Over the weekend the big story in the miles & points world focused on doomsday aka the end of purchasing Vanilla Reloads at CVS with credit cards.

After buying quite a few Vanillas during the week, I am practically done putting the $10,000 spend on my second Citi Executive AAdvantage card which will give me another 100,000 AA miles.

Lucas likes Vanilla too and has enjoyed coming on VR scavenger hunts with me over the past year + so I figured I’d take him on one last shopping spree on Saturday. On the way to CVS he fell asleep but I successfully bought a bunch of cards. Too bad he missed out on the fun.

After thinking over the impending doom coming to the manufactured spend game, I decided that I needed to buy one more round of cards. I was looking to recoup some Starwood points after redeeming a lot of points for an upcoming trip

I made two stops yesterday.

Store 1 is a CVS that I’ve never visited before. Vanilla Reloads weren’t on the rack but they had a ton of them in a drawer behind the counter. I asked for 10 VRs which the cashier took out. I had to wait for an extreme couponing duo to finish up though before making my purchase.

As I was getting ready to start my transaction, I mentioned that I would be using a credit card. This is where it went all downhill. The manager told me that it was cash only and one of the extreme couponers chimed in too! I then asked when it became cash only and the manager told me that it always has been. I knew it was a lost cause but had to ask why then, was I able to buy cards at others CVS locations close by…

I left figuring that I’d go back to my usual CVS location where I had success the day before.

Store 2 is the CVS that I usually hit up for my VR fix. Vanillas are never on the rack so I waited on line and asked for some cards at the counter. I am pretty sure the employee that was helping me was a manager. He asked how many cards I wanted so I asked how many I was allowed to purchase. After telling me 10, I asked for the max amount.

He went into the drawer where they are usually kept and couldn’t find any cards. He then looked around at a couple of other registers but came up empty!

I then went on to ask him a few questions about the potential upcoming changes.

I asked him if the rules were changing starting tomorrow, allowing VRs to only be bought with cash. His answer was no.

I then mentioned that a friend in Florida was shown a memo stating these new changes and asked if they received anything like that. Again I was told no and that he had not seen any memo. He also said that it could be a regional thing.

Then another employee chimed in. I am pretty sure he was also a manager.

He told me that as long as I showed my ID and had it scanned there would be no problem purchasing VRs!

I had one last question– When would they be getting more VRs in and was told to come back on Tuesday.

So there you have it. I might stop in tomorrow (if I have some time) to see if a new VR shipment came in. Either way, I’ll be heading to my CVS on Tuesday, hoping they have cards that can be bought with a credit card.

Stay Tuned…

In other related news, here is an old post: Years Back, I Found Some Vanilla In Germany.