Can I scan my Flybuys card on someone else’s shopping to get more points?

When I go to Coles and hear the checkout person ask a shopper if they have a Flybuys card and the shopper says no, I rue the wasted opportunity. Is it acceptable for me to ask if I could scan my card on their grocery bill to accumulate points?
G.B., South Yarra, Vic

A: You know you’ve hit a dull stretch of life when these telltale signs start appearing: you spend weekends alphabetically filing your product warranties. You get pleasure watching your soft-close toilet seat closing. You restack your cereal bowls so the neglected ones down the bottom get to experience the joys of cereal-holding. And you become obsessed with earning Flybuys points: checking your account daily, activating the latest offers, buying stuff you don’t need for the bonus points. Which is how you get stuck with nine kilos of doggy Dentastix, and no dog.

Me, I’m deputy of Dullsville. A Flybuys Buyguy. If I’m in a checkout queue and overhear shoppers saying no to Flybuys, I also think to myself, “Arghhh! Those points could have been redeemed in the Reward Store for 1/50th of an aromatherapy vaporiser! OH, THE WASTE!”

So I might try your idea: position myself near the register with my Flybuys card ready, then ask non-Flybuying shoppers if I can have their points. It seems legal enough, right? And if we did it eight hours a day, seven days a week, maybe in two or three months we’d have enough points for a cabbage steamer or a bunion massager.

Because that’s the only problem with Flybuys: you have to shop in places you don’t want to shop in, buy loads of stuff you don’t actually need, get rewarded with points you don’t fully understand, then redeem them for a free gift you’ll probably never use.

guru@goodweekend.com.au

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