Remember the Martha Stewart Amex Offer? Spend $50 or more, get $40 back. Absolutely awesome. I loaded the offer onto 18 of my Amex cards, and have used just two of them so far (most of the Amex cards are authorized user cards — I don’t have that many separate accounts!).
The first time I ordered, I found two bottles of wine that added up to $50.02 after including shipping and sales tax:
After the Amex rebate, my total cost was $10.02. I also expected a rebate from Top Cash Back, but that never happened (remind me to file a claim!). Martha Stewart Wine has since disappeared from all portals. Still, $10.02 for two very good bottles of wine ($5.01 each) was a deal.
My next order was for 3 bottles of wine that were on sale for $12.49 each. With $9.99 shipping and sales tax, the total came to $50.55. After the $40 rebate, I paid $10.55 or $3.52 per bottle.
There were other even better deals that I didn’t take advantage of. There was a stackable Groupon deal. Then there was a $25 off $50 deal with free shipping that I somehow missed. Unfortunately both deals have since expired.
Other Options?
I’m pretty happy with buying wine for $3.52 per bottle, but I’ve wondered about other options. Can I do even better with currently available offers? Here are some that I explored:
Half-Case Wine Club
One option is to join the half-case wine club. With this club, you will be charged just $49.99 plus tax for your first 6 bottle shipment. As long as you are charged sales tax, the total will be enough to trigger your Amex Offer. If your sales tax is 10%, you would pay $54.99 for the first order. With the $40 rebate, that would be just $14.99 for 6 bottles of wine ($2.50 per bottle).
Unfortunately, with future shipments you would be charged $87.99 plus tax. Plus, the Amex Offer would be over by then. So you’d have to remember to cancel your membership before the second shipment in order to maximize this deal. Here are the details from the website:
With your membership purchase of 6 bottles every 6 weeks, you receive a special introductory selection of 6 wines for $49.99 plus tax based on your shipping address. Shipping is free with your club membership. Every 6 weeks thereafter until you cancel, you will receive 6 bottles of wine, and your credit card will be charged $87.99 plus tax. We will curate the selection of wines based on the preference you selected. There is no obligation to continue your membership and you may cancel at any time by calling (888) 212-8197.
I have no doubt that some schemers will create multiple accounts and try to join the club multiple times in order to maximize the deal. To me that crosses the line. Martha Stewart Wine is offering an amazing promotion to get their name out there. I don’t think it’s wise or fair to push it that far (and yes, I get the irony but please go ahead and comment on it anyway).
Split Payments? Nope
If your wine order includes 12 or more bottles of wine, shipping is free. An ideal approach would be to place a single large order that is as close to a multiple of $50 as possible, after taxes, and then to split the purchase $50 at a time across multiple Amex cards.
Unfortunately, there’s no way to do this. The online order form only allows for a single credit card and there’s no option to buy gift cards. I even tried online chat to ask about splitting payments, but was told that they didn’t allow it.
$30 off $100
A website called offers.com has a deal to get $30 off $100 or more at Martha Stewart Wine Co (found here). The trick to maximizing this is to add 12 bottles that add up to just over $100. That way you get free shipping and $30 off.
In theory, if Martha Stewart sold a 12 bottle case for exactly $100, then it would ring up as $70. After 10% sales tax you would pay $77. And after the Amex $40 rebate, your out of pocket total would come to $37 for 12 bottles of wine. That amounts to $3.08 per bottle.
$3.08 per bottle is a little bit cheaper than ordering $50 at a time, but not by a wide margin. Plus, I don’t think it’s really possible to get that close to $100. The best I could find was the 12 bottle Discovery Case for $119.98. After the $30 discount and Michigan sales tax the total would be $97.40, or $50.97 after the Amex $40 rebate. That amounts to $4.25 per bottle and no ability to pick and choose your wines. That’s still a great deal though!
20% off 6
On Friday I received an email from Martha Stewart Wine Co offering 20% off orders with 6 or more bottles. Unfortunately the discount did not work with their Discovery Half-Case pack. And adding bottles individually did not result in good per-bottle prices.
Final Answer
Those of us who loaded this deal to our Amex cards have until September 30th to take advantage of it. With the deals that I’m currently aware of, I think that the best bet is to try to structure each order so that the total equals or barely exceeds $50. If you only have one offer loaded, then you might want to go with the half-case wine club so as to get 6 bottles of wine instead of only 2 or 3. Just remember to cancel your membership after the first shipment unless you decide that it’s worth keeping. It may also be worth doing the 12 bottle Discovery Case which results in a similar price per bottle, but only if you really are interested in each of the bottles that the company has chosen for you.
And, finally, we do still have time. It’s possible that Martha Stewart Wine Co will unveil new discounts that will result in even better value. If you don’t think that $2.50 to $5 per bottle is a good enough deal, then you can always wait and see what happens.
Delivery Tip
One big downside to ordering wine online is that you have to be available to sign for the shipment when it arrives. Going forward, I plan to place many separate orders on the same day. That way, hopefully they’ll arrive at the same time and I’ll only have to wait by the door once.
Related Wine Deal Posts
- My Amex-subsidized Martha Stewart wine tally thus far: 12 bottles for $39, by PF Digest
- Wine for less than $2 a bottle, by Nick
- Complete Guide to Amex Offers
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[…] of vineyards. These aren’t as hot as the Martha Stewart offer of a few months ago (See: Rocking the Amex wine deal) in terms of cost-per-bottle, but they would be a nice return if you happen to like these […]
[…] it’s good: While not as generous as the $40 back on $50 that ran a couple of months ago, this is still a nice offer if you need more wine…..though if […]
It looks like the deal was removed from all of my cards 🙁
Have you used any of your cards yet? Are you looking at the old interface or the new interface?
https://frequentmiler.com/2017/06/15/disappearing-amex-offers-glitch-change/
I used the offer on one of my cards a few days ago and intended on using the rest today. I got the offer success email for the one I used. I have the new interface.
Check out the old interface in the link I gave you above. I believe you’ll still see the offer there. Once you’ve used an offer on one card, it disappears from all of your cards in the new interface. But I believe you’ll still see it there in the old interface.
Thanks Greg for this post. I checked my Amex offers today (8/1) and, to my surprise, this $40 off of $50 for Martha Stewart Wine was available on all my cards. So don’t assume it’s too late–check your offers.
There is another 6 bottle promotion that does not require club sign up. Come to 59.99 + tax. No tax in MA. No need to make a new account 😉
https://marthastewartwine.com/promos/Facebook-MSWC-Discovery-Pack-With-FREE-SHIPPING-ACQ/
If you sign up for the wine club, doesn’t that give you free shipping on future orders?
So you could sign up for the wine club deal, then continue to pack your cart appropriately and enjoy free shipping, and when you have exhausted your Amex offers, and before the next 6-week-apart club shipment, cancel your membership, you should be good to go. Right?
Has anyone joined the club that can confirm this?
Their website says they offer referral codes to pass on to others to receive a discount. Has anyone received any referral codes?
We have 6 AMEX cards between the 2 of us, but the Martha Stewart offer only showed up on two of the cards (both were Hilton no-annual-fee cards, interestingly).
After joining online for my husband and I (you have join Martha Stewart Wines first), I ordered 6 bottles on each new account per your expert instructions. My $40 x 2 posted to the AMEX accounts almost before I had the order placed! (An AMEX email immediately notified me of the credits.) Thank you for the details & all the options to consider. $2.15/bottle, including tax, is pretty darn good for even a mediocre wine. I’m easy. For once I was glad I live in a sales-tax-state, to get the order up over $50.
My concern is how much people are willing to waste and screw the environment because they can save $10.
It really puts people in perspective.
I did the Groupon deal and it was worthwhile. I didn’t get the best deal stacking possible, but I got almost the maximum amount of wine for the cheapest price and was happy with the quality. Got the half case of Martha’s sampler for ~$35 on groupon with some promo codes. I upgraded it to the whole case which included free shipping. I ended up also getting the $50 off $75 card and had a promo code. I used that on the next order for my other Amex card deal and got about $120 in wine (all reds this time) for ~$11. All told I think I spent about $65 for 18 bottles. I don’t drink high class, usually $10-$20 a bottle, so this deal worked out fine by me.
The quality is that of a $10-$20 bottle. They are a little pricier on the site due to the name value. Other than that, I am fine with it.
I started following the company on social media. They run promotions there, like this one offering 25% off the rest of that day https://www.instagram.com/p/BW_TEfKgra1/?taken-by=marthawineco
Regarding the “quality” of the wine… Who has the authority to say what is a “good quality”? What is “good wine” for that matter?
A good wine is a wine you enjoy. If people need Martha or someone on the internet to tell them what a bottle is worth, they are doing it wrong. Pay for what you like, what its worth to you. People need to keep their “professional” opinions to themselves. Because that’s all the people it should matter to.
I spent a good number of years in the restaurant business, including dining room manager and bar manager / buyer.
I would classify these as “decently good” bottles. They’re overpriced for retail by just a tad. I’d say each is realistically a $12-16 bottle wholesale/distributor, depending on what you choose.
In a restaurant, then, that translates to a $25 – $38 menu price. What you’re paying “extra” for is the fact that you probably won’t get a bad bottle, no matter what you pick. So a minor guarantee of above average quality.
I personally ordered 18 bottles:
The mixed 6 bottle Discovery Half-Case
4-pack of the Vigouroux family label
4-pack of the European Passport White Wine
4-pack of the Great Grilling Wines
I was not interested in all the hoops to maximize this to the nth degree.
I activated it on 4 out of 5 cards. Placed 4 orders on the same day.
18 bottles; ~$270 total across the four orders.
Minus $160 in Amex offers = $113.50 = $6.30 each. Easy measy. Good wines (already have shared 3 or 4 bottles), for less than half of what I consider fair retail.
This company is fantastic with marketing.
“two very good bottles of wine” based on what?
Not a single bottle on this website is available from any place other than similar wine clubs. These are all house-brand BS wines.
just opened a pinot grigio from Martha last night. It was worth what I paid for it. (less than $3 for the bottle) Very bland, almost like wine flavored water.
“based on what?”
Based on how much I enjoyed the wine.
Great post, thank you! I just recently got the Amex Blue Business card. Do you know if there is still a way to get this Amex offer? I am not seeing it in my available offers…
Sadly, it’s probably too late to add it to any cards.
I just added it to my Amex Blue Cash Everyday. Wasn’t available on any of my others.
I placed all my orders on the same day and they arrived on two separate days. The discovery half case arrived first, as they’re probably ready to ship. The individual bottles arrived the next day. Shipping was via UPS. Worse comes to worse, you can always go to your nearest UPS drop off point and sign if delivery fails. I forgot to use it on one of my Amex cards, so thank you for posting this. 18 cards is quite impressive! I probably need to create AUs on my AF free cards. Last time I did it, I used my middle name. Even adding social, they never showed up on credit report. Would love to know of any tricks you have. These Amex offers are great!
You can always ignore the first shipment as UPS will come back the next day with both your boxes 🙂 (they will actually make 3 attempts before sending it back)
Last time I missed a UPS package, they sent it directly to a pickup point. It was shipped via UPS ground too. I don’t know why they didn’t try a second time or just leave it. It was a $10 package under 1lb. It was quite annoying as I didn’t want to go out of my way to pickup a $10 package. Plus that pickup point is quite slow. Thankfully they kept it longer than the guaranteed week, so I picked it up when I was in that area and had time. Now I’ve been “signing” for packages in advance through the app unless they’re quite valuable. I believe the wine can’t be signed for as it requires adult above age 21.
Interesting. It was noted that they would try 3 times before returning it. Unfortunately I had to grab it from a pickup point but thats ok for $2.50 wine