Fly Buys (Australia) - Criticism

Criticism

flybuys was criticised regarding the perceived effort required to collect enough points to gain a reward. For many years, no rewards were available for less than 11,000 points, encouraging critics to claim that $55,000 was required to be spent to gain a reward with a value of around $100. However, since 2006, awards have been available from 2,500 points.

flybuys also attracted concerns regarding privacy of information and the ability for the operators to track members’ shopping habits. In 1994 flybuys adopted a privacy policy based on OECD principles in which it advised members it may use personal information such as name, age, gender, employment status and age of family members "for marketing, planning, product development, research, flybuys account administration and fraud and crime prevention and investigation." flybuys varied this policy in 2006 to enable information to be passed to Coles Group and National Australia Bank, the owners of the program, unless directed otherwise by members. In 2009, flybuys' responsible privacy practices were recognised with the conferring of an Australian Privacy Award.