Thanks Five million - Kiwis Crazy about Fly Buys

MEDIA RELEASE
Date: 13 November 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thanks Five million - Kiwis Crazy about Fly Buys

New Zealand’s most popular loyalty programme, Fly Buys, celebrated a major milestone today - five million Fly Buys rewards received by New Zealand households. This is worth an estimated $½ billion and is evidence of the programme’s undeniable nationwide appeal.

Loyalty New Zealand CEO Andy Symons described the impact of Fly Buys on New Zealand shoppers as a phenomenon. “We’ve fundamentally changed shopping in New Zealand, and we know, irrefutably, that rewarding customers works after 5 million times.”

To mark this event, Mr Symons presented the “Thanks Five Million” promotion prize winners, Michael and Vanessa Galloway with a voucher for 50,000 Fly Buys points. A cheering crowd including rock and roll dancers, cheerleaders, costumed characters and the Roger Fox Big Band surprised the Auckland couple at Wellington Airport today. A video of the surprise celebration is available to view at www.thanksfivemillion.co.nz

The Galloways, who joined Fly Buys in 2002, have enjoyed several rewards as a family such as children’s DVDs, household appliances and even a family trip to Skyline Skyrides in Rotorua. “It’s really easy to collect points, we just changed where we shopped so our normal spending would help us get rewards,” Mr Galloway said.

The couple still can’t believe their luck in winning the prize but are planning some family holidays to use some of their rewards. “We’ve wanted to go to Australia for a while and our two kids are keen to visit the themeparks there. We’re also getting a TV for Vanessa’s mum to thank her for looking after the kids this weekend at such short notice! Our 8 year-old son has already visited the Fly Buys website and has made a list of requests!,” Mr Galloway concluded.

Mr Symons said, “Some people think Fly Buys is just about toasters, but there are more than 1,000 Fly Buys rewards for Members to choose from, ranging from kid’s toys and luxury holidays to flying lessons and golf clubs.

The five million rewards redeemed since 1996 include more than 185,000 flights, 12,000 MP3 players, 50,000 movie passes and more than 70,000 sandwich presses! This equates to around 1.15 rewards for every person currently living in New Zealand.

Some of the most popular rewards are subscriptions to NZ House & Garden and NZ Gardener magazines, movie passes and the Breville Powermax Blender. Other fast growing reward categories are music downloads and leisure rewards such as hot air ballooning.

Fly Buys is the largest loyalty programme in New Zealand with more than 40 of the country’s leading retail and service companies participating including Noel Leeming, BNZ, Shell, Visique, Mitre 10 and New World.

Proving how easy it is to redeem rewards one Fly Buys Member has received an impressive 267 rewards since joining the programme while the Fly Buys for Business programme has seen a single business receive 538 rewards.

ENDS (

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