Unless you have been living under a rock for the last 2 weeks you would surely of seen Coles’ latest promotion to entice you to shop with them.
As part of their newly re-booted FlyBys program, they are using a promotion called My5 to entice people to sign up.
What Is It?
Basically, they are offering you a chance to save an additional 10% on any 5 items you choose from across the store.
Simply sign up online and choose any 5 items from specific groups of items, and each time you spend over $50 in store and use your FlyBys card, you receive an additional 10% off the price of the five items you bought.
The Small Print
However, like all promotions, there are conditions, which I have highlighted below:
- Each flybuys household is eligible to set up and use one my5 discount only
- Once selected, your Product Groups cannot be changed
- All five Product Groups must be selected before the my5 discount becomes available
- The my5 discount will apply to purchases of up to five items from each of your selected five Product Groups per day
- You can purchase any combination of up to five items from your Product Group and get the my5 discount. For example, the my5 discount will apply to five of the same item, or five different items from the same Product Group
- You may purchase more than five items from each Product Group each day, but the my5 discount will only apply to a maximum of five items per Product Group, even if you have purchased fewer than five items in one or more of your other selected Product Groups
- Available only until October 31, 2012.
As you can see by the last point this promotion only lasts for 6 months. Long enough for people to get used to swiping their FlyBys cards, but not long enough to make any major savings.
What Savings Can I Expect?
Over the 6 months the promotion runs you will probably save anything from $70-$100, depending on how savvy you are with your selection. And remember, the items cannot be changed once selected.
How Best To Use It
Your best bet is to choose larger priced items, even though you don’t buy them all that often.
Products like toilet paper, shampoo, soft drink cartons, nappies, chicken breasts, and steak are all good choices.
But be careful as the item needs to be exactly what you have chosen. For example, a 24 pack of Diet Coke isn’t the same as a 24 pack of Coke Zero.
The other thing to remember is that while saving 10% off these items you may be tempted into buying more while you are in the store. Stick to your regular shopping list.
What do you think? Have you signed up yet? What savings have you made so far?
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The email inviting me to join the revamped FlyBuys and My5 asked me “Why would you shop anywhere again?” Well after my first experience of the My5 program I will shop anywhere BUT Coles from now on. My5 is an absolute scam. Coles should be ashamed of themselves for spending so much time, effort and money launching a program with so many loopholes designed only to get customers to shop at Coles while offering no benefit to their customers. Today I purchased Huggies wipes 240pk. But even though I had selected that product as a My5 product, I didn’t get the discount because of course I didn’t read the fine print that says Unscented wipes only. Even though the image clearly shows both kinds of wipes when you select it. I wish I had more time to lodge a formal complaint to someone who will take Coles to task for being so dishonest, but alas I don’t and I suspect consumers will continue to be deceived.
Back to Woolies for me.
Thanks for your thoughts, Jen.
There do seem a few hoops to jump through for this offer to work well and, like you said, with so many people so time poor these days, it would be hard to follow all the instructions to the letter.
Russ
It’s not so much a scam as a one-sided game. We have given out our spending details and personal information, and have these precise rules to remember and follow (all the while trying to focus on the fact that we are there simply to get the shopping done) … yesterday Coles did not have in stock three of my 5 items – milk, eggs and steak. “Come back later today or tomorrow and we should have another delivery,” they said. Ok, except I actually needed to buy those items right now. So I googled “Coles My5″ and found the website that has no email feedback form, just a phone number; rang the number and was told that this is “Not FlyBuys problem; you will have to ring Coles about it.” Can I be bothered? easier to go elsewhere and just be sure of buying the items I want rather than being tied to one narrow brand/type for a lousy 20cents or $1 off.
Thanks for your post, Jacqui.
It does sound like they are making too hard to really save any money.
Russ