The place I get my hair cut is Fantastic Sams. They have a few places nationwide.

When I tip the barber, I often ask to put the $5 on the same charge as my cut and add any coupons. So for $18-20 I am done and what I see is the cashier take a $5 bill out of the register and hand it to the barber as I say goodbye and walk out. Been doing this for years.

When I go to Stop & Shop supermarkets and there's any small glitch in my bill, a missed opportunity to apply a coupon or a bad piece of fruit discovered as I put my bags into my car, I can walk back into the supermarket, go to the CS desk and hand the clerk my receipt. they just give me back cash. I have received up to ~$15.

Neither of these are opportunities where I go out LOOKING to get cash off a CC and get miles for it, but that's what just happened.

So are these stores doing something wrong or is this just a case of good customer service mixed with a dose of reality instead of strict policy?

When I worked as a bartender years ago in a ski town, the bar manager said each of us could have a loosely determined freebee list of people... we could give away a beer here or there to up to like 5 people a day. This was based on no rule or strict accounting. It was all honor system and we all never abused it. there'd be times all your friends would come in and you would comp 8 beers a nite and other times when you wouldn't have given any away for a week. It all worked out. Bar manager said it kept the locals happy which is part of the main business.

The reason I bring this up is because I think some of you posting here are wrong about strict policy rules in business. Some businesses have room for 'loose cash' and other things that could be done in alternative ways so long as none of it totals to too much $$$ over time.

I used to work for BayBanks, which was the New England-based grandfather to all of the BofAs in new England. I was in the money room counting deposits from ATMs. People deposited everything in those things. Coins (not mint ones lol) paper, foreign money, old money, etc) and each of our booths had change all over the place. While every transaction had to go through and be accounted for, this loose money was often there for 48 hrs before being fully counted in, and yet the customer was credited in full for their sometimes erroneous deposits of nono cash/paper check currency. What I'm getting at is there was an allowance for some looseness and error now and then.