Data Point: I;ve been getting emails about CB at CVS. Bought $200 a couple weeks, went to my account this morning to see the tranx was ineligible. The $200 was a Wally GC.

I usually buy VGCs there but I get over $500 at a time. I attempt to get one under $500 to see if it triggers.

All of mine are pending. What I do is split one transaction of $2,000 (plus fees) on FIVE credit cards, with each having a different amount charged to it, such as $499.86, $499.93 etc. NO ROUND NUMBERS. Then the balance goes on my last, fifth card. Let's see what happens with the pending points at the end of the quarter.

Rakuten recently added a restriction for total transactions being over $500 so there's at least a decent chance that they will go back and take back the credit for some or all of your purchases.

Ah, didn't know that. Anyway, I am expecting to get ZERO from Rakuten anyway, I'm putting my purchases on my Chase Freedom cards anyway, so I get 3% back at least.

So you split your purchase among 5 different CFF cards each time that you go to CVS?

Yes, they know me well there. I have two regular CVS stores.

I was more implying that I am impressed that Chase has never batted an eye at you using 5 of their cards in a row for $400+ each at a time.

At least for now ;)

Do you mean even HUCA didn't work for you? I've never been able to activate more than 3 before HUCA was required.

I can only do one per phone call. When I press 5 (I think) to activate another card, it just goes to the main menu. So I have to call again for each card. Takes about 1 minute per card.

It's kind of random for me. However, I've noticed the following:

• At most I've only ever gotten 4 before HUCA, but that's not the norm.
• If I mess up entering any number and have to re-enter it, I rarely get to do another card without HUCA
• The more I get the pattern down, the more cards I can do before HUCA (but rarely more than 3 and never more than 4)
  • Where the "Pattern" is:
    1. Call, wait for "Please enter your card number"
    2. enter card number
    3. enter CVC
    4. enter expiration
    5. press 5 (to enter another card number)
  • And for every step, wait at least until the recording starts to prompt the next step before entering

That being said, I haven't experimented that much with these new brick and mortar cards. Before this latest batch, we didn't need to activate them, so my experience comes from mass-activating tons of cards I bought at TheGiftCardShop.com (because they are always running no-fee deals. There's one going on right now, btw).

DP: One CVS about 15 mins away had the old cards last Weds. I went on Saturday and they were all gone with new fee cards... they are moving quickly. Had I known, maybe I should've pocketed a few, walked out, come back a week later and buy the old cards then... IDK what I am going to do as the increase is high, but they are the only cards that work flawlessly at Wally

All of my locations are now at $7.95. They seem to have worked their way across town. Between the activation of each card and the fee, I'm moving on.

Rakuten FTW.. if they continue to pay. All my transactions since Oct 1 are still showing as Pending. 4 of them have been updated to $0 and still pending. I have to assume those are the ones I did before I noticed the new wording about transactions >$500 being considered "fraudulent". I had been getting GC @ $495 + fee, which pushed the total over the $500 limit. Ooof!

I was going to make use of 10% cashback with Citi at CVS up to $250 purchase.
Decided to buy $100 Target and $150 Walmart gift card instead.
They've started selling variable load ($15 - $200) Walmart gift cards.