How to Save Big Money on This Year’s Mother’s Day Gift
Mother’s Day is Sunday, May 14th, and if you act quickly, you can get Mom a gift she’ll love at a price you’ll love.
The plan I’m about to lay out has a few components to it. You can use the basic option to save a nice bit of money, or the more involved option to save even more. It just depends how much effort you want to put in.
Your gift will come from 1800Flowers.com. If you’re familiar with 1-800-Flowers, you know that it’s much more than just flowers.
You can order gifts such as fruit bouquets from fruitbouquets.com, candy from Fannie May, cookies from Cheryl’s Cookies and much more from the other affiliated retailers.
Here’s a full list:
- 1-800-Flowers
- 1-800-Baskets
- Fruit Bouquets
- Cheryl’s Cookies
- Fannie May
- The Popcorn Factory
- Stock Yards (steaks, etc.)
- Wolferman’s (breads and baked goods)
- Harry & David
As you can see, there’s a huge variety of retailers, and gift options, under the 1-800-Flowers umbrella, making it almost a sure thing you’ll find a great Mother’s Day present.
What You’ll Need
- An American Express credit or prepaid (Bluebird, Serve, etc.) card to which Amex Offers can be added
- A cash back portal membership (free to sign up) such as Ebates or TopCashBack
- A Shoprunner membership, free via your American Express credit card (must enroll)
Basic Savings
- Load the “Spend $50, Get $15” 1-800-Flowers Amex Offer to your American Express card. See details below.
- Login to your preferred cash back portal and click through to the 1-800-Flowers site.
- Shop at any of the 1-800-Flowers affiliated brands listed at the top of the site (and listed above).
- Pay with the American Express card you added the 1-800-Flowers Amex Offer to.
- Login to your ShopRunner account to get free shipping on your order (open a separate browser tab and login if the Shoprunner Eligible icon isn’t showing).
Purchases at any of the affiliated brands will trigger the Amex Offer $15 statement credit as long as you purchase $50 or more.
As of the writing of this post, Top Cash Back is offering 6% cash back on purchases made at 1800flowers.com and Ebates is offering 10% cash back.
If you used your enrolled American Express card to pay, went through Top Cash Back as your cash back portal and your purchase was exactly $50 – for illustrative purposes – your savings would be $3 cash back and a $15 Amex statement credit, making your final cost $32.
The savings would be a few dollars more if you used Ebates as your cash back portal.
So, $30-$32 for $50 worth of gifts with limited effort extended. Not bad.
Here’s how you can do even better.
A Little More Effort, A Little More Savings
You can save even more by adding a few more steps to the process. This is for the more advanced, gung-ho, savers, or those who feel adventurous.
The steps are similar to above, but with additional purchases to maximize cash back. I’ve included more detail, which may be helpful to some.
1. Load Amex Offers
First, you’ll need to login to your American Express account to see if you have the 1-800-Flowers Amex Offer available.
The 1-800-Flowers Amex Offer is for a $15 statement credit when $50+ is spent at 1800Flowers.com.
It seems the 1-800-Flowers offers are widely available, so you should have one waiting.
If you have multiple American Express cards, check each one for availability. You may be able to add – and use – multiple* 1800Flowers Amex Offers.
*Once one of the same Amex Offers is loaded to an account, the offer will be removed from other credit cards linked to the same American Express log-in. You can open multiple web browsers, each logged in to you Amex account, but showing different cards, and add the 1-800-Flowers offers to each card at the same time. If you click “Add to Card” quickly enough, it usually works with no problems.
2. Purchase Gift Cards via Cash Back Portal
The next step is to login to your preferred cash back portal site.
I’ll be using TopCashBack.com for this example.
Once logged in to the cash back portal, search for 1-800-Flowers and click through to the 1800Flowers.com site.
This will trigger a cash back payment based on your purchase.
Use the American Express card to which the 1-800-Flowers Amex Offer was loaded to purchase a $50 1-800-Flowers gift card.
You can, of course, purchase a gift card of any amount over the $50 minimum; the statement credit, however, will be a lesser percentage of saving.
This really comes into play if you are going to use multiple Amex Offers to make multiple gift card purchases.
It’s better to buy two separate $50 gift cards, each triggering its own $15 statement credit than to buy one $100 gift card triggering a single $15 statement credit.
Repeat the above steps if you loaded multiple 1-800-Flowers Amex Offers.
Cash back rates can, and will, vary depending on the portal used and current promotions.
For this example, I’ll be getting 6% cash back from TopCashBack.
So, if I purchase one $50 1-800-Flowers gift card, I’ll get approximately $3 cash back in my TopCashBack account for this transaction.
For those unfamiliar with cash back portals, it oftentimes takes a while for your cash back to become available. A month to two months is not unheard of for your cash back to be ready to access. Be aware, this part of the savings will come, just not immediately.
The Amex Offers, on the other hand, usually appear on your American Express online statement within a few days of purchase. Meaning, that $50 purchase will actually cost you $35 when it comes time to pay your Amex bill.
Unfortunately, the 1-800-Flowers gift cards are mailed, not e-delivery, so allow at least a week to get them via the U.S. Postal Service. But, shipping on the gift cards is free.
Important: The eGift Cards listed on 1800flowers.com are sourced via cashstar.com, and would not trigger the $15 Amex Offer statement credit.
3. Use 1-800-Flowers Gift Card(s) to Make Your Purchase
Again, login to your preferred cash back site and click through to the 1800flowers.com site.
Open a separate browser tab and login to your ShopRunner.com account. This should make any 1800flowers.com purchase eligible for free shipping.
Select the item(s) you want to purchase and proceed to the checkout page.
Use your gift card(s) to pay for your purchase.
There is a 2-gift card limit for payment, so plan your order accordingly.
Should the order total more than the amount on the gift card(s), you can pay the balance with your favorite miles/points/cash back earning credit card.
If your final order totals $50, you’ll save another $3-$5, maybe more depending on the current cash back percentages, on the overall gift price.
Savings Wrap up
So, an initial $50 gift card purchase would save you $18 (using a 6% cash back rate and $15 Amex credit) and the final purchase ($50) using the gift card to checkout would provide another $3 in cash back, making the total amount saved $21.00!
Or, put another way, you’re getting $50 worth of gifts for only $29.
Whether you go the basic savings route, or add a few more steps – and a bit more time – to grab a few more dollars, you’re still getting a pretty good deal.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. And Happy Saving to everyone else!
Are you grabbing some savings this Mother’s Day via Amex Offers or a cash back site?
