Maximizing Mother's Day purchases this year

As we all know, Mother's Day is right around the corner so now is the time many people will start placing orders for flowers, chocolates, jewelry, etc so that it can arrive on time by next week. A year ago I would have gone to a local florist or go online to make these purchases but now I know better and I rarely make any purchases without first trying to go through a shopping portal so that I can at least earn miles on things I would be buying otherwise. Here is how you can do this too.

So one of the first places I go is to either evreward.com or some other website similar to this such as www.cashbackmonitor.com and many others and it should take you to a screen like this.

From here you can enter in the name of the store or browse by store or category and if you click the Flowers & Gifts link it will bring up a long list of available stores with a quick overview of the top rebate, popularity, and other special deals.

I typically shop at FTD.com or 1-800-FLOWERS in the past because I've had AMEX offers or other additional coupons that allowed me to double dip and I'm trying to decide what is the best option this year to get the most bang for my buck. A word of warning, if you do use these portals often times you can't use additional coupon codes or receive additional offers since you are already receiving a rebate through the portal. For example, I am using the portal at FTD and the prices being shown are not discounted in any manner while if I go to the website normally without the portal much lower prices are being advertised on the same products which offer a greater discount than going through a shopping portal. See below:

A screenshot of some of FTD's best sellers going through a shopping portal

A screenshot of some of FTD's best sellers going directly to FTD.com WITHOUT going through a shopping portal

As you can see, the sale prices for many of the exact same products offer a greater discount than you would receive by going through one of these shopping portals so make sure you do your homework. Right now the best offers are for Delta SkyMiles at 35 miles per $ so if you value SkyMiles at roughly 1.4-1.8 cents each then this effectively equates to a 48-63% rebate on your purchase. There are also offers for American Airlines and United Airlines miles for slightly less at 30 miles per $ spent which is still decent.

Bottom Line

While its nice to be able to do something thoughtful for your mother it is also nice to be able to help yourself at the same time by earning valuable miles for purchases you would be making regardless. Its important to make sure you are still getting the best deal because as you can see going through a shopping portal will limit some of the other offers you have access to that may save you more in the long run.