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// Filed under: Random on Tuesday November 22nd 2005, 8:26 am Coles Myer’s customer loyalty program Fly Buys, has a new promotion out. This new promotion works as follows: You redeem 1000 Fly Buys points for a 10c a litre discount voucher on petrol at their service stations. You combine this with the normal 4c a litre discount voucher to receive, in total, 14c a litre off the price of fuel. Now in theory you’re thinking “Wow! This is the bestest deal EVAR!11!!”. But stop for a second. Consider this; How much do you have to spend in order to accumulate 1000 Fly Buys points? Let’s do a little bit of math. The standard dollars to Fly Buys ratio clocks in at $5 = 1 Fly Buys point. So for every five dollars you spend, you get one point. However, Fly Buys also runs a ludicrous amount of monthly specials through the spidery arms of Coles Myer in which you can pick up anything from 10 - 100 bonus points at any one time. So, let’s work this out. In order to accumulate 1000 Fly Buys points without any bonuses, you would have to spend $5000. That’s five thousand dollars. Now you’re thinking “Wait! What if I shop savvy and pick up their bonus point specials?” Well, that’s an interesting call, too. Here’s an example of a typical special at Coles Express, the service stations run by Coles Myer. You can buy a $20 bottle of motor oil and receive 100 bonus Fly Buys points. So let’s say you bought 10 bottles at once, for no real reason. You’re then spending $200 on oil, and receiving 1000 Fly Buys points, enough to redeem for your voucher. Given that nobody religiously goes around buying Fly Buys specials in order to receive points, we can estimate that on average to accumulate 1000 Fly Buys points, the consumer is going to have to spend anywhere from $1000 - $5000. That’s one thousand to five thousand dollars. NOT a small amount of money by any means. Of course, this isn’t taking into account that to earn the normal 4c a litre voucher that is combined with the 10c a litre Fly Buys voucher, you have to spend at least $30 at Coles/Bilo/Liquorland. So there’s another hit to your wallet right there. Now that we’ve established that you have to take out a small mortgage in order to accumulate 1000 Fly Buys points, let’s look at how much you’ll save with this voucher. Now I work at Coles Express, where these vouchers will be redeemed. The average amount that you will save using one of these vouchers is $15. And the absolute maximum you can save (voucher only valid up to 150 litres) is $21. Here’s the bottom line: You’re spending at least $1000 to save $15. Coles Myer - we may have standards, but we sure as hell don’t have any goddamn scruples to accompany them. // 5 Comments 
// Filed under: Random on Wednesday November 09th 2005, 7:12 pm
// Filed under: Life on Sunday November 06th 2005, 6:16 pm // 4 Comments
// Filed under: Verbiage on Wednesday November 02nd 2005, 3:03 pm // 6 Comments
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