I am only one person, so this is really statistically insignificant, but I have found that MS is easier in the Northeast than the Southeast.

If none of your CVS locations will allow VR to be purchased with CC, just stick with VCs (and convert them to MOs).

Are there still CCs available with 5% bonuses on drug stores? Or have those all gone away/expired?

You really should do some searching on this forum.

Sometimes the 5% cards (Chase Freedom, Citi Dividend, and Discover It) will have drug stores at 5%, but the old American Express Blue Cash is a year-round 5% cashback card for drug stores (and gas stations and grocery stores) after spending an initial $6,500. I would at least read the first page or two of that old American Express Blue Cash thread.

I am a recent graduate of AlohaDaveKennedy's cardinal inquisition (FRU) Financial Review University. Datapoints suggest that I have a year pass to the hogs get slaughtered ball - which is why I am hitting 5k a day for 6 straight days and 12 out of 13. Mostly AMEX, but different products. Wife and I both have 4 cards, so they get put on different products, but the same bank. I am starting to run into having to go to multiple stores and the same store a lot because I've wiped out a lot of local stores.

I am guessing you live in the wrong part of the USA. Just your bad luck unfortunately. I am concerned that this whole mgf spending thing relies too much on cooperative CVS's loading their debit cards with our CC's.

This is what I do. I cannot find a CVS with reloadable VR in-stock. I buy One Vanillas - four $500 loads at a time - take them to WallyMart and convert them into two $1,000 MO's for a fee of $0.70 each.

This is not really a cost efficient way of earning cc points. Looking at my profile, one can surmise that I am doing this just to meet a cc minimum spend.

Plenty of states without CVS. Plenty of people (in-city NYC, Boston, etc.) who don't have a Wally within 30-40 minutes. Plenty of people with constantly wiped out CVS locations. And plenty of people who have both but one place or the other (or both) are uncooperative. Such is life.

Sorry if this is code we are supposed to understand, but can you please explain this a little more clearly? Are you saying you got an AmEx FR, and you passed, so you're increasing your AmEx spend?

Heh. I have no idea what that code was supposed to mean.

Watch out, the FRU loves summer school for those who have too much fun at the ball. Don't believe everything you hear from the other revelers.

I'll re-check datapoints. I will note I am not turning over credit lines though. I'm under each card's limit for the month - so hopefully that'll keep me fat and happy.

As long as you stay under the honors level you have been given after graduation, you should be ok. Exceeding your knowledge base is when the FRU brings you in for reinforcement of the first mandate of the core curriculum, "thou shalt not believe thou is smarter or more capable than thou qualifications as dictated by the FRU Board of Regents."

So once you've been invited to the ball, it's an open bar, but we can't drink too much or we'll upset the hosts? How big is the bar though?

I am fearing that the party must be coming to a close.

I grabbed 9 vr (all the store had left) and went to the check out. The guy says "$500 each" and I smile and say "yes please." His response was, "have a good trip. This seems like a scam to me though." I chuckled and said, "I am complying with their rules."

He just did not say much after that and I was on my way.

I know that there have been many cries over the past two years about this type of ms but it is such an open secret/joke that it seems like we are on borrowed time.

I am fairly new to the game, and you are right - this will end sooner than later; however, I'm sure people were crushed as I read in retrospect, when the Mint ended, and this came up. There will likely be something else. We may be getting into some lean months, but there's enough ingenuity to where we are all doing this because we CAN. When we are forced to learn new tricks, I suspect at least a few of us will. I'm not very good at being creative or coming up with the loopholes, but I am pretty good at scaling - so we'll see. I tend to be conservative in my ideals, but on this, I feel a need to 'hog out' - I think something like Evolve in small doses at 5x points may have staying power. I agree with you that I'd be shocked if we're doing this next year - either on CVS end or Bluebird end.