Some Details on Today's Posts on CVS Deals

I've been doing some investigating today, running scenarios through checkout on CVS.com.

The good: All of the deals ($5+$10 off, 20% off, and $5 gift card) appear to be stackable. The AdPerk $5 gift card scenario is easy to do; remains to be seen if the $5 gift card would arrive with P&G products in the CVS.com order as I haven't completed a transaction yet - only worked scenarios. My experimenting with one item on sale showed that you can get the 20% discount on top of the sale price using code sale20.

The bad: The 20% trumps the $10 deal. You get $10 discounted from a $60 order, but this $60 threshold must be met after the 20% discount; in other words, you've got to fill your cart with about $75 worth of stuff to keep it above $60 after the 20% discount - and still get your $10 off.

The ugly: The Proctor and Gamble partipating products are, for the most part, larger or specialty versions of products - or more expensive items. Examples: $15.99 CoverGirl Simply Ageless Foundation, $7.99 bottles of Pantene (larger size, I believe), $7.99 boxes of Bounce fabric softener sheets. I could not find an official list of participating products; only see those flanking the video content screens. Therefore I'm not confident in saying "any CoverGirl" or "any Pantene"- and would go so far as to say that unless the products specifically appear on the AdPerk info box to the right of the videos, don't buy them. You also need to buy $20 worth of participating P&G products online to earn your $5 gift card and free shipping.

In addition, most items are waaaaaay overpriced to begin with. (Particpating Pampers were ridiculously high - $0.40-$0.60/diaper. Just get yours at CVS this week with a coupon!) In fact, many of my scenarios revealed that after all that coupon stacking, I was getting razor blades, wipes, and diapers down to hovering just above Sam's Club per unit prices on the same or similar items.

The best way to work this deal: find something that you absolutely would buy otherwise and is on sale to begin with. Add about $75 worth to your cart, then enter code sale20 for the 20% discount, then make sure that your $10 discount is applied up front. After you enter your MasterCard information, you'll get an additional $5 off. Remember that the $5+$10 and 20% discounts are good only through tonight, June 9!

Note: If you manage to work $20 worth of P&G products into the transaction, remember that they must total $20 after the 20% discount - but you should get a $5 gift card for completing the AdPerk offer, so that will make up for this.

Total discount if you work all angles = $75 subtotal, minus $15 (the 20%), minus $10 ($10/$60), minus $5 (MasterCard) minus $5 (gift card to be received) = $40, shipped free. $35 off isn't too shabby if you're getting something you'd otherwise buy.
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