UPDATE 12/1/2014: The offer that this deal was based on has expired earlier than advertised. The advertised offer said that code RR57 was good until December 31, but it turns out that the code actually expired 11/30/2014. I will report back once a new, working code is found.
Through the end of this year, 1-800-Flowers is offering 1500 Southwest Rapid Rewards points for each purchase of $29.99 or more. You must use code RR57 at checkout to qualify.
If you use the Passport program for free shipping and buy something that costs exactly $30 (they’re hard to find, but they do exist), you’ll earn 50 points per dollar (1500 / $30 = 50).
Big Habitat wrote about the offer here and he published this image of the offer:
Big Habitat suggested that one could use this offer to buy a Southwest Companion Pass by placing 74 $30 orders. That’s just crazy enough to be worth doing. Maybe. You’ll want to time it to get your points next year for maximum value. I plan to follow up next week with my thoughts about the best ways to use this promotion to get the Companion Pass. For now, though, here are some things you need to know…
Important details
You can buy other things: When you browse to 1-800-Flowers, you can see a number of other affiliated brands listed as tabs across the top: 1-800-Baskets, Fruit Bouquets, Cheryl’s, etc. I tested buying a popcorn tin from The Popcorn Factory and found that the system did accept the RR57 code for 1500 bonus points.
Promo code or gift card, not both: 1800-Flowers has updated their checkout process. Now they enforce the policy of only allowing a gift card OR a promo code. In a test purchase, I first tried entering the promo code, and it was accepted (and clearly showed 1500 bonus points), but when I added a gift card the promo code stuff went away. I then tried re-adding the promo code, but it wouldn’t let me until I removed the gift card. This means that you cannot stack gift card discounts with this promo.
Promo code or portal, not both: In past experiments, I and others have found that if you go through a portal and then apply the promo code, you will get the promo code points, but not the portal cash back or points. It might be worth trying, though, just in case.
Promo code or SYWR points, not both: Sears’ Shop Your Way Rewards program offers bonus points when you link a credit card and use it to pay for 1-800-Flowers purchases. The current offer (found here) is for 30% back in points. Prior experiments have shown that you won’t get those SYWR points if you use a promo code.
You can earn Fresh Rewards points: If you sign up for the 1-800-Flowers loyalty program, you will earn credit towards future purchases (but you won’t be able to use that credit and earn the promo points at the same time).
You can get 5% cash back with Amex OPEN Savings: If you pay with an Amex small business card, you’ll get an automatic 5% cash back thanks to their OPEN Savings program.
You can get free shipping by joining their Passport program: If you plan to earn miles by shopping at 1-800-Flowers I highly recommend signing up for their Passport program (found here). For $29.99, you’ll get free shipping for a year. You can stack deals by going through a portal to purchase this, and you can pay with a gift card.
Please don’t complain about how 1-800-Flowers is a bad deal: From my perspective, this all about getting points that may be worth the entire purchase price. Flowers and gifts are an incidental bonus.
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[…] Frequent Miler reports that you’ll get the promo code bonus points, but not shopping portal bonuses if you […]
[…] weeks ago, I posted a way to earn 50 Southwest points per dollar by buying flowers and other goodies from 1-800-Flowers. In that post, I said I would follow up […]
I hope to earn the Companion Pass in early 2015. So to best achieve that, should I wait and do portal shopping in early 2015 or would holiday purchases I make today (Nov 2014) count toward my 110,000 required points?
In other words, I’m unclear what the timeframe is for earning points that count toward Companion Pass? Please help!
I believe the trick is to order now for delivery in early 2015. My post tomorrow will have more details
I’m currently 34k pts away from 110k SW pts and thinking of doing the flower deal and hoping to see some 9x-10x portal bonuses. I’m wondering if it’s to late in the year to accomplish as most of what I’m reading is that I need to have the 110k post in a calendar year. Should I just keep with the plan or am I wasting my time at this point? I currently have the personal SW card and Chase has denied me twice for the business card so that isn’t an option before the year ends.
I’m pretty sure that the points would be back-dated to the date of delivery, so I think you can still do it (but I grant there is some risk).
Been looking into this play for about an hour now, and here’s an idea I’ve been thinking over: Donations to eligible food banks allow for a tax rebate of 50% of the value of the donation… By my math, this means you can get PAID around $600 to get a CP.
I don’t understand. Where do you get the idea that a donation to a food bank results in a tax rebate? As far as I know it would be a tax deduction and so your savings will depend upon your effective tax rate
Just tried this and getting “The promotion code being used also requires a membership number. Please enter a membership number.” Is the promo valid only if you have their Passport membership?
you just need to enter your Southwest Rapid Rewards membership number. If you don’t have one, you can sign up for free at Southwest.com
One of my AmEx cards has a $15 credit on $50 or more charge. No luck trying to sync it on other cards but I seem to recall seeing a sync offer over last holiday season.
Also these points post fast, this will require expert timing it will be so exciting.
At this point I believe that it will work as follows:
1. Regardless of when the points show up in your account, they will be dated as of the delivery date.
2. If #1 is true, then people seeking to complete Companion Pass requirements for this year, should have flowers delivered this year. People hoping to earn the required 110K points next year should setup delivery for Jan 1 or later.
3. Early this year they had an even better Valentine’s Day offer: 1750 points per purchase (RR42). I think that the best bet is to wait until Feb to see if that comes back.
—
I will post more about this in a new post later this week or early next week, but wanted to get some info out there now.
TopCashBack gives a 6% bonus for 1-800 Flowers. I didn’t test to see if you can also get the SWA points, but probably yes. Other cash back portals may be competitive.
@Gary:
I had a no-go with ShopAtHome.com when using a promo code for 1800flowers.com
The cashback was first awarded, but then taken away.
Hopefully TCB won’t do the same for your order.
[…] Miler’s comments you can’t apply gift cards and the 1500 point promo… check out his post for additional analysis on this deal. I knew he could not resist trying to squeeze miles out of a […]
[…] found a promo code that could give up to 50x on purchases at 1-800-Flowers.com. Frequent Miler weighed in on the situation as well. You can also read about my experience getting over 20,000 Southwest miles using a […]
I’m so surprised that you weren’t able to use a gift card and a promo code. The day before yesterday (ie. the day before your experiments, I believe) I ordered flowers and I used an amazon local voucher. It had expired and I was given a new code for one to just apply the purchase price. So, I entered that with the pin. Then I entered and applied the southwest promo code. It said, “promotion is successfully applied” just like yours above. And the $15 from the voucher that I entered was subtracted from the bill. I can’t say for sure that it worked until I actually get the points, and I’ll update when that (hopefully) happens. The flowers are to be delivered today (14th), so I may get the points soon, since several comments on BH seem to indicate that they get posted a few days after delivery.
As an aside to people doing this for the first time, for each of the codes, you have to enter it, and also “apply” it. It’s not like many checkout pages where you just put the code in and it gets applied when you click to place the order.
Thanks Jamie. I’ll have to try again. I know from past experience that some gift cards / vouchers have worked with promo codes and others have not. I have a true physical gift card, though, so it should be more flexible than others theoretically.
Jamie:
You must have gotten lucky, and had a glitch work in your favor.
I’ve purchased Amazon Local vouchers, and when Groupon had 1800flowers vouchers, I purchased those as well.
I’ve had 0 luck combining a discount voucher for 1800flowers.com from a daily deal site/group coupon site, when an attempt was made to combine it with a promo code/mileage earning code.
I tried on different days using different browsers, and like Frequent Miler, I was unable to combine it with a promo code: I kept receiving an error message saying the promo code wasn’t valid with the discounted voucher.
Yeah, I’ve tried again a couple of times, but no luck. That said, they’ve told me over the phone that I can place and order with both.
Sears.
Amex has $15 off if you spend $50 too.
most of the time, promo bonus Rapid Rewards points do NOT count toward the Companion Pass total. caveat emptor.
That’s not true
Sound like spending about $2,200 to earn Southwest Companion pass, and I may flight at least 8 times with my companion to be equal the money. 🙂