Blue Cross Blue Shield and the OTC Gift Card

Blue Cross Blue Shield of NC gave many of its members gift cards due to a settlement, and OTC gift cards were sent to policy holders, in amounts between $100 and $500. I got a gift card for $200. However, it isn't like a Visa or Mastercard gift card. That would be too easy. For this gift card, you have to go to certain stores, and only buy certain items. After trying to figure out the items I could buy by browsing the OTCNetwork website to only see the manufacturer's abbreviations for most items, and a terrible search/browse tool, I decided to head to Walmart. It was one of the stores on the list, and with the OTC Network app on my phone I started scanning items I would want to buy. Trip number one:

Box of Q Tips
4 pack of deodorant
2 bottles of shampoo
2 boxes of toothpaste
Sunblock
Box of bandaids
2 packs of razors
Pillowtop insoles for my worn down slippers
Bottle of scar remover

Brookview Acai Pomegranate Chocolates

Funny, that only the smaller size of the chocolates were fine, but the big bag was not allowed. Also not allowed were other items I scanned in the candy aisle.

Tortillas
3 boxes of Lance crackers

Another fun one was scanning all the Lance/Nekot items. Peanut butter crackers? Allowed. How about Peanut Butter Crackers with Malt? Yep. Peanut Butter with Honey crackers? Sure! Peanut Butter cookies? No!!

I was getting too hungry by this point, so I stopped for dinner having spent $123 of my $200. Trip two, the next week:

3 lb bag of yellow potatoes
Mild salsa
Dill pickles
Jalapeno stuffed olives
Feta cheese stuffed olives
Classico 4 cheese pasta sauce
Spicy pickles
Frozen shrimp
Snow peas
Frozen fried clam strips
Frozen hash browns
2 bags of potato chips
Pouch preserved BBQ Pork
Can of Canned Meat
Onion powder
Angel hair pasta
2 bags of yellow rice
1 box (12pkgs) of chicken Ramen

That only came up to $50, so I still needed another $27 to spend. Having a fun time trying to find what was allowed, I wondered what would be the most ridiculous sugary item I could find that the card would accept. 

One last trip, and I got:

More yellow rice
White rice
Mango salsa

Then, time to find the most ridiculous food this OTC app will let me buy:
Abuelita mexican hot chocolate
Welch's fruit snacks

An easy entry into most ridiculously sugary item could be:
Chocolate pretzels

A very good contender for the most sugar and least nutrition goes to:
Chocolate fudge pop tarts

The most egregiously sugary thing I could find with no nutritional value:
Cinnamon Toast Crunch Popcorn!

After three trips, I managed to spend $199.30 on all of that stuff!

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