming offers, make sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
Which gift cards are included?
You can find a searchable list of all previous promotions here but some of the most popular gift cards included are Apple, Airbnb, Uber, Google Play, Kayo, Netflix, Accor, Luxury Escapes as well as third-party gift cards that work at a variety of retailers including JB Hi-Fi, Officeworks, The Good Guys, IKEA and more. Prepaid Visa, Mastercard and Eftpos gift cards that can be used anywhere are also frequently included in these promotions but typically earn fewer points.
How do I buy gift cards during a promotion?
Read the terms and conditions attached to the promotion carefully before you head out to buy gift cards. Usually there are limits on the number of gift cards you can purchase and sometimes the promotion only applies to specific denominations of a gift card (for example, a $50 gift card might be included but not the $50-500 variable load version of the same gift card).
If you’re buying gift cards during a points promotion at Coles, simply present your Flybuys membership card or barcode in the app when paying for the gift cards. Your receipt should show your Flybuys account number at the bottom, confirming that your card has successfully been scanned. Always hang onto your receipt in case there are any issues.
If you’re buying gift cards at Woolworths or Big W, present your Everyday Rewards card or barcode from the app when checking out. The checkout will state how many points you have earned on the screen just before payment. Once you’ve paid, the points should appear in your account more or less instantly.
Online Woolworths Gift Cards promotions require you to enter your Everyday Rewards number when checking out on the website. You don’t need to enter your details if purchasing through the Everyday Gifting section of the Everyday Rewards app.
How many points will I earn?
You can use the calculator below to calculate how many points you will earn from most points promotions. Coles sometimes offers a fixed amount of bonus points on multiple denominations of the same gift card (e.g. the Coles Mastercard offer shown above). For those particular promotions, simply multiply the bonus amount by the number of eligible cards you have purchased.
When will I receive the the points?
Coles purchases will typically see the points arrive in your Flybuys account the following day at around 5:00pm. If several days have gone by and the points are still not reflected in your account, you can contact the Flybuys team to have them look into it.
Woolworths and Big W will usually award Everyday Rewards points instantly. Occasionally there may be hiccups where the points are not paid out immediately, in which case you can contact the Everyday Rewards team via phone or live chat after fourteen business days have gone by and they will manually credit them.
The online Woolworths Gift Cards store, on the other hand, does not award Everyday Rewards points immediately and, quite frustratingly, almost always forces customers to contact the Everyday Rewards team for the points to be manually credited after fourteen business days have passed.
Common questions and answers about buying gift cards
Q. Are there any other ways of earning points on gift cards?
A. Yes. Qantas Marketplace has recently started allowing customers to earn 3x Qantas points per dollar spent on a wide variety of gift cards including Woolworths, Bunnings and Harvey Norman. During a bonus points offer this can increase to 10x Qantas points for selected gift cards.
The Flybuys Rewards Store sometimes offers “bonus points” when you buy gift cards but since you can only pay using Flybuys points this is more akin to a discount.
Q. What can I do if I accidentally bought the wrong gift cards?
A. Give either Everyday Rewards or Flybuys a call or message and explain that you accidentally purchased the wrong gift cards. Everyday Rewards in particular is known for being very forgiving when it comes to these sorts of mistakes.
Q. What happens if my Flybuys or Everyday Rewards card didn’t scan properly?
A. This happens occasionally but it’s an easy fix. If your Flybuys card didn’t scan, take your receipt to the service counter at the Coles store you bought the gift cards from within seven days and they will fix it. If your Everyday Rewards card wasn’t scanned, you should contact the Everyday Rewards team and they will sort it out. Always keep your receipts in case of issues like this.
Q. Can I pay for the gift card using a points earning credit card?
A. Absolutely. This is an easy way to double dip and earn additional points. You can sometimes even triple dip by clicking through the Qantas Shopping or Velocity eStore websites when you go to use the gift cards you’ve bought.
Q. Do these promotions stack with other Flybuys or Everyday Rewards points offers?
A. No. Previously this was possible in some scenarios but these loopholes have since been closed. You will only ever earn the advertised bonus points for a particular gift card promotion.
I have more questions
If there are still some things you would like to know before rushing out to buy gift cards, feel free to comment below. Alternatively, you can submit a question in the Gift Card Deals Facebook group or subreddit.
7 Responses
Regarding the final FAQ “Do these promotions stack with other ER/Flybuys offers” what does the term stack mean?
And by “other ER/Flybuys offers” are you referring to any boosting promotions on the Flybuys/ER app?
What it means is that the gift card bonus offers don’t combine with other offers you have (e.g. ’10x points’ or ‘spend $50 to earn 3,000 points’). You will only ever earn the advertised bonus on the gift cards (e.g. 20x points).
Where can I find out what the gift card can be used for? Like those cards labelled SHE, HE, KID and so on with many merchants’ logos on them, can they only be used at those places? I’m afraid I’ll buy a card and find out I can’t use it where I need it.
You need to check their respective websites for the up to date list of retailers as what’s shown on the physical cards may be out of date. The two big multi-retailer gift card schemes operating in Australia are TCN (The Card Network) and Ultimate.
That’s correct. You can only use those kinds of gift cards at the specific retailers they’ve partnered with.
Thanks for the answer, this site is especially useful for those who have not known and used gift cards and shop credit
Hey, is there a limit on the amount of gift cards that can be used in one transaction for jb hi fi? I have some large purchases to make but don’t want to buy 20 gift cards if there is a lower limit. Thanks
JB Hi-Fi does not limit how many gift cards you can use either in-store or online. If you’re wanting to use Ultimate or TCN gift cards for an online JB Hi-Fi purchase then you would need to first swap those cards for some of JB Hi-Fi’s own gift cards via their respective websites.