[Expired] The 1800Flowers Amex Offer is Back. Do we care?

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1800Flowers

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1800Flowers often shows up as an Amex Offer: Spend $50, Get $15 Back. This used to be a great start towards huge savings.  It was possible to earn 20% back through cashback portals, buy $50 1800Flowers gift cards, earn 30% back from this Amex offer, then use those gift cards for even more rewards.  At times I was able to stack so many deals that I actually earned money on each order!

That was then.

Today, 1800Flowers no longer sells by-mail gift cards (and e-gift cards do not trigger the Amex offer).  Additionally, 1800Flowers has stopped awarding miles & points for the portion of an order where a gift card is used for payment.

Extreme Stacking Today

So, what’s left?

We can still stack the following deals:

  • Amex Offer: Spend $50, Get $15 Back
  • Amex OPEN Savings: Amex Business cards automatically get 5% cash back or 2 additional Membership Rewards points per dollar at 1800Flowers
  • Celebration Rewards: Earn a $20 certificate for each $200 spent at 1800Flowers
  • Free shipping via ShopRunner (which is free for Amex cardholders) or 1800Flowers’ Celebrations Passport
  • Choose one of these:
    • Portal cash back or
    • Earn miles via a promo code (note that ShopRunner free shipping doesn’t work with this option)

Adding the Amex offer

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You can load the offer to your Amex cards through Twitter with hashtag #Amex1800Flowers, or by logging into your Amex account to find the offer, then click “Save Offer”.  Either way, please see our Complete Guide to Amex Offers for details about how to load the offer to multiple cards.

Ideally you would use Amex business cards since they earn an extra 5% cash back via the OPEN Savings program.

Free Shipping

Sign up for ShopRunner for free (here).  If you want to earn miles via promo codes, though, you’ll have to sign up for Celebrations Passport which usually costs $29.99, but it is often available for $19.99.  You can find the latest promotions here: www.1800flowers.com/promo-codes.

Portal Cash Back

Portal cash back rates vary from time to time.  Usually 15% cash back is available, but at times we’ve seen 25% cash back or more.

And you don’t have to shop through 1800Flowers itself.  Shopping through other brands such as 1800Baskets, Cheryl’s, etc. will work as well.  Check CashBackMonitor for current rates at each of these brands: 1800Flowers1800BasketsFruit BouquetsCheryl’sFannie MayPopcorn Factory.

Promo Codes (Earn Miles)

1800Flowers (and its associated brands) often offers promo codes to get discounts, free shipping, or to earn miles.  For the latter, you can find up to date promo codes here: 1800Flowers Extreme Stacking promo codes, portals, gift cards, and more.

Is it worth it?  Cash back example

If you’re going for cash back, buying gift cards at an extreme discount can be a viable way to go (via Groupon, gift card resellers, etc), but it won’t stack with the Amex Offer deal which gives you $15 off $50 (30% back on exactly $50)…

Suppose you find items that add up to exactly $50, you have the Amex offer on an Amex business card, and you click through a portal offering 20% cash back.  For simplicity we’ll ignore the possibility of paying sales tax:

  • Spend $50, get free shipping through ShopRunner
  • Portal cash back: 20% of $50 = $10
  • Amex Offer: $15
  • Amex OPEN Savings: 5% of $50 = $2.50
  • Celebration Rewards: Earn 1/4th of the points needed for a $20 certificate

If you repeat all of the above four times (which requires 4 separate Amex business cards), here are the totals:

  • Spend $200
  • Cash Back: $110
  • Celebration Rewards: $20 certificate

Overall, you get $220 worth of overpriced stuff from the 1800 brands for $90.  In other words, you save 59%.

Is it worth it?  Earn miles example

Promo codes available for earning miles vary from time to time.  We tend to see the best offers around the holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Mothers Day.  At this time, the best current promo code I see is: Alaska Airlines 25 miles per dollarAKA3.  In this example, I’ll assume that we use that code.

Suppose you find items that add up to exactly $50, and you have the Amex offer on Amex business cards.  For simplicity we’ll ignore the possibility of paying sales tax.  We’ll also assume that you’ve previously purchased a 1 year membership to Celebrations Passport for free shipping.

  • Spend $50, get free shipping through Celebrations Passport
  • Amex Offer: $15
  • Amex OPEN Savings: 5% of $50 = $2.50
  • Celebration Rewards: Earn 1/4th of the points needed for a $20 certificate
  • Alaska Airlines: Earn $50 x 25 miles per dollar = 1,250 miles

If you repeat all of the above four times, here are the totals:

  • Spend $200
  • Cash Back: $70
  • Celebration Rewards: $20 certificate
  • Alaska Airline miles earned: 5,000

Overall, you get $220 worth of overpriced stuff from the 1800 brands for $130.  In other words, you save 41% and earn 5,000 miles.  If you don’t care about the stuff at all, this is like buying miles for $130 / 5,000 = 2.6 cents each.  That’s not an amazing price, but it’s not terrible if you have a great use for those miles.  Alternatively, if you think of it as buying Alaska miles for 1.5 cents each, then the 5,000 miles represent an additional $75 discount off your order.  Viewed that way, you would have bought $220 worth of stuff for $55.  That’s a 75% discount.

Wrap Up

1800Flowers is no longer the amazing opportunity that it used to be, but there are still options for stacking deals.  If you find items at exactly the right price points, you can get 59% to 75% off the 1800Flowers listed prices.  Even then, you can probably find far better prices at local stores.

The bottom line is that these discounts are worth pursuing when you need gifts delivered and you can order products in $50 chunks.

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