Originally Posted by
highinthesky
I would like to know as well. I bought $500 Amex GC from Shaws today and tried to buy OneVanilla from CVS. The register kept prompting for alternative method of payment. I thought it could be because the transaction was $504.95 but these used to auto drain the past. The manager tried to make it $500 (not sure if she succeeded) and it declined again. It is possible, but unlikely that the card has not activated yet since I went to CVS right after I bought it. I checked the status online and it shows a load of $500 and no other activity, which leads me to believe CVS stopped the party. Any data points on this?
IME Shaws is really good place to use the AMEX GCs to buy VGCs/MCGCs. Obviously I wouldn't try using the AMEX GC to buy a VGC/MCGC in the same visit, but I've bought them in the morning and went back in the evening and it worked fine when the math was done to make sure the VGC/MCGC amount didn't go over the AMEX GC load amount.
It's been a couple months since I purchased and used an AMEX GC at Shaws, but it always processed fine when I did. Additionally, most of the CSRs at the Shaws in my area don't seem to care about what you use to pay for your purchase and don't ask to see ID either. The only time I had anyone ask about my payment method was when I used my phone to pay once a few weeks back.