Updates on eBay Gift Cards, 1-800-Flowers & the Club Carlson Status Match
I have a few updates from recent posts that I feel are worth sharing. Let’s take a look.
1-800-Flowers Celebration Rewards Posted
The other day I wrote about how I leveraged several deals to score almost 70% off 1-800-Flowers gift cards. At the time of that post I failed to account for 1-800-Flowers’ Rewards program called Celebration Rewards. That program awards 1 point per dollar spent and then gives you a $20 certificate when you earn 200 points. Basically it is like getting 10% back in rewards.
What I didn’t know is that Celebration Rewards are earned on the purchase of gift cards, although I don’t believe they are given when you redeem the gift cards. Today, I was surprised to receive emails with $140 worth of Celebration Rewards. This means that as of today I have $1,740 in 1-800-Flowers credit for a cost of $514 for a discount of 70.46%. I plan to earn even more portal rewards and/or miles when redeeming my gift cards which should bring my final cost for products close to $0.
Find out how I did this in my original post.
Club Carlson Status Match/Re-Match
Last week I wrote about Club Carlson’s official status match. They have had a match program for awhile, however they now have setup a web page and put the details in writing. In my original post I mentioned that I requested a match despite having received one before. My previous match wasn’t needed because shortly after doing it I got the credit card and had Gold Status anyway.
Two days after I requested the match, the following email came through:
Thank you for your recent inquiry. A status match is a one-time courtesy invitation to allow new members to experience our program benefits and engage with our hotels. Out of respect for our other Club
Carlson elite members who have earned their status, we limit this to a one-time invitation only. We hope you will continue to stay at our hotels in the future and earn Points through the Club Carlson rewards
program to experience its great benefits.
I thought this response was strange since the rep didn’t say I was denied but implied it. After receiving the message I checked my account and it wasn’t upgraded, so I emailed them to plead my case explaining that my previous match wasn’t needed due to the credit card. About a day later I received this:
Thank you for your recent message. We have upgraded your Club Carlson account to Gold Elite status effective immediately and expiring on February 28, 2017 (unless otherwise re-obtained).
So there you have it! Persistence pays off. If you are interested in getting your elite status matched to Club Carlson, see my original post.
8% eBay Bucks on Sears Gift Cards
This morning I covered a very good Sears gift card deal along with a few others. That deal has been made better by an targeted eBay Bucks flash promo (check your account) giving up to 8% eBay Bucks. Plus you can earn 3% cashback through Ebates. Head to my original post to see all of the deals. The Sears deal in particular is fairly profitable since you can sell the cards to SaveYa for 87% or ABC Gift Cards for 84%.
Conclusion
So there you have it. Club Carlson was nice and the 1-800-Flowers deal continues to be pretty amazing for me. Finally, if you are into gift card arbitrage, then the Sears deal is probably a no-brainer and there may be one or two other deals to consider given the eBay Bucks boost. Let’s just hope they don’t take our eBay Bucks away.
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