Buying gas

The 3 postal code digits followed by 2 zeros has weorked well for us ar most places the last 3 years. Occasionally it does not work.

When I called MasterCard last week to advise of US travel plans the customer service rep told me about that trick. Told her I knew already and used it but thanks for passing it on anyway.

Try replacing the letters in the postal code with 0's. For instance
L5N 2E8 becomes 050208.

when we were new at using debit cards and had a lot of trouble remembering pin numbers we would just use it as a credit card

We travel in the US all the time, and I have read and tried all the tricks, but I simply go to a ATM and take cash out so I have a few days gas money on hand. Our bank has a partner bank in the US that has no fee US withdraw (Scotiabank & Bank of America). That way I do not have to carry large amounts of cash and it is so much easier. I have learned to be good at estimating how much it will take to fill my tank and I will always put down a little extra just to be sure and sometimes I have to go back in and get a few bucks back, but most times, I get a full tank. I will use my card for most everything else, but for gas it is simply not worth the hassle. It is also handy to have cash on hand for tolls, coffee etc.

Tripalot wrote:
We just finished a 9 week trip into US and the postal code with 2 00's worked every time. We have used this successfully for a few years now - usually without any problem. The annoyance now is the pump cutting off at $100 but with gas prices dropping, that might not be as much of an issue for us.

Good to hear . Was it a normal regular credit card ? Did you have to do anything special beforehand? Thanks

We just finished a 9 week trip into US and the postal code with 2 00's worked every time. We have used this successfully for a few years now - usually without any problem. The annoyance now is the pump cutting off at $100 but with gas prices dropping, that might not be as much of an issue for us.

The debit card only worked for us part way into New York state. I guess another way would be use cash first but that means carrying a whole lot of cash , not something that I would feel comfortable with doing.

Don't use DEBIT...

A lot of places won't even allow credit card held hostage anymore - you have to pre-approve some $$ then get a "refund" if you don't use it all. Real PITA.

We change our address to where we're going to be over the winter. That way we have a real ZIP code to use.

I've heard many more people have had good luck with some variant of the postal code trick.

You could always use debit.