I prefer CVS. I have easy access to both, but I stopped shopping at Walgreens entirely recently. Here's why I prefer CVS,

1. Walgreens scans RR as a manufacturer's coupon. Hence the number of RR + Mani Coupon combined have to be the same or less the number of item in your transaction. So every week, I have to look for fillers. At CVS, you can use as many ECB as you want in one transaction, they scan as CVS Mani coupon.

2. Shopping at Walgreens always take a lot of guessing. Most of the time, people would report deals on the forums, and it may or may not work for me. RR is rolling? RR is not rolling? Sometimes RR from one P&G can used to roll on another P&G product, sometimes not. Every week, there's some kind of glitch with their register. Which works on some registers, and don't work on other registers. On top of that, they can stop it at any time of the week. So yeah, it takes way too much trial and error. If it doesn't work out for you, you will have to void the transaction. The cashier will frown and give you rude treatments. You have just wasted 30 min- 1 hr of your life.

3. Walgreens will even stop legitimate deals in the middle of the week if the deal is too sweet. Recent example, ACT II pop corns. Last week the popcorns were $1/8 with the $1/4 in ad coupon and the BOGO monthly deal matching up in the same week. They pulled this deal mid-week!

4. Management has no way of printing RR if something went wrong. At CVS, if your ECB didn't print, management can force print the RR for you over the register. At Walgreens, if RR didn't print, you will have to call Catalina. It takes 4-8 weeks for you to get that RR. Sure, sometimes people have good experience with Walgreens management, and they will get cash/gift card. I've never had that kind of experience at Walgreens.

5. Most cashiers are not trained about their coupon/RR/point policy. I've been to 4 Walgreens so far where the cashier refused to adjust the price of the coupon because the coupon was 1 cent more than the product. They are also very quick at blaming the customer if something goes wrong.
Here's a recent conversation I had,
Why didn't I get points for 2/5 products I just bought?
Because you used RR to pay for it.
Well, If that's true, I would not get points at all.
That's the way register works.
This incident eventually got escalated to the manager. The manager took 30 mins in the back room while I waited at the counter. At the end, he still couldn't figure out what went wrong. I had to void the transaction...

6. Walgreens near me are way more expensive than CVS 3 blocks away. The Mach 3 Razor is $12.49 at Walgreens and it is $10.99 at CVS. Mach 3 Turbo is $12.99 at Walgreens, and 11.49 at CVS.

7. CVS sends me a lot of coupon. % coupon every week. $/$$ coupon often. Even though CVS doesn't have the Monthly coupon book like Walgreens, you get way better coupons from the coupon machine.

8. My CVS has some self checkout machines that I normally use. This avoid arguments with cashier about whether a cent off coupon can be combined with a BOGO Coupon. Whether I can use a store coupon on top of a mani coupon. BOGO coupon will just about always auto-deduct.

The only edge Walgreens has over CVS is there's no limit on the RR items. If you find something to roll with, you can go back and forth and do many transactions. I am not sure if this has been changed with the recent balance reward cards. I find limits at CVS sufficient to be honest. I am normally able to use up all the good coupons at CVS alone. Then again, I don't have a family of 6, and try to make donations on the side.

I hope this helps.

Wags has like almost no RR deals right now. CVS is definitely more worthwhile. The balance rewards program is a joke. Hopefully it gets better. Employees are always so nice and the machine is giving a ton of good coupons. CVS for me all the way! Plus the ECB last longer and some stores will take expired ones so that's a plus too.

I love your post lelecoupon!! Great job on the comparisons. I couldn't have written it any better! As I was reading, I was thinking those same things, you were so right!

In my experience number 4 didn't apply. The cashier was able to print my register reward twice when I didn't receive one with the deal. Management didn't get involved and I didn't have to call catalina. Hth. Cvs is still better in my overall opinion though as far as preference goes.

I have always shopped at both stores weekly until Wags changed programs...and I have pretty much quit going to Wags for all the above mentioned reasons. I went a couple of times after the new program and it the hassle of it all was not worth my time or the irritation. I can find almost the same or better deals at CVS and RA without all the drama....and I have a cashier I just adore at Wags and I miss not dealing with her, but can't deal with this new program. Wags deals are going to have to get a whole lot better before I will start shopping there again!

Yeah... I noticed there's nothing really good with the new points program... Not that I shopped at wags more before than nowadays (still go to CVS waaaaaay more) but I got the wags card just in case, and I haven't found that "just in case" yet... IMO, CVS gives more opportunities to save money and the ECBs deals are way better...

I would say CVS..I used to love Wags but they don't have a good promos like before anymore.

One thing I've found I like about the new WAGS program is you aren't limited to X amount of points in one transaction. Of course that doesn't alleviate you from multiple transactions to get the max amount of RR but, it's a nice bonus with regards to the whole points thing.

I don't like that EACH RR regardless of its total value is considered 1 manufacturers Q and thus you have to make sure you either have higher valued RR or you have to have enough items to cover the number of RR you're using.

So overall I have to agree that CVS is by far the better savings and easier.

I prefer cvs. They have limits which I think are sufficient and helps avoid cleared shelves, sometimes. I really like the long expiration dates on ecbs. I don't think I ever lost one due to expiration. Also I love love love the beauty club. Even if both cvs and wags have xx brands of makeup bogo50% or the same deal on shampoo, at cvs I can earn ecb's for purchasing at cvs from beauty club where at wags you dont have the potential to earn anything unless of course there is a RR deal. But thats also why its great at cvs bc even if there is a ecb deal on the items it still goes toward beauty club as well. Now I am just rambling but yes, I prefer cvs

CVS all the way. Great deals, a coupon/reward friendly atmosphere, and just not as many hoops as Wags.