CVS Tutorial
By · Jul 17
First, you need to sign up for a CVS Card. You can do this online or you can go into the store and do it. I would recommend that you request your card in store so that you have it right away. Have your cashier scan your card at the beginning of every transaction. You are allowed one CVS card per household.
Also be sure and scan your card at the scanning machine each time you go to CVS. At my store the machine is located at the front of the store where the ads are. This is the same machine that you can scan items to do a price check. You usually will receive a coupon every time you scan your card (one per day). Last time I was there I received a $3/$15 coupon that didn’t expire for 3 weeks!
ECBs or Extra Bucks Reward, are coupons that can be used like cash at any CVS store. Most weeks there will be items that are completely free after ECB. This means you will pay for the items with your own cash and then a coupon for you next purchase will print on the bottom of your receipt.
ECBs can not be used on prescriptions, gift cards, stamps, etc. and they can not pay for your tax. ECBs usually expire within about 3-4 weeks.
Now on the ECB deals that are say purchase $20.00 of L’Oreal and get back $10.00 ECB, you DO NOT need to purchase all $20.00 in one purchase. You can buy, for instance, $7.50 in one purchase and then $12.50 in another and they will count towards the $20.00. Once you reach the $20.00 threshold, the $10.00 ECB will print on that receipt.
Also the ECBs roll, meaning if they are offering that you buy an item that will produce ECBs, you can use those ECBs to buy that same item and you will still get ECBs. The thing to look out for here though is limits.
Limits There are limits on the amount of items you can buy. This applies to not only items that produce ECBs, but other items as well. The limits are posted in the ad.
CVS Coupons There are two ways to get these coupons, from the magic coupon machine as I mentioned above or by signing up for email offers. I receive coupons in my email maybe once a month or so.
Sometimes you will get $3/$15 or $4/$20 coupons. The great thing about these coupons is you can give them BEFORE all other coupons. So you can make your purchase of $15.00, give your $3/$15 coupon and then give all of your manufacturer’s coupons and pay with ECB’s you have received from previous weeks. Just be sure to give the $x/$xx coupon before you give any other coupons or ECB’s.
You may also get CVS store coupons that can be “stacked” with manufacturer’s coupons, meaning if I have a manufacturer’s coupon for $1.00 off Huggies Diapers and a CVS coupon for $1.00 off Huggies Diapers, I can use both coupons and maximize my savings.
Rain Checks CVS does offer rain checks, even on items that produce ECBs. Just be sure that they write down the ECB code number, it can be found in the weekly ad. I received my first raincheck this week, so I will let you know how it goes when I try to redeem it, so look for an update soon!
Check your receipt before you leave the store! Make sure that you received all of your ECBs and then keep them in a safe place. Think of them like a gift certificate. They expire and they will not be replaced if you lose them. I have a section in my coupon binder just for ECBs and I keep them all there.
Is there anything I missed? Do you have any other questions about CVS? Leave a comment and I will do my best to answer!
6 Comments
July 17th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Thank you for this info! They are building a CVS a few miles away and I want to give it a try when it opens. I was a little intimidated because this is a lot different than Walgreens. I feel a little more confident now.
July 17th, 2009 at 9:56 am
Thanks for allowing me to link this for the St. Louis area
July 17th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Thanks for the tutorial. I have been using CVS for a while now, but did not know I did not need to purchase the full $20 to get the $10 ECB all in one transaction. Good to know because sometimes the store does not have exactly what I want. Thanks for the great post!
July 17th, 2009 at 11:43 am
For the raincheck: depending on your store, sometimes the cashier would change the raincheck item to $0 (if it’s free after ECB), so you pay nothing. other stores might change the price of the item to the raincheck sale price, so you pay upfront first. After the transaction, the cashier would initiate a ECB for your item. The top would say something like “we apologize it didn’t print…” it’s just another ECB similar to the one that you would get if you purchased the item during the sale week.
Julie: you don’t have to buy the full $20 in one transaction, you can buy $10 from transaction 1, and buy another $10 from another transaction, once you reeached the $20 purchase of the sale, the ECB will print at the end of your second transaction.
July 17th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
as for the rainchecks, they are easily redeemed as long as the event code is on the bottom to print the ECBs. New cashiers sometimes dont realize you have to do a seperate transaction to produce the ECBs. Also to note, you cant combine current sale prices with rainchecks. for example, if schick razors were on sale for B1G1F this week, you couldn’t use a raincheck from a previous week that was for $7.99 each with a $4 ECB to get 2 razors for a total of $7.99 with $8 ECBs. I inquired about this to the store manager recently. I also make sure to double check my ECBs to make sure I got them all before I leave because my store is really bad about not having all the items ring up correctly. Like this week, i got $20.49 of Olay products, but only $11.18 creditied toward the ECBs because the other Olay products in the system had not been included. I had to go back and convince them to print my ECB. Not minutes after that, I used the Olay ECB to get the Benefiber deal, and once again, it did not print because they had it tagged wrong. So after another round of convincing the manager why the ECBs should have printed, he gave them to me. So then I told him to hire me to help him get it all sorted out since all the cashiers seem so confused on how it all works. LOL
July 24th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
I need to know what their policy is if an item rings up incorrectly. i just purchased a couple things and they did not scan to the price that was on the ticket. I had to go because my baby was fussing. but need to know if they give the item for free or you get $5.
Thanks