kleingordon

For reference: Spent $500 12/29, called 5pm 1/4, $25 posted to both cards right now - so, took ~12 hours after I called, and overnight!

gnomey

Thanks. Admittedly I haven't explore in depth all the options, but the ones I have read at a glance is either too much fees or effort involved to make it worth it . I believe netspend was one of them but would need to look again

So still doing the no brainer MO as the default MO, since no bank is complaining abt it so far.

tbradnc

Be careful about thinking errors. My cards with spend on 12/29 also posted in the last 12 hours and I didn't call.

I'm sure calling will loosen up some constipated cards but I also would bet that given the unpredictableness of how the 5% is paid some of these credits post after someone calls but before they get around to manually making the adjustment. The person who made the call thinks calling work and the Blackhawk guy marks the card as "done" without having to actually do anything.

Kind of like ringing a bell at 5:00 AM every morning and then the sun comes up and before long thinking that ringing the bell is what makes the sun come up.

Who knows... figuring out the rhyme or reason behind how this 5% CB really works is like trying to figure out what will keep a Serve card alive and I'm pretty tired of it. If this worked as advertised I'd ride it hard until it died but having to constantly check cards to see if money has been credited is a real PITA.

GetawaysRus

I've read several comments in this thread that suggest that the 5% is posted manually. In this age of computers and automation, I have trouble understanding that. I would think that a big corporation would automate a task such as this. It would seem expensive to have human reps manually making the adjustment and also much more prone to error. (Then again, I have also seen a few posts from people who claimed to get 5% back twice. So maybe there are humans involved in the process?)

gnomey

i dont think the extra bonus deal is happening anymore. the bug has been fixed. but back when it happened, to the best of my knowledge, it happened without any human intervention.

but of course there are some who took advantage of this phenomenon and then try to get the bonus deal... by calling in before the automated CB supposed to post. i dont know if that actually works to their favor or not since i personally didnt do that.

you would think all these are automated, which i believe they are, but there are many cases where one uses 4 cards consecutively, in the same manner (debit or credit), and yet, only a subset of these cards receive the CB. i dont think anybody understands why. something is screwy abt the CB system

Happy

cards used after 5PM yesterday. All rebates came back at 10am today when I curiously checked them.

100% sure if things work as they should (stores' POS set up correctly), the rebates posted after overnight processing, sometimes even faster. A local FT friend said he saw during the holidays his rebates posted super fast within a few hours after spend.

Those who prefer to wait can wait, until X days later for the rebates to show up. Meanwhile they may spend few minutes everyday to go over the stack to see if the posting would occur.

Those who dont have time to check everyday and hope to see it finally posts can call as soon as the advertised time frame has passed. For this group only needs to check at most twice - one the next day, one after 48 hours. Then took 5 min to call - that is when speaker phone is very handy - you can be doing other things while on call.
Both the missing rebates posted within the same day a few hours (no more than 3 to 4 hrs) after calling.

Pick your option above.

Personally I think calling waste far less time and close up the loose ends much quicker. Those who are paranoid about calling can sit and wait and wait until it finally happens. Where you call or wait, it is NOT going to make any difference in how long this thing would last. Once CVS has a quarterly P/L analysis on participating in this program, it would be decision time whether this makes sense to the company. Or if it has a better data mining analysis tool, it should have noticed the P is not there by now.

macrophage

I've gotten an amount that did not equal 5% and looked like a butterfinger'ed amount. Definitely not all automated. Maybe select few get human verification?

tbradnc

Happy, did you run them as credit or debit?

Happy

Typing on internet is not a grammar test.

A real example so you can comprehend it.

Using a SPG card even without the convenience of K-Mart, I gain a $300 worth hotel night for FREE + $300 NET cash for every $10K spent. ($500 gross proceeds from the rebates subtracted the costs involved, round up to minus $200)
A total of $600 Net Gain.

Using a 2x card you gain $200 at $10K x 0.02 rate, before the cost.
Then you also gain $25 x 20 = $500 from the rebate, before the cost.
Total gross gain is $200 + $500 = $700 before the cost.
Subtract the cost of the 5Back which at $3.95 is $79 for $10K.
Subtract the cost of the 20 OV which at $4.95 is $99 for $10K.
A total of $522 Net Gain $700 - $79 - $99 = $522.

If you still fail to see why not everyone prefers cash back, then in deed there is a comprehension issue.

The most important thing to remember is, each person determines what is the best "currency" to MS - totally up to the MSer's individual needs. Cash does not always buy the same value as points and miles. That part should have long established.
Of course if you never travel out of the islands, dont go to EU or Asia in business class flights, then Cash Back should be the solution to you. Just that some of us who travel a lot do like to fly business / first class and stay in nice hotels. So those of us choose the currencies that are not CB.

One more parting note - for those who prefer CBs, you need to be mindful about how your card issuers would look at this. It seems card issuers do not mind much if the reward is other currencies and not cash equivalent such as TYP, Double Cash, A+, Venture, Quick Silver... if you are using those types of cards, it would be beneficial for you to monitor the various account shut down threads here and elsewhere. Citi in particular has started calling people on their GC purchases shown on the DC, fwiw.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/citi-...wn-2017-a.html

Happy

100% debit with PIN, single card transaction. Not that I like to do so, this is the ONLY way the CVS stores here allow us to buy with the 5B. So I basically have no option on how to run the 5B. However I dont think how you run the card makes any difference. It is the set up of the store's POS that determines how smoothly the rebate will post.

As I said, if you do not see the rebate quickly, your store's POS is not set up correctly. I had a brief talk with the BlackHawk CSR yesterday and she said yes, they (BlackHawk) knew. That is why when called, they now processed the tickets very quickly. They probably have a list showing locations that constantly have issues. When and IF those wrongly set up POS would get fixed, that of course nobody would know.

mhdena

I ran four yesterday afternoon as debit, this morning all had $25.

alphakenny1

i've over +50 of these FBs and always ran them as debit and always get the $25 the next morning.

tbradnc

I would do this deal forever if that were the case for me. I'm over 80 cards and it's always a waiting game.

Flyby01

Ditto. I ran them late last night and already credited this morning.

kleingordon

I'm aware that that's a possibility, but I'm inclined to think it's as I said, given that the CSR I spoke to said it's on the specific merchant you make the purchase at to refund the 5%. Yeah, that does sound a little whack, but it seems likely to me to be some sort of error connected with my specific stores.

Also everything in this hobby is a PITA to some degree... it's only ever evaluating how much the PITA is worth. Since it's easy as hell to type in the card number to check to see if its credited, that probably shouldn't be a deterrent to getting an extra $25, unless you value your time at greater than $25/(a few minutes).