You’ll often get lower prices and better quality having flowers delivered by a local florist rather than shipped by a national floral company. And you’ll certainly get better prices shopping around rather than ordering from a big name floral brand that gives you miles.
The number of miles offered is a clue to the huge margins earned on flower sales.
I once earned 100 Delta miles per dollar at 1-800-Flowers.
Even the standard ‘better’ offers represent a less expensive way to buy miles than making a mileage purchase from an airline website much of the time.
And if you’re looking for cheaper mileage purchases, buy teddy bears or similar items through the flower sites and donate them to hospitals, homeless shelters, etc. You’ll feel good and get a tax deduction that reduces your cost basis on the miles (provided you’re in a position to itemize your deductions, and subject to Pease limits which were brought back with last year’s tax increases).
Two current offers:
- FTD: 30 American miles per dollar (plus 200 miles for American co-brand Citibank credit card holders).
- FTD: 30 United miles per dollar plus 250 miles.
You’ll sometimes see bigger numbers with Delta and 1-800-Flowers, and the best returns are often when you can stack flower offers with airline shopping portal bonuses.
But it’s time to start thinking about Valentine’s Day. Just don’t mention the miles you pocketed for yourself. It might call your motives into question, like this old Citibank American Airlines credit card ad…
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Thanks for mentioning (and linking to) the Pease limits. I missed that info somehow and just discovered that due to those new limits, we will not be able to take a charitable deduction for last year. Ouch. Wish our CPA had mentioned it before the year ended – we would have given more.
Any way to stack those offers with the Ultimate Rewards mall? I assume they use different referral links and can’t be combined.
@LarryinNYC since these are link based they can’t be stacked with shopping portal offers
You often post about skipping miles-for-purchase deals because they are too expensive. Why are you posting about 10 cent per miles miles (or close to it) miles from FTD without doing the math and without a recommendation as to whether they are worth their cost? I haven’t done the math for a decade, but the cost of the miles was staggering (the cost being the difference between buying a bouquet from FTD vs. buying the same item from a local florist’s website or by phone).
@hillrider – I am not recommending buying miles this way but 30 miles per dollar is 3.3 cents per mile, not 10. With tax deduction some folks might get the cost down closer to 2 cents . Not a price I would buy at speculatively, just making the point that these are so lucrative that it’s cheaper than outright buying miles from an airline.
Gary, when you log in through the AA shopping portal, the offer is only 15 MPD. Is 15 stacked on top of the 30 in your link to equate to 45 MPD?
@GK – no this is instead of the standard 15 offer (you can’t use that link AND this link)
Gary
I tried during the holiday season with ftd.
the same basket is 59.95 + shipping ~10$ = 70$
When you get free shipping as a Gold FTD member, the same price is 49$
The sites know how to gouge you and gauge you very well.
There is a hidden cost to this and even when you think you are buying miles for 3c each, you may be better off just getting the best deal on flowers and buying miles outright during a promo with the saved money for 2c each
So here’s my question…I click that direct link, can I also use my built in ebates browser app to activate ebates cash back since I’ll never be leaving the page?
If so, you can add in 16% cash back too. So $84 in flowers ($100 to start, $16 back) would get you 3200 miles. Really 3300 miles since you’re using your Cobranded credit card.
I know this is a direct link, but can I click the direct link, then use the ebates cash back button in my browser to activate 16% cash back? At that point, $100 in goods/services would cost you $84, and you’d get 3300 miles out of it.
@Matt can’t double dip that way unfortunately
Tough crowd…. I don’t live in the city in which my sister lives in, so, it’s much easier for me to just use FTD, you are paying for the convience of using thier service and getting points. I think this group forgets that there are times when looking at the lowest CPM vr convience for me convience wins out.
I prefer to hold out for the similar 1800Flowers offers, as you can buy their GCs at 15%+ off (then pay with them), get the Amex OPEN credit (and at times, Sync offers), earn Fresh Rewards Points, plus get a similr # of miles per dollar.
I noticed FTD sells Baccarat vases for the same price as the department stores, so I bought one as a wedding present. The delivery fee as a percentage of the vase was reasonable, and I could only find no-name retailer online that would sell the vase for less. Couldn’t find it on eBay.
Over Christmas I also purchased three Dean and Deluca gift baskets from FTD as presents. The price was the same as from the D&D website, and D&D charges shipping (though I didn’t compare shipping with delivery costs).
That link still works!