Do supermarket loyalty programs actually save you money?

Many Woolworths and Coles shoppers tell us that, while groceries at Aldi might be cheaper on average, the supermarkets’ loyalty programs – Everyday Rewards (Woolworths) and Flybuys (Coles) – save them money in the long run. 

This is because of the discounts they get through points, as well as other member benefits. CHOICE research confirms the prevalence of these perceptions. In our latest Consumer Pulse surevey*, we asked people about the best way to get value for money when buying groceries; one in two people (54%) told us they believe reward or loyalty programs help them save money.

We’ve previously highlighted concerns about these programs, and those concerns remain. While you may enjoy accruing points for discounts at your supermarket there are definite cons. These include:

• more targeted marketing facilitated by the data collected on you could make you more likely to spend more
• you might be less likely to shop around for better prices
• you’ll be subject to more direct marketing 
• your data will be collected and shared by the companies running these programs. 

All of these can be significant drawbacks for some. 

But despite these concerns, there are still plenty of people using these programs. So will they save you money?

Are loyalty programs worth it?

CHOICE has been collecting supermarket pricing data for more than two years now, and we’ve done some calculations based on that data to determine whether using an Everyday Rewards or Flybuys membership will actually save you money on your groceries.

We found that it didn’t, and here’s why. 

Our calculations show that even when using your loyalty programs to accrue points and earn discounts at Coles and Woolworths, you’ll still be paying more for your groceries than you would if you shopped at Aldi, or switched between supermarkets to take advantage of specials. Staying loyal to one supermarket over another is almost certainly costing you money. 

How we calculated the costs

Since 2024 we’ve been conducting quarterly basket surveys across the country, checking the prices of a range of items at Aldi, Coles, Woolworths and IGA. Using that data, we’ve calculated how much you would have spent if you shopped for the items in our grocery basket at Aldi (which we’ve found to be the cheapest in all of our grocery basket surveys so far) versus buying comparable baskets at Coles and Woolworths (without specials), over the course of a year.

We then took the value of the points you’d have earned with your loyalty program and calculated how much you could save, according to the terms and conditions of the programs in question. 

Both Flybuys and Everyday Rewards offer $10 off a shop when you accrue 2000 points, and the base offer is one point per dollar spent. In addition, both programs also give users various options to increase the value of the points gained from each purchase. Because these options for boosting points change often and may be different for different users, we’ve not included them in our calculations. 

We’ve also only factored in the points you’d accumulate with your supermarket shopping, but with both Everyday Rewards and Flybuys you can also acquire points by shopping at partner businesses.

Our scenario:

• You buy every item we survey in our quarterly grocery baskets once a week for three months.
• To work out how much you’d spend, we take the average cost of the total basket per quarter per supermarket, multiply it by 13 (the number of weeks in three months), which gives us a total quarterly cost.
• We do the same for each quarter then add the four quarters together to give us a yearly total. 
• We calculate the points value for Flybuys and Everyday Rewards and compare the savings (based on $10 per 2000 points, where $1 equals 1 point) to the savings made if you’d shopped at Aldi, where the totals of our surveyed baskets were lowest in every quarter. Our baskets typically included a mix of fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, dairy and packaged foods. However, we only ever shop for a much smaller basket of items than the typical shopper would buy. 

So how much would you have saved?

Looking at the data for our average costs for the products we surveyed at Coles, Woolworths and Aldi in the four quarters of our 2025 surveys (March, June, September and December), we calculated that the total spend at Aldi would have been $3368.30. At Woolworths, our comparable basket cost $3911.32, while at Coles it was $3962.14. 

Given that each dollar spent earns you one point and that 2000 points gives you a $10 discount, that means you’d earn just $10 across the year for these purchases, which still leaves you paying significantly more than you would at Aldi. 

But what if you earn double the points and get a 10% discount (up to $50 at both Coles and Woolworths) once a month, an offer that’s available to both Coles and Woolworths shoppers who sign up to either Coles Plus Saver or Woolworths Everyday Extra? 

Taking into account those savings and the double points (minus the cost of membership which is $7 a month), across the year you’d save $15.05 at Coles and $13.78 at Woolworths. In other words, you’d still have been far better off buying the cheaper groceries at Aldi. 

More than just points

Of course, this is a hypothetical situation that looks just at the products in our survey, and many fans of the loyalty programs tell us that they make more of their membership by taking advantage of the deals they’re offered. 

Plus, membership of one of these programs doesn’t only earn you some savings on your groceries. There are additional incentives, including discounts on your fuel and insurance, plus alerts and reminders when your regularly purchased products are on sale, possible discounts on grocery deliveries and the ability to use your points for travel. 

All of these can make the programs more attractive and we haven’t factored in any of these savings in our calculations. 

We also know that some shoppers buy their insurance through Coles and Woolworths, taking advantage of the bonus points and ongoing incentives that they earn on their Everyday Rewards and Flybuys membership. 

However, when our insurance experts examined these products they weren’t impressed. While savings on your groceries are great, insufficient insurance coverage or tricky caps or exclusions could leave you regretting your decision if you ever need to claim. 

While it’s difficult to put an accurate number on their value, it’s likely that to make the most of your loyalty program you will need to take advantage of the special offers, because the points accrued from simply shopping at the same store each week have little value. 

Even then, you may need to shop around to get the best deals and take advantage of sales. Remember, ultimately, the supermarkets who run these programs are looking to maximise their profit and keeping you loyal is a way to do that. 

How much do shoppers think they save?

Our research shows that many members of these programs see real value in their membership. In fact, when we asked about their savings in our recent Consumer Pulse survey, they told us that they estimated they were saving around $234 per year, on average, using their Woolworths loyalty Everyday Rewards card and around $214 with Flybuys.

However, if you’re only using your membership for the points and hoping it will add up to enough of a discount to make shopping around for better prices unnecessary, we think you should consider exactly how much those points are worth before deciding to stay loyal to your supermarket. 

It’s also worth remembering that if you’re only sticking to one store because you are focused on building your points balance, you may be missing out on better prices elsewhere. While it can be more work to compare prices at different stores (if that’s even an option for you), finding the best price is probably worth the effort, even if it means you are missing out on points from a more expensive purchase. 

* CHOICE Consumer Pulse was conducted in March 2026 among 1096 Australian households, representative of the Australian population based on the 2021 ABS Census data. 

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Margaret Rafferty

Margaret Rafferty joined CHOICE in 2018 as a Content editor and since then has filled the roles of Commissioning editor, Managing editor and now Editorial consultant. Margaret has written on a wide variety of topics and enjoys making complex subjects easy to understand. With over 20 years of media experience, Margaret brings a strong storytelling background to CHOICE. She works closely with people across the organisation to help tell stories that make a positive difference to people and is passionate about uncovering bad practices and helping Australians to avoid falling victim to shonky products and services. LinkedIn

Margaret Rafferty joined CHOICE in 2018 as a Content editor and since then has filled the roles of Commissioning editor, Managing editor and now Editorial consultant. Margaret has written on a wide variety of topics and enjoys making complex subjects easy to understand. With over 20 years of media experience, Margaret brings a strong storytelling background to CHOICE. She works closely with people across the organisation to help tell stories that make a positive difference to people and is passionate about uncovering bad practices and helping Australians to avoid falling victim to shonky products and services. LinkedIn