Quick answer: The Coles Flybuys loyalty program is Australia's most popular rewards scheme, with over 9 million active members earning 1 point per $1 spent across 20+ partner brands. Members redeem points for Flybuys dollars (2,000 points = $10 off) or transfer them to Velocity Frequent Flyer. The tactics behind its success (everyday earn, personalised bonus offers, and a frictionless app) are ones any small business can adapt today.
What is the Coles Flybuys loyalty program?
The Coles Flybuys loyalty program is a coalition points scheme launched in 1994 and operated by Coles across more than 20 retail and services partners. Members scan their physical or digital card at checkout to earn points on everyday purchases. Those points convert to cash discounts, travel rewards, or partner offers. It is rated Australia's number one loyalty program in the 2025 For Love or Money study by Adam Posner, with an LPEI score of 83.1.
This playbook draws on publicly available Flybuys program data, the 2025 For Love or Money loyalty study by Adam Posner, and our team's analysis of loyalty programs across 5,000+ local businesses.
Image: Redeeming Flybuys dollars for money off your shop. Source: Flybuys.
How the Flybuys loyalty program actually works
Flybuys is simple on the surface. Spend money. Earn points. Redeem for rewards. But the machine underneath is far more sophisticated than that.
Here is the mechanics breakdown:
Earning points
Members earn 1 point per $1 spent at most Flybuys partners. That includes Coles Supermarkets, Kmart, Target, Liquorland, First Choice Liquor, Officeworks, and Bunnings. At Coles Express, the earn rate drops to 1 point per $2. Swaggle gives 2 points per dollar.
But the base earn rate is not where the program wins. Flybuys drives real engagement through targeted bonus offers, activated in the app. Common offers include 5x points on your weekly shop, 10,000 bonus points over four weeks when you hit a spending target, and 10x or 20x bonus points on selected gift cards. These offers are personalised based on your shopping history.
Redeeming points
| Redemption option | How it works |
|---|---|
| Flybuys dollars | Every 2,000 points = $10 off at Coles, Kmart, Target, Liquorland |
| Velocity Frequent Flyer | 1,000 Flybuys points = 500 Velocity Points (manual or auto transfer) |
| Fuel savings | Activate a fuel docket after a $30+ Coles shop to save 4c per litre at Coles Express |
| Rewards catalogue | Merchandise, gift cards, and experiences via the Flybuys app |
The app as the loyalty engine
Flybuys is rated among the top apps in Australia's loyalty category. Members use it to activate offers before shopping, track their balance in real time, and redeem Flybuys dollars at the checkout. The app also serves as the digital card, eliminating the need for a physical card.
Active participation in Australian loyalty programs hit 51% in 2025, up from 43% in 2021, according to Adam Posner's For Love or Money research. Flybuys membership grew 4.4% in the same year, and card swipe rates rose 6%. This is a program that is growing, not plateauing.
The 5 tactics that made Flybuys Australia's number one program
Flybuys did not win by accident. These are the five structural decisions that keep 9 million Australians scanning their card every week.
1. Frictionless entry: no one has to ask twice
When Flybuys relaunched in 2012, Coles mailed a card to almost every household in Australia. Members did not need to request one. They just had to activate it. The barrier to join dropped from "decide and act" to "you already have it."
This one move added millions of members overnight.
The lesson is not to spam your customers. It is to remove every unnecessary step between a customer and your program. If joining requires filling out a form, downloading an app, and visiting a website, most people will not bother.
2. The everyday earn principle
Flybuys earns where Australians already spend. Groceries. Fuel. Homewares. Liquor. Hardware. You do not need to change your shopping habits to collect points. That is the genius of a coalition model.
For small businesses, the equivalent is attaching your loyalty program to the transaction the customer was going to complete anyway. Not a separate hoop to jump through. Points on a coffee purchase. A stamp on a regular service booking. Rewards tied to what you already sell.
3. Personalised bonus offers
The base earn rate of 1 point per $1 is not enough to change behaviour on its own. What changes behaviour is the targeted bonus offer sitting in your app that says "spend $50 at Coles this week and earn 5,000 bonus points."
Flybuys uses shopping history to personalise these offers. A customer who buys wine regularly sees wine offers. A customer who shops on Thursdays gets a Thursday bonus. The offers are relevant, which makes them feel like a reward rather than a marketing message.
According to the For Love or Money 2025 study, 75% of Australian consumers say loyalty programs have improved in recent years. Personalisation is the main reason cited.
4. Multiple redemption paths
Some customers want cash back. Others want flights. Others want fuel savings. Flybuys covers all three without asking members to choose.
Locking customers into a single redemption path reduces perceived value. Giving them options does the opposite: the program feels more generous even when the underlying currency is identical.
5. The data flywheel
Flybuys gathers shopping data from over 9 million active members across Coles, Liquorland, and partner stores. That data powers Coles 360 Empower, their retail media platform, which uses AI-powered audience targeting to serve more relevant offers.
The more members shop, the better the offers get. The better the offers get, the more members shop. This is not loyalty strategy. It is a compounding growth loop.
Over 86% of Australian consumers belong to at least one loyalty program, according to a 2025 market intelligence report. The programs winning are the ones that use their data to get smarter, not just bigger.
What small businesses can steal from Flybuys
You do not need Flybuys' budget. You need their principles.
Here is how we have seen local businesses translate each of the five Flybuys tactics into something they can run from a phone.
| Flybuys tactic | Small business equivalent |
|---|---|
| Mass card distribution | Print one QR code, tape it to the counter. Every customer gets a digital card in one tap |
| Everyday earn | Attach points to your most common transaction. Not special purchases |
| Personalised bonus offers | Segment by visit frequency. Send a "you haven't been in a while" push to lapsed customers |
| Multiple redemption paths | Offer a points reward and a stamp reward. Let customers use whichever hits first |
| Data flywheel | Track who visits, how often, and when they go quiet. Use that to drive win-back campaigns |
The businesses we see hitting 40%+ increases in repeat visits are not running complex programs. They are running consistent ones. Show up in a customer's pocket every week, and you become part of their routine.
Image: Flybuys partner Bunnings — one of 20+ retailers where members earn points. Source: Flybuys.
The LoyaltyPass Flybuys Replication Framework
We built this five-step framework for local businesses who want to replicate Flybuys logic without a coalition model, an IT team, or a budget with more zeros than a phone number.
| Step | What to do | Flybuys parallel |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Remove join friction | Use a QR code at the counter. One tap, card saved to Apple or Google Wallet | Mailing cards to every household |
| 2. Earn on the everyday | Award points or stamps on your most common purchase | 1 point per $1 at Coles, Kmart, Target |
| 3. Run bonus campaigns | Send a push notification with a double-points day or slow-day special | Targeted bonus offers in the Flybuys app |
| 4. Offer real rewards | Make the reward feel worth something. A free product beats a vague "discount" | Flybuys dollars: real money off at checkout |
| 5. Win back lapsed customers | Filter by "no visit in 30+ days," send a targeted push. Keep it simple | Flybuys personalised reactivation offers |
This is not a six-month rollout. We have seen local businesses run step one through step three in a single afternoon.
How to launch your own version without a Coles-sized budget
Flybuys runs on a technology stack that cost tens of millions to build. You do not need that.
We built LoyaltyPass for exactly this reason: to give local businesses the same mechanics Flybuys uses, without the infrastructure cost, the app store approval process, or the IT contractor.
Here is what that looks like in practice:
- Your customers add a digital loyalty card to their Apple Wallet or Google Wallet in one tap. No app download.
- You stamp or award points from a free merchant app on your phone. No POS hardware.
- You send push notifications to your customer list from a dashboard. No marketing agency.
- You see who hasn't visited in 30 days and send a targeted offer. No data team.
The businesses on our platform average a 47% increase in repeat visits. The setup takes under 10 minutes.
Flybuys spent 30 years building what works. We spent years turning it into something you can run from your counter. That's the shortcut.
Join the LoyaltyPass waitlist and lock in founding member pricing →
Bottom-line summary
Flybuys became Australia's most popular loyalty program by doing a small number of things exceptionally well: removing friction at sign-up, rewarding everyday spend, personalising offers using shopping data, and giving members multiple ways to feel the value of their points. These are not tactics that require a supermarket budget. They require consistency and the right tool. Any local business that shows up reliably in a customer's pocket, rewards what they already buy, and wins them back when they go quiet is running the same playbook Coles built over 30 years. The difference is you can start this afternoon.
