I have a [completely unsubstantiated, but certainly logical] theory that the profit margins in a given industry can be assessed by reference to the size of the kickbacks available on goods in that industry. And if this theory holds any water, the margins on flowers are astronomical.
To that end – and I hope that this post isn’t too late for many of you to capitalize on – there are huge kickbacks to be had on Valentine’s Day flowers (or flowers for any other day, for that matter). These kickbacks simply require you to access a given retailer’s website through an online shopping portal, which triggers a series of events in which the retailer pays the shopping portal a commission for steering your business to it, and the shopping portal returns a portion of that commission to you in the form of credit card points, hotel points, airline miles, or cash. There are lots and lots of online shopping portals – almost every loyalty program has one – and I’ve provided a list of the major portals at the bottom of this post.
The problem is that there are so many online portals that a person can spend hours and hours researching which portal to use to obtain the highest possible kickback. I am living proof that a person can in fact spend this much time on this activity. Fortunately, however, there are several sites that aggregate, on a retailer-by-retailer, the kickbacks available through various portals. My favorite aggregator site is EVReward.com, but there are several other good options.
Let’s take a look at the big players in the flower business, and the best kickbacks available from each. The best approach here is to access each site through one of the shopping portals listed beneath the “Loyalty Program Rewards” heading, and then earn an additional discount by also using one of the discount codes listed beneath the “Coupons, Codes and Discounts” heading at checkout, if applicable.
1-800 Flowers
Mr. Rebates takes the cake among the cash-back portals, unless you have a Discover card, in which case you could earn the same rebate through the Discover portal. However, I value Ultimate Rewards points at about 2 cents apiece, so I’d choose 12 Ultimate Rewards points over 15% cash back any day, notwithstanding EVReward’s completely inaccurate parenthetical indicating that 12 Ultimate Rewards points are equivalent to 12% cash back. If you don’t own an Ultimate Rewards card, Mr. Rebates is probably the best bet on the whole list. Marriott offers the greatest number of points, but Marriott points are much less valuable than UR points – 1 cent apiece is a good estimate – so that’s a non-starter for all but the most die-hard Marriott devotees
Note: The Visa discount listed under the “Special Offers from Credit Cards and Loyalty Programs” appears to be combinable with loyalty program rewards for 1-800 Flowers. The terms state that you must click through Visa’s portal and use the discount code provided (VISA38), but the code appears to work in my trial runs even when I access the 1-800 Flowers website through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal. The Visa promotion for the other three sites discussed below does not list a discount code, and the discount appears to be triggered only if the site is accessed through the Visa portal, which precludes the possibility of stacking the Visa discount with kickbacks from other portals.
ProFlowers
The American Airlines portal, which offers 18 AAdvantage miles per dollar, is the clear winner here. AAdvantage miles are worth about 1.5 cents apiece in my book.
FTD.com
Here’s where it really gets good — 30 miles per dollar through both the United and American portals! Incredible. I value United and American miles about the same – 1.5 cents apiece – but I’d choose United here simply because I fly United more often than American.
Teleflora
This one is pretty clear — the 25% Visa discount is the best bet here.
The Verdict?
The kickbacks from FTD and 1-800 Flowers are very close calls. FTD’s offers of 30 miles per dollar through the United and American Airlines portals yield approximately 45 cents on each dollar, valuing each airline’s miles at 1.5 apiece. 1-800 Flowers allows you to stack a 20% Visa discount (using promotion code VISA38) on top of another portal’s rewards, with the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal (12 points/dollar) and Mr. Rebates (15% cash back) being the best options. These 1-800 flowers options yield discount values of 44% and 35% respectively, if each Ultimate Reward point is valued at 2 cents.
So by my calculations, FTD is the winner by a very narrow margin, but people who prefer cash rebates to points and miles may skew towards the Visa/Mr. Rebates combination with 1-800 Flowers. I hope you can take advantage of these offers!
And as promised, here is a list of most of the major online shopping portals:
Credit Card Portals
Capital One Perk Central
Chase Ultimate Rewards Mall
Citi Thank You Shopping
Discover ShopDiscover
Mastercard Marketplace
Hotel Portals
Hilton HHonors Earnings Mall
Marriott Rewards Shop My Way
Priority Club Shopping
Airline (and Amtrak) Portals
Air Canada Aeroplan EStore
American AAdvantage Eshopping
Amtrak Guest Rewards Points for Shopping
Delta Skymiles Shopping
Frontier Early Returns Mall
Hawaiian Airlines eMarket
Southwest Rapid Rewards Shopping
United MileagePlus Shopping
US Airways Dividend Miles Shopping Mall
Cash-Back Portals
Big Crumbs
Ebates
Extrabux
Mr. Rebates
Big Crumbs, Ebates, Extrabux, and Mr. Rebates offer me a small referral credit if you sign up for their programs through the links in this post, so I’d greatly appreciate it if you’d use my links if you choose to sign up for one of these programs!