They are so hit or miss

I travel a lot for work, and some areas are hard coded to reject.
Others it could come down to the associate/manager on duty.
Or even if the manager is paying attention.

I have a few managers that just say "no" when I walk in the door.
And a few associates that say "come back after XX time, it will be a different manager."

And then other places I have gotten 2 and 3 at a time without so much as an ID check.

Any reports of 7/11 being good to go with CC now that they enabled chip cards?

new cupcake design usbank VGC (packaging says celebrate) was not valid for MO payment...even though it is debit and has PIN, it is coded against MO purchase at PO or WM...the scary part is all the old usbank cards designs that I buy at krogers have always worked....it could be the end of a popular debit/gift card option

Haven't seen the cupcake packaging in my neck of the woods. Everything I can buy is still working the usual way...

I don't remember exactly whether I used them at WM for MO or serve load but I was able to use a couple last week.
Update: Just got a 1K MO at WM using another couple of cupcake vgcs

I will try again, but to clarify these are not the old cupcake design that has been around for 6 months...it is a new card design that has replaced all other VGC designs in our local krogers, The fact that it generated error code 12 at WM is worrisome, that means it is coded against MO as unacceptable for payment....the old designs by the same bank would process as EFT credit converted to debit (or maybe debit converted to credit) whichever, they always worked.

What is the issuing bank?

USBANK...the old USBANK designs all worked ...variable load visa cards with blue packaging, celebrate, and congratulations..the cards have purple gift box on front or "celebrate" with a bubble pattern, even the old cupcake design...been using them for years with no problem...the new ones have a pink icing cupcake with a blue butterfly in the middle of the card as well as a couple of other cupcakes...they run through prepaidgiftbalance.com, whereas the old usbank designs used mygiftcardsite.com.....I stupidly wound up with 5 before I tried to buy MO at WM and PO and found they are coded against it.
I then tried to use them to pay for a cruise and they were denied....after some back and forth card company said the cruise line was trying to put a 15% gratuity hold on card so the $500 charge was processing as $575 and being denied....I have resubmitted them for payment at $430 each (hopefully it will work) and I will have to manually drain the rest where and when I can. I'm going back to Kroger tomorrow and hope I see the old designs restocked.

Very valuable information versus different posts saying VGC declined at WM. Thanks for sharing!

Great Post.


I exactly know what you are talking about. Today I was in Kroger with wife and found both types of cards that you described. The old one (it has the website mygiftcardsite.com on the back) and the new one (with butterfly on center cupcake, total 13 cupcakes in the pic if you count carefully!). To be on safer side, I am going to burn $5.95 and get a $25 load (on an old design card). I will test it in WM and PO to see if the old design cards still work to get MOs and report tomorrow. Good luck to me!


PS: Newbie here. First post. Please go easy on me. Got in the MS game with CSR with 4K minimum spend in 90day. I was 0/24. And if MS doesn't work out for me, I do spend organic $1K to $1.2K per month. So meeting minimum spend is not a big deal, just some work. Like make sure to use this card for everything student loan, electric, grocery, gas, auto, auto-home insurance, professional subscriptions, dine-outs, etc,.

It sounds like you have at least done your homework first and are doing a test run before hitting something hard only to find out it wouldn't work in your circumstances. Well done. Keep reading and and experimenting you'll do fine.

Tip to the newbie - diversity in card spending is always a good thing. Your government preaches diversity and it can do wonders when eyeballs look at your charges. Just had a pair reviewing my Sapphire charges and diversity made them look quite reasonable. Run lots of "organic" charges on that account in addition to the MS. :cool:

Thank you, Affirmative - test run is only way to go. Will stick to it when trying anything new and between time lapses of MS.




Yes, thank you for that tip. I think if everything goes as per my plan there will be 30+ organics mixed with 1 or 2 MS in there per month. Want to knock 4K out in 2 months, do you think based on your experience to spread it out over 3 months. I just don't feel comfortable running it down the wire.


PS: I still plan on paying Kroger a visit and reporting results this evening or tomorrow AM.

Didn't work at my 7/11 in NoVA a few days ago.

UPDATE: So my Kroger run was a success. I loaded $20 on an old styled GC, and was able to purchase $15 MO at WM.