Genesis Energy are offering up to 1,000 bonus Fly Buys points for new residential customers who switch their electricity and natural gas accounts over until 30 November 2017.

This includes existing Genesis residential electricity customers adding natural gas to their account.

Your bonus point options are:

• Switch your electricity or natural gas to a Genesis 12 month Price Park Plan and get 900 bonus points. This includes adding natural gas to your existing electricity account; or
• Switch your electricity and natural gas to a Genesis 12 month Price Park Plan and get 1,000 bonus points;

You’ll also receive 2x Fly Buys Points for the first 12 months on your bill payments.

We value 1,000 bonus points at around $165 NZD when redeemed on domestic flights with Air New Zealand, where they have an approximate fixed value of 16.6c each.

The terms and conditions for the offer state that you must have received a direct email from Fly Buys to be eligible.

While this may be true, I believe you should be able to enter your Fly Buys number here and be presented with the same offer:

Step 1: Enter your Fly Buys number

Step 2: See what offer awaits (in this case, it’s the same offer as the above)

Is this a good offer?

There are too many moving parts with energy companies to determine how good this offer may be compared to all others in the market.

Genesis may have other offers available that trump this one in terms of value, e.g. cash rebates.

If you’re principally shopping around for a provider that allows you to earn points, you should compare the value of this offer to the frequent Airpoints Dollars promotions with Mercury.

Guide to earning Fly Buys points with Genesis

Fly Buys members who link their membership number to their Genesis Energy account on-line will automatically earn 1 Fly Buys point per $50 (including GST) spent on their Genesis account each month. This includes spend on electric and gas.

The standard Fly Buys earn rate is an effective 0.33% return on your bill payments, if you were to redeem your Fly Buys Points on domestic flights with Air New Zealand.

This is less than the standard 0.5% return you receive in Airpoints Dollars with Mercury. If all things were equal in terms of pricing, Mercury would come out ahead if your principal goal is to earn points that can be redeemed with Air New Zealand.

There are a few nuances in their standard terms and conditions for earning Fly Buys points, including certain ‘buying groups’ that you cannot be a part of, so we suggest you have a read here.

How to pay

There are numerous ways in which you can pay your bill:

• Credit / debit card payment (a 0.7% service fee applies)
• Debit card
• Transfer
• Automatic Payment
• In person at NZ Post, using cash, cheque or EFTPOS (a $1.20 service fee applies)

While they do charge a service fee for paying with a credit card, Genesis do accept Amex, which is uncommon amongst energy companies in New Zealand.

Paying with a card like the American Express Airpoints Platinum will effectively counteract Sudima’s transaction fee. This is because you’ll earn 1 Airpoints Dollar for every $59 spent, which is an effective 1.69% return on your spend.

Summing up

The standard earn rate at 1 Fly Buys points per $50 is far from Earth shattering and certainly not a reason to switch suppliers on its own.

I would recommend that those who might be interested in joining with Genesis to do their maths first. You can check out What’s My Number to see how Genesis stacks up against other suppliers.

If you find that pricing between Genesis and Mercury is pretty equal, and your principal goal is to earn points that can be redeemed on flights with Air New Zealand, you’re going to be better off signing up with Mercury. Their sign up bonuses are generally higher too, and you don’t have to pay any credit card processing fees if you’ve set up recurring payments.

You can also earn Airpoints Dollars on Mercury business accounts, whereas Genesis only let residential customers earn Fly Buys points.

Images courtesy of Genesis.