I thought CVS was hard coded not to allow Visa/MC gift card purchases with a cc?

Why did you think that? We've been buying them for months with various CCs. Walgreen's doesn't allow it, but CVS does.

WG allows Visa/MC GC purchases using a CC. VRs are hard-coded in the register as unallowed, but Visa/MC GC purchases are fine. CVS does allow GC purchases with a CC as well, with the same $1k DL scan requirement as on VRs and other prepaid cards.

I went back to buy 3 more VRs and asked to buy 1 with my BA card and the other 2 with another CC, and they said fine, but it would have to be in one transaction. So I guess my CVS does have a new rule disallowing separate purchases. I've done separate purchases many times previously.

In any case, I have my BB loads for today and tomorrow.

Also, I forgot about my $2000 credit limit on the BA card, but the transaction was allowed. I went online afterwards and tried to pay off enough to bring the balance below $2000, but was not allowed to pay that much because most of the purchases are still pending. The payment limit was an odd amount that was $37.39 over the currently listed balance. Strange.

Ditto in the SF Bay Area. Tried twice, skunked twice. In the past when this has happened the attempts with the DL counted in the daily limit.

In itself an interesting data point as it suggests the DL database is national and not just regional.

For some reason I thought one of the few options left was Vanilla Reloads and that the Visa/MC prepaid debits were hardcoded to take cash or debit only. I guess I hadn't been paying attention since VR supplies, at least until this month, had been plentiful.

This maybe YMMV.
Walgreens here have signs "Gift Cards Debit or Cash Only". And ALL cards have yellow stickers saying the same.

Not in my town.

WG here is debit or cash only on Visa/MC/AMEX and cash only on VR.

However I do suspect the register is only hard-coded cash only on VR and actually allow cc for the Visa/MC/AMEX. The difficult lies with the store actually is willing to try CC. Many moons ago one WG store manager allowed the cashier to try CC for an AMEX and it went right thru.

That is why I said "WG allows". Individual stores may differ (and as we know, even individual cashiers may differ). But, it is not a hard-coded register block as it is with VR at WG. It is a "soft-coded" block (especially in your case Happy), to give it an analogous term.

I can confirm WG registers allow GC purchases with CC.

Still having issues with the DL scan at my CVS.

For those with DL scan issues, a couple months back the cashiers started getting error messages when they scanned mine. They eventually figured out that my magnetic strip was not reading (probably worn from so many scans) and had success manually entering my DL#. Ever since then, I tell the checker in advance and goes much smoother.

Anyone having trouble with the id scan today at cvs? It appears the system may be down at least in NYC area. 2 stores I know of both hD the same problem and said they could not process and purchases today.

It seems like the DL scanning system is still down. You can do separate purchases or 2x $495. The fees are not counted, so you could technically do $500 and $499 without triggering the scan. I still offer my ID proactively, but most of the clerks know me by now. :D

Yesterday, I had an issue with the DL scan. I was only allowed to purchase one VR.