SUPERMARKET loyalty schemes deliver greater savings and rewards to disloyal customers, new research reveals.

Shoppers who blithely buy their groceries from the same chain each week will get very little benefit, the research finds. Woolworths’ Everyday Rewards program and Coles’ Flybuys scheme offer much better discounts and bonuses to those who are unfaithful, outlay less and shop infrequently.

By understanding how the schemes operate — and shopping accordingly — it’s possible to save hundreds of dollars a year on groceries and accrue frequent flyer points at a much greater rate. It’s all about maximising targeted offers, the research, by the Australian Frequent Flyer (AFF) forum, says. The number and nature of offers received depends almost entirely on the data the supermarkets collect about your purchasing habits.

“The real money is in the bonus offers,” AFF founder Clifford Reichlin told News Corp. “Make the supermarkets think you are spending less so they try to increase your spend by offering bonuses.”

One way to do this is to open multiple accounts per household.

“The main advantages of splitting your shopping between different accounts are that you’ll get far more targeted offers, and the spending targets required to take up the offers will be greatly reduced as the supermarkets think you are spending less with them,” the research says.

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A household with one Everyday Rewards account spending an average of $150 per week might currently get a targeted offer once a month of 500 points for a spend of $160 or 750 points for spending $200. This might be achievable some weeks, but probably not every week. However, if that household had two EDR cards and split the shopping between the cards each week, the targeted offer would most likely be 500 points for an $80 spend or 750 points for spending $120.

Another example is one of the current Flybuys promotions. Some members are getting $10 and $20 vouchers at the end of their receipt that must be used within a week of the initial purchase at Coles. The best offers are a $10 voucher for a $40 spend or a $20 voucher for an $80 spend. These targets go up to $200 but the voucher value doesn’t increase. If you spent $200 per week but split your shopping between several accounts, you could potentially get two or even three $20 vouchers in a week, doubling or tripling your savings.

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Another strategy is to spend less per transaction.

“This doesn’t mean you actually have to buy less; just make the supermarkets think you’re spending less, ” the AFF report says.

AFF suggests splitting your shop into two transactions.

A third way to get increase discounts and get bonus frequent flyer points is to consider dividing your shopping between Woolworths and Coles, thereby “minimising the amount both supermarkets think you spend and maximising the likelihood of bonus offers”.

A Woolworths spokeswoman said Everyday Rewards was “designed to thank and reward our most loyal and valuable customers”.

“Basically the more Everyday Rewards customers shop at Woolworths the more rewards they receive,” Woolies said.

A Coles spokeswoman said Flybuys “delivers rewards and offers which are tailored to the individual customer”.

“Flybuys is focused on delivering more points and rewards from more partners, more often, to all of our members,” Coles said.

The full AFF report — containing other strategies, plus advice on the savviest ways to use Frequent Flyer points — can be downloaded here for $9.95