Qantas/Woolworths vs Virgin Australia/Coles Flybuys

With Virgin Australia now paired to the Coles Flybuys scheme, shoppers can choose between earning Velocity Frequent Flyer points and status credits at Coles or Qantas Frequent Flyer points at Woolworths.

But which airline + supermarket partnership offers the best value, both in how many points you can collect and where those points can take you?

Australian Business Traveller pits the two schemes against each other to find out.

Woolworths Rewards (Qantas) vs Flybuys (Virgin Australia): earning points

Both Woolworths and Coles let you earn one of their own rewards scheme points – Woolworths Rewards or Coles Flybuys – for every dollar spent at supermarkets and some affiliated stores such as bottle shops.

When you've amassed 2,000 of those 'supermarket points' they can be converted into 870 Qantas or Virgin frequent flyer points, respectively.

That works out at 13 frequent flyer points on a $30 grocery basket or bottle of wine (for the mathematically-inclined, that's 0.435 frequent flyer points per dollar spent). 

With Woolworths Rewards you’ll pick up one Woolworths Point per dollar spent at Woolworths supermarkets, BWS liquor stores and Woolworths-Caltex service stations (excluding Star Mart and Star Shop) – but not at Woolies’ other brands like Big W, Cellarmasters or Dan Murphy’s.

Flybuys serves up one Flybuys point per dollar spent at Coles, First Choice Liquor and Liquorland, alongside Kmart, Target and a wealth of external partners including AGL Energy, Telstra and Medibank: many of which even deliver two or three points per dollar.

This drops to 0.5 Flybuys points per dollar at Coles Express service stations, although you also have the option to earn 2 Velocity points per litre buying fuel at BP, unrelated to the Flybuys link-up.

Woolworths imposes no annual limit to how many Qantas points you can earn; with Coles this is capped at 60,030 Velocity points (converted from 138,000 Flybuys points), but that's only relevant if you plan on spending $138,000 per year on groceries, wine and what-not.

Winner: Coles Flybuys + Velocity Frequent Flyer offers a much broader set of retail partners where you can earn points. 

Woolworths Rewards vs Flybuys: earning status credits

You’d normally need to fly to accrue status credits, but Flybuys shoppers can earn one Velocity status credit per $100 spent across Coles, Liquorland and First Choice Liquor, capped at a maximum of 10 status credits from Flybuys per month (this doesn't need to be $100 in a single spend).

This won't replace flying but if you're most of the way there and have no more trips planned, those extra status credits could be all it takes to nudge you up to the next Velocity tier or retain your current status.

What’s more, you can link your Flybuys account to both Velocity Frequent Flyer and Etihad Guest, enabling you to earn Velocity status credits and Etihad Guest tier miles simultaneously on your purchases.

Qantas awards no status credits via the Woolworths Rewards program or via any other partners on the ground: reserving these exclusively for members who take paid flights with Qantas and its partner airlines.

Winner: Coles Flybuys + Velocity Frequent Flyer

Woolworths Rewards vs Flybuys: redeeming frequent flyer points

It’s great being able to earn points, but an important yardstick is how many of those points you'll need to actually book a flight –  and how much those points will cost you.

Let's use the popular benchmark of a one-way economy flight between Sydney and Melbourne.

You’d need 8,000 Qantas points plus a payment of $34.18 to book that flight with the Flying Kangaroo; or 7,800 Velocity points plus $21.11 for the same trip on Virgin Australia.

To earn those Qantas points you'll have to spend $20,000 at Woolworths and its partners: that'll get you the 20,000 Woolworths points needed to convert into 8,700 Qantas Points so you can book your flight.

(Note that points can only be converted in multiples of 2,000 Woolworths points or 870 Qantas points, so this will also leave you with 700 spare Qantas points towards for your next trip.)

A lower spend of $18,000 at Coles and co nets you 18,000 Flybuys points, convertible into 7,830 Velocity points: just enough to book that Virgin Australia flight, which also has a lower co-payment amount.

Winner: Coles Flybuys + Velocity Frequent Flyer

Join other AusBT readers talking about the new Velocity/Coles Flybuys partnership in our Virgin Australia discussion group

Chris C.

Chris is a a former contributor to Executive Traveller.