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This morning I published “The Rube Goldberg approach to buying miles and delivering flowers.” In that post I listed a slew of 1800Flowers offers that I believed to be stackable. I even proposed a way to stack all of the deals in order to buy AA miles for only 1.1 cents each (and get free flowers in the process). I was wrong. It turns out that you cannot combine free shipping from ShopRunner with promo codes offering airline miles. I had never tested that particular combination because I had previously paid for the Celebrations Passport program, which offers a year of free shipping from 1800Flowers and its affiliated stores. Free shipping from Celebrations Passport does stack with mileage promos.
What promos?
Here are the deals I wrote about in the previous post:
- Portal rebates (e.g. 32% cash back from iConsumer)
- Amex Offer (Spend $50, get $15 back: log into your Amex account to enroll in offer)
- Amex OPEN Savings (Pay with Amex business card, automatically get 5% back)
- ShopRunner: Free shipping at 1800Flowers
- Free ShopRunner for Amex cardholders (found here)
- Airline promo codes:
- A54: Get 30 AA miles per dollar
- RR22: Get 1000 Southwest Rapid Rewards points per purchase
What stacks? What doesn’t?
The Amex offers stack with everything. As long as you pay with your enrolled Amex cards, you should be able to get cash back from the Amex Offer and/or from Amex OPEN Savings. Also note that the Spend $50, get $15 offer, does not require the spend to be in a single purchase. As long as multiple 1800Flowers charges add up to $50 or more, you will qualify for $15 back.
The Free ShopRunner for Amex cardholders offer is an independent offer. You can get free ShopRunner membership regardless of whether or not you use it with the other deals here.
That leaves us with the following deals:
- Portal rebates: Cannot be used with airline promo codes. Maybe they can be used with ShopRunner free shipping. The latter needs to be tested.
- ShopRunner: Cannot be used with airline promo codes. Maybe they can be used with portals (needs testing)
- Airline promo codes: Cannot be used with portal rebates. They also cannot be used with ShopRunner free shipping.
Celebrations Passport
1800Flowers sells membership to their Celebrations Passport program for $29.99. That can pay for itself after just 2 orders since shipping and handling charges tend to be ridiculously high. And, if you’re interested in indirectly buying miles, as I described this morning, then you definitely need to buy the membership for the prices to work out in your favor.
In recent tests, I was able to earn portal rewards when paying for Celebrations Passport, but I wasn’t able to pay with a gift card. So, if you want to buy into Celebrations Passport:
- Start with a portal, like iConsumer (which is offering 32% cash back through Saturday)
- Click through to 1800Flowers
- Buy Celebrations Passport for $29.99 and pay with an Amex card enrolled in the Spend $50, get $15 back promotion (after paying for this, you’ll only have to spend $20.01 more to get $15 back).
Original post updated
I’ve updated the original post to indicate the deals that require Celebration Passport. You can find the updated post here: The Rube Goldberg approach to buying miles and delivering flowers.
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It is not possible to add any promo codes online if you have Celebrations Passport. So this does not stack & I may have just wasted $ to purchase Celebrations Passport.
I was able to add the SWA promo code by calling in my flowers order, but this took a lot of time explaining what I needed to the agent, her checking with her supervisor, & then she had to fill out & submit a special form.
That’s not true. I’ve done so many times. Try logging out of your 1800Flowers account and then logging back in. Also make sure you are logged out of ShopRunner (you can do so from the shopping cart view within 1800Flowers)
Well here’s the deal: CS rep said I have to WAIT until 1800Flowers SNAIL MAILS me the Celebrations Passport information packet before I can place an order which includes an airline miles Promo Code. They say it takes 7-10 business days for the packet to arrive. In the meantime, they had sent me a welcome e-mail that included a Free Shipping Promo Code, which is the only code that I can enter online for now.
The good news: Purchasing the Celebrations Passport for $29.99 and a flowers order for $29.99, allowed me to qualify for the spend $50/get $10 back AmEx offer.
The bad news: As the SWA deal for 1750 points ends 2/15, that shuts me out of doing this easily online. I may try again with another couple of excruciatingly slow phone orders using my other AmEx card.
I think you got bad advice from the CS rep. I know for a fact that it is not necessary to wait until materials arrive in the mail. Try logging out of both 1800flowers and ShopRunner before logging back in to just 1800flowers. It should work.
Another data point:
1. I was not even signed up for Shoprunner yet (I am now). So I did not need to log out from it.
2. I didn’t stay logged into 1800Flowers.
So, I logged in again. Despite the website recognizing that I’m a Celebrations Passport customer, I was not offered free shipping for Saturday delivery (a $12.99 stayed on the invoice right up to the time to enter my credit card number). So backed up and made two separate $29.99 purchases and chose the free Friday delivery, but this is a day earlier than I would have preferred for both recipients. At least this time around, I was able to enter the SWA 1750 point promo codes without incident, and I got the AmEx offer completed on that card as well.
But I have to tell you, so for I’m totally unimpressed with the 1800Flowers website and customer service. The site still does not show the order I had to place over the phone on my previous try, even though I gave the lady my name, email, and what I believe is my Celebrations Passport number. I certainly hope this situation improves for me and that I did not waste money on that Celebrations Passport! I currently don’t have much confidence that I will get all of my Celebrations Rewards or my SWA RR points that I deserve from of this time-consuming and frustrating effort.
[…] Staples is also selling $50 1-800-Flowers gift cards at a 20% discount. You may be able to stack these discounted gift cards with a number of other deals. For more info, see: Take 2: Buying miles and delivering flowers […]
Not getting the offer offer with my PRG when I scroll through offers in the Amex app or through my account on the website. Is it targeted? Thanks!
Yes, its targeted. I believe that it’s pretty widely available, but definitely not available for every single card
Anyone know if there’s a limit on the number of gift cards you can use per order? I want to order a $350 set of flowers which would require 7x$50 gift cards and it would be helpful to know if there’s a limit before I commit to purchasing that many gift cards.
Limit: 1 online.
Over the phone I’ve been told you can use more, but I’ve never tried. I don’t know if there’s a phone limit.
Thanks for the response. I’ll have to give them a call and ask. Hopefully you can still use the promo codes over the phone.
In case anyone else is interested the rep on the phone said there was no limit to the number of gift cards you can use when placing the order over the phone.
Thanks!
Some follow up: The rep I spoke with a few weeks ago was wrong. The phone limit on gift cards is 5 per order. If you’re ordering multiple items and need to use more than 5 gift cards ask them to split the items up into multiple orders.
In case anyone reads this and knows the answer: does anyone know what happens to miles from a promo code when you call and get a partial refund? My orders arrived looking like shit. I called and they offered me a 50 percent refund plus some savings passes and I took it. Curious if I’ll still get all the miles, only get half the miles or I’ll get nothing?
Follow up #2: The miles finally posted to my Alaska Mileage Plan account. I received 100% the miles I should have earned despite being issued a 50% refund. I earned 30 miles per dollar even though the Alaskaair.com page said it was only 20. I guess they forgot to update that page to say 30 like they always have around valentines day.
Also interesting, I thought using promo codes negated portal earnings or vice versa. I earned cash back and miles from iConsumer and Alaska on purchases I used the Alaska promo code on while clicking through from the iConsumer portal.
Thanks for the followup. I’ve updating the Extreme Stacking page to indicate the 5 gift card phone limit.