I had long been under the impression that 1800Flowers.com did not allow more than one gift card to be used per order. Why? Because when you click to enter a gift card, you see a message stating “Limit one Gift Card, Voucher, Fresh Rewards pass and/or Saving pass per order.”
Seems clear enough.
Testing the waters
After you enter your gift card information, you should see something like this:
GiftCard/Voucher 987654321012345678 has been applied ($20.01 applied, remaining balance: $0.00)
But the text boxes (where you entered your gift card info) are still there:
One day I decided to put in another gift card number to see what would happen. I typed it in and pressed “apply”.
To my surprise, the system accepted it! The screen now read something like this:
GiftCard/Voucher 987654321012345678 has been applied ($20.01 applied, remaining balance: $0.00)
GiftCard/Voucher 123456789098765432 has been applied ($9.98 applied, remaining balance: $40.02)
Great! The system accepted the second card!
How about 3 gift cards? Nope.
When I entered a 3rd gift card into the system, 1800Flowers.com was extremely clear about the limit. Below the gift card text box, it said: “You can apply up to 2 gift cards per order”. Call 1-800-356-9377 to apply more gift cards to your order.
And, across the top of the screen a red bar appeared with similar words: “You can apply up to 2 gift cards per order. Call 1-800-356-9377 to apply more gift cards to your order.”
It’s a small inconvenience that you can’t do more than 2 online, but I actually find these messages comforting. They prove that it is not an accident that the system allows 2 gift cards. It is actually the initial message “Limit one Gift Card” that is wrong!
Why I care
The finding that 2 gift cards could be applied to an order online solved a big problem for me: what to do with the left over bits on my gift cards. Thanks to the “Spend $50 Get $15” Amex Offers, I often buy $50 gift cards (after clicking through a cash back portal, of course).
But, $30 orders are often the sweet spot in getting the most airline miles for your buck…
So, if we start with $50 gift cards and spend $30 per order, we’re left with orphaned $20 gift cards. With the ability to apply two gift cards, though, we can now make full use of these gift cards.
For details about stacking deals like these, please see: 1800Flowers Extreme Stacking promo codes, portals, gift cards, and more.
A big bug!
In my experience, the system has a serious bug. Rather than deducting value from your gift cards in the order in which you enter them or in the amounts actually displayed on the screen, the system apparently pulls as much value as it can out of the larger gift card first before turning to the smaller one. Let me give an example…
I start with the following:
- Gift Card 1 Value: $20
- Gift Card 2 Value: $50
- Purchase Total: $30
I want to use up the smaller gift card, so I enter it first. Then, I enter the bigger gift card’s info. The web page now shows the following:
- GiftCard/Voucher 987654321012345678 has been applied ($20.00 applied, remaining balance: $0.00)
- GiftCard/Voucher 123456789098765432 has been applied ($10.00 applied, remaining balance: $40.00)
That’s exactly what I wanted. According to the web page, the smaller gift card is now empty, and the second one is down to $40. I could be forgiven then for tossing out the smaller gift card since its value has been used up. But, that would be a big mistake!
As an aside, you should never throw away merchant gift cards because there may be a problem with an order that causes the vender to re-credit its value. Yes, it has happened to me a number of times.
In my experience, despite the specific info given on the page, the system pulls as much value as it can from the larger gift card first. So, in the example given above, the system would pull all $30 from the second gift card!
I would actually, then, have the following remaining:
- Gift Card 1 Value: $20
- Gift Card 2 Value: $20
Yeesh!
The way I handle this odd behavior is that I now keep all of my 1800Flowers gift card numbers in a spreadsheet, along with their dollar values. After I use a gift card, I update its dollar value with the amount that I think it has. I can then check the actual value later by starting a new order with a random expensive thing just so that I can enter in the gift card number to see how much the web page says it was able to remove from the card. I then back out the order.
More details
For more about 1800Flowers, please see: 1800Flowers Extreme Stacking promo codes, portals, gift cards, and more.
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This bug appears to be fixed.
I had an order for ~$38. I applied a gift card with ~$10 left to an order, then applied a gift card with $50. It debited the ~$10 card to $0, then took $28 off the $50 card. I confirmed these balances by creating a dummy order on 1800 Flowers.
Maybe double-check before throwing away your used GCs, but I think you’ll be good.
Thanks Ben! I’ll have to give that a try. Glad to hear that they seem to have fixed it!
[…] 2 gift cards can be applied per order online. Up to 5 gift cards can be used over the phone (unconfirmed). To apply 2 gift cards online, PLEASE read: 1800Flowers: How to apply 2 gift cards per order, and a big bug to watch out for. […]
This should’ve been obvious to me, but the bug also applies to the celebration rewards vouchers. I applied a $20 celebration rewards voucher and a $50 GC to a $29.99 order. The CR appeared to get spent first, but then on the confirmation screen after the payment was made and order went through, it summarizes the payment as Gift card XXXX $29.99.
I’m going to email you a screen shot. It seems like this should give you an accurate description after the fact of where the money was actually pulled from.
Now I have to go back and make sure the rewards voucher I thought I used last month was actually used. Ugh. this is a bigger deal with the rewards vouchers than the gift cards, because they expire.
I placed 14 orders with southwest code in February and finally gave up trying to get the points after they sent me the term saying gift cards would not count. That was definitely not there when it was recommended, so I think they added it and don’t want to give my points. But beware if you are going big time trying to earn miles.
If you accepted Google’s free purchase protection when placing your orders, you might have better luck going through them
So are you going to try calling and see if there is a limit on calling on how many cards you can use. If that worked you could get rid of multiple low value gift cards…
One person reported that they were told that there was a 5 gift card limit on the phone. I won’t call unless I find it impossible to use up the small amounts online.
Are you really buying that many flower arrangements, or do you do it just to “buy” points?
I buy points and I buy gifts. The latter is hardly ever flowers. I usually buy from Harry & David, Wolframs, etc.
Can you spend the gift cards at their sister sites, such as cheryls.com?
Yep
Happy dance!
Are all 1800Flowers gift cards physical or can you also buy electronic gift cards?
1800Flowers only sells physical gift cards, but e-gift cards do exist from other sellers. That said, I HIGHLY discourage buying from resellers or discount sites like Groupon or Living Social since those e-gift cards have many more restrictions on how they can be used.