Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, so now’s the time to start planning if you’re buying flowers for a significant other.
There’s no shortage of ways to buy flowers and earn rewards when buying flowers. If you pay with a rewards credit card, you’ll earn rewards on your purchase regardless of how you order them.
There are various reasons to order from a local florist. For one, it’s a great way to support a small business. Plus, you’ll generally get more control over the final product. At the same time, you may leave rewards on the table if you don’t order your flowers online.
When you purchase flowers online, you can usually snag extra rewards or savings by clicking through a shopping portal and utilizing credit card merchant offers. Here’s what you need to know.
How and why to use shopping portals
You can earn cash back, transferable points, hotel points or airline miles when shopping online with select retailers if you start at an online shopping portal instead of going directly to the merchant’s website.
Using a shopping portal is easy and doesn’t add much time to your purchase. Generally, you’ll need to register with the portal and then click through to your desired retailer before making your purchase.
If you know which retailer you want to use for your flower order, you can use a shopping portal aggregator site to find out which portal offers the largest return on your purchase. For example, you can use a site like Cashback Monitor to see which portal provides the best return for purchases with Teleflora Flowers:
However, if you’re focused on earning a specific type of reward, you may prefer to go directly to the portal of your choice. You can also install shopping portal browser extensions to remind you to use portals when shopping online.
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Related: 5 credit card perks to save you money on Valentine’s Day shopping
Current bonuses by portal and vendor
Most portals feature multiple flower retailers offering bonuses. And these bonuses often increase before popular flower-sending holidays such as Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. Note that these also stack with spending-based shopping portal promotions, giving you another way to earn points if there’s an active offer.
Bonuses change frequently, but here are the best bonuses available on several of the most popular online shopping portals when I wrote this article.
American Airlines AAdvantage eShopping
The American Airlines AAdvantage eShopping portal lets you earn American Airlines miles on select purchases. According to TPG’s valuations, American miles are worth about 1.77 cents each.
- Sendflowers.com: 15 miles per dollar (26.55% return based on TPG’s valuations).
- ProFlowers: 12 miles per dollar (21.24% return).
- FTD.com: 12 miles per dollar (21.24% return).
- FromYouFlowers.com: 12 miles per dollar (21.24% return).
- The Bouqs: 10 miles per dollar (17.7% return).
- 1800flowers.com: 10 miles per dollar (17.7% return).
- Teleflora Flowers: 4 miles per dollar (7.08% return).
You can earn a winter bonus of 500 AAdvantage miles if you make $200 or more in cumulative qualifying purchases through the AAdvantage shopping portal between Feb. 6 and Feb. 13.
Related: Earn American Airlines Loyalty Points and miles through the AAdvantage shopping portal
Alaska Mileage Plan Shopping
The Alaska Mileage Plan Shopping portal lets you earn Alaska miles on select purchases. According to TPG’s valuations, Alaska miles are worth about 1.8 cents each.
- Sendflowers.com: 11 miles per dollar (19.8% return).
- ProFlowers: 9 miles per dollar (16.2% return).
- FTD.com: 9 miles per dollar (16.2% return).
- FromYouFlowers.com: 9 miles per dollar (16.2% return).
- The Bouqs: 7 miles per dollar (12.6% return).
- 1800flowers.com: 7 miles per dollar (12.6% return).
- Teleflora Flowers: 3 miles per dollar (5.4% return).
You can earn a winter bonus of 500 Alaska miles if you make $150 or more in cumulative qualifying purchases through Mileage Plan Shopping between Feb. 6 and Feb. 13.
Related: The complete guide to the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan shopping portal
Chase Ultimate Rewards
Earning bonuses can vary across different Chase credit cards. And some Chase cards earn cash-back rewards instead of points. But here’s what Cashback Monitor is currently showing for the following merchants:
- Sendflowers.com: 10 to 15 points per dollar.
- ProFlowers: 8 to 12 points per dollar.
- FTD.com: 8 to 12 points per dollar.
- FromYouFlowers.com: 8 to 12 points per dollar.
- The Bouqs: 7 to 10 points per dollar.
- Teleflora Flowers: 3 to 4 points per dollar.
Related: How (and why) to combine your Chase Ultimate Rewards points into a single account
Delta SkyMiles Shopping
The Delta SkyMiles Shopping portal lets you earn Delta miles on select purchases. According to TPG’s valuations, Delta miles are worth about 1.41 cents each.
- FTD.com: 20 miles per dollar (28.2% return).
- ProFlowers: 8 miles per dollar (11.28% return).
Related: The ultimate guide to the Delta SkyMiles shopping portal
Rakuten
With Rakuten, you can earn cash-back rewards or American Express Membership Rewards points. TPG’s valuations peg the value of Amex Membership Rewards points at 2 cents each.
- 1800flowers.com: 20% cash back or 20 points per dollar (40% return).
- Sendflowers.com: 16% cash back or 16 points per dollar (32% return).
- ProFlowers: 16% cash back or 16 points per dollar (32% return).
- FTD.com: 15% cash back or 15 points per dollar (30% return).
- FromYouFlowers.com: 15% cash back or 15 points per dollar (30% return).
- The Bouqs: 15% cash back or 15 points per dollar (30% return).
- Teleflora Flowers: 15% cash back or 15 points per dollar (30% return).
Related: How to earn bonus cash back or Amex points on your online shopping purchases with Rakuten
United MileagePlus Shopping
The United MileagePlus Shopping portal lets you earn United miles on select purchases. According to TPG’s valuations, United miles are worth about 1.21 cents each.
- Teleflora Flowers: 30 miles per dollar (36.3% return).
- FTD.com: 25 miles per dollar (30.25% return).
- Sendflowers.com: 8 miles per dollar (9.68% return).
- ProFlowers: 6 miles per dollar (7.26% return).
- FromYouFlowers.com: 6 miles per dollar (7.26% return).
- The Bouqs: 5 miles per dollar (6.05% return).
You can earn a winter bonus of 500 United miles if you make $150 or more in cumulative qualifying purchases through MileagePlus Shopping between Feb. 6 and Feb. 13.
Related: The ultimate guide to earning miles with the United MileagePlus Shopping portal
Wyndham Rewards Shopping
The Wyndham Rewards Shopping portal lets you earn Wyndham points on select purchases. According to TPG’s valuations, Wyndham points are worth about 1.1 cents each.
- 1800Florals: 12 points per dollar (13.2% return).
- Flower.com: 9 points per dollar (9.9% return).
- ProFlowers: 6 points per dollar (6.6% return).
- Teleflora Flowers: 4 points per dollar (4.4% return).
- FTD.com: 3 points per dollar (3.3% return).
- 1800flowers.com: 3 points per dollar (3.3% return).
Related: Use these shopping portal bonuses to earn extra miles on Valentine’s Day gifts
Current credit card merchant offers
Another way to save money or earn extra rewards is credit card merchant offers, including Chase Offers, Amex Offers and Citi Merchant Offers. Here’s a look at some offers I found on my cards while writing this story.
- 1800flowers.com Amex Offer: 15% back or $10 back on a purchase of $50 or more (up to three times).
- Teleflora Flowers Amex Offer: Get $18 back on a purchase of $35 or more (up to 10 times).
- 1800flowers.com Chase Offer: 10% back (up to $12 back) on one purchase.
- The Bouqs Chase Offer: 10% back (up to $13 back) on one purchase.
- ProFlowers Citi Merchant Offer: 25% back on one purchase.
- SimplyBlooms Citi Merchant Offer: 18% back (up to $20 back) on one purchase.
I also have a SimplyBlooms SimplyMiles offer for 10 American miles per dollar spent (up to 1,000 miles) that I could stack with the Citi Merchant Offer for SimplyBlooms.
Before deciding on a flower merchant, check your cards for offers. You may be able to stack an offer with shopping portal earnings and credit card rewards to boost the return you get on your flower purchase.
Related: How I earned rewards 5 different ways on a Hotels.com booking
Best cards for flowers
If you are using a credit card merchant offer, you’ll need to use the card the offer is tied to when making your flower purchase. However, if you have multiple cards with the same offer — or you aren’t using a merchant offer — then you’ll want to use the card that will earn the most on your purchase.
Flower purchases won’t fall into any bonus categories on most rewards credit cards. So, you’ll want to use one of the best cards for everyday spending, which provides bonus rewards on all purchases.
In particular, here’s what you’d earn when purchasing flowers with select everyday spending cards:
Everyday spending cards, such as the ones listed above, will provide the best earnings on your purchase regardless of whether you order your flowers online or with a local florist.
Related: The most romantic Valentine’s Day hotel packages around the world
Bottom line
Online shopping portals can be incredibly lucrative when purchasing products like flowers. And especially around holidays, it’s worth checking whether any credit card merchant offers are available on your credit cards if you don’t have a particular florist in mind for your purchase.
