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Coles Myer - Ripping You Off

// 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

5 Comments »

Tinkling_Koala says:

November 23, 2005 at 8:06 am

Yup they pull off the scam once again.

Video rental stores do something similar, although not as massive or subtle, but just as effecive. Blockbuster, for example. You can sign up to be a video club member and save something like 10% per movie rented, so paying $5.40 instead of $6.00. ‘Course then they charge you like $30 a month for membership fee. Anyways, for you to actually save any money at all you’d have to rent 51 movies a month for $275.40, and all you save is the last two digits of that. Why would you even NEED to rent 51 movies a month!?

In short: Bonus points and store club memberships suck.
t3h (h4r says:

November 23, 2005 at 10:29 pm

Public busses are where it’s at, yo.

At least here. >.>;
Doomy says:

December 5, 2005 at 3:50 am

But the points! GOOD GOD THE POINTS!
Jim(i) says:

December 5, 2005 at 5:51 pm

Now, I’m as easily manipulated as the next credit-card-happy-impulse-buyer (ye gods I love instant wins - prizes: I deserve them), but, seriously, do people not realize behaviour reinforcement programmes are NOT a good thing?

“Yes! Conglomerates appreciate me as an individual and choose
to give me Reward points out of general altruism! Subtly
manipulating my spending patterns? Mind control? I’m irredeemably
stupid? Craziness, stop destroying my warm-fuzzy sense of
customer loyalty!”

We should, as always, look to the homeless for the answers. Do you see them shopping at coles express or squealing coquettishly about how many free sms’ they can send a day? Infallible logic.

…and they agree, public transport, or at least depots-there-of, are the shiznit.
flopsy says:

June 30, 2008 at 8:43 pm

Now the staff at coles express are being held responsible for fuel drive offs…….yes….they have to look at every car before it puts in petrol..then take the reg no then serve a customer ( sometmes ten in a line) then unpack groceries and stock shelves…and if they happen to get a drive off while all this is going on..its their fault because they didnt take the reg no. or colour of the car. They have to have eues in back of head for this job and then the customers abuse them also because they have to turn off their headlights or face the right way before petrol is authorised. Coles abuse their staff as well…. think a bout it. Why dont coles have pre pay afyer 8pm like many other stations..why because Coles needs to save money…!