Gas Credit Cards

I have a Visa CC that gives cash back on fuel and propane. 5% comes off the monthly bill every month for fuel and propane. It's a generic CC card and hence the discount applies nation wide. At Cosco fuel for example I swipe my Am Ex Cosco card and then my Visa card to pay 5% less.

This card is no longer available but others have posted various cards.

Cards like Shell genearlly mean you will pay a higher Shell price for fuel than the station across the street IMHO. Hence that card actually costs more.

I’ve never spent too much time on this and just use my Wells Fargo credit card on pumps that don’t charge extra for using credit, Wells Fargo debit for those that do. I’ll use my Good Sam membership card at pilot/flying J to get their discount assuming it’s less than the local competition. My credit card gives me points and at the end of the year I cash them in and share the monies with the wait staff at my golf course.

Good point about the Shell card. I am locked into them and not their neighbor who might be competitively lower. I won't do costco because 1. I'm not going to wait in line for an hour with my truck running or drive out of my way. You are right, it seems that yours, and my, generic cards give us the best options universally.

Counter-point to the above - you don't have to use Costco gas stations to get cash back on their credit card. Although Costco gas stations are cheaper than anything else around here, at least. However, there are some gas locations that are disqualified from the 4% reward.

see here https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/gas-stations-included-citi-costco-card/

The CC for us is convenience and used 90% of the time unless it's an out of way little gas station, then we use cash for security purposes. We use a Chevron or a Sinclair card. We pay them off in full each month so interest rate isn't an issue.

If you are a vet (You may not need to be???) check out Pen Federal Credit Union.

5% back on gas purchases

I use my BP card as much as I can and get .05 off per gal To top that off the BP near me is usually .05 to .10 cheaper than other near by stations. Use a PNC bank Visa for EVERYTHING else

Green Goblin wrote:
I have been researching credit cards and gas cards for the last couple years now. One of the cards that has the best returns is a Shell card. What comes in second is Chase. Given that RVing requires a lot of gas and utilities (lp tanks) that get purchased at gas stations. What do you use for a CC? There isn't one universal card for Coast to Coast use because most gas stations are typically grouped into regions. What I have found, for myself, is my REI credit card. The 2% I will get back is used for camping gear replacement every year. I will probably average into the 100s to a 1000 as I already get back about 250$ each year with normal use. So what do you use for coast to coast use?

Ouch, spending $12K a yr on a CC to "get back" a measly $250 per yr?

That's insane, it's only $20 per month they are "giving back".. $20 per month is one restaurant meal for one person for each month..

Much better ways to earn $20 per month and it doesn't involve spending a $1,000 on a CC to get it..

NOPE. Not happening for me, no way do I ever want to get blasted every month with a $1,000+ CC bill.

Those "cash back" CCs are luring you into thinking they are giving money to you, the opposite is happening, you tend to SPEND MORE in the process of trying to maximize your cash back! Not to mention now the CC company has your spending habits and they can sell that info as a marketing tool..

On top of that, failure to pay off those monthly charges every month (zero balance carryover) typically results in interest charges of $20% and higher depending on the card.

It is a no win situation for you the card holder..

CA Traveler wrote:
Cards like Shell genearlly mean you will pay a higher Shell price for fuel than the station across the street IMHO. Hence that card actually costs more.

Yep, often specific fuel station brand cards lock you into to using THEIR fuel in order to qualify for the higher % back and that means you cannot "shop" for lower fuel prices.

If your gonna play that game, you better read all the fine print.

For us, we have only one CC card and our bank CC/Debit card. That is all we need.. Local fuel, we just fill up at local Sam's club.. In my area, our Sam's club for the last several yrs has consistently beat all other fuel stations prices by $.20-$.30 per gallon.. Don't know how they are doing it but they are..

Example, fuel at Sam's this week was $2.66 per gal.. Other gas stations were selling for $2.87 per gallon and a few at $2.97 per gallon The name brand stations like Shell and BP are the higher priced stations....

For many trips, we used to just buy gas station prepaid gift cards, it worked pretty well other than having to search for that brand of station..

Lately, we have been buying some generic prepaid debit cards like "Vanilla card" at our local WM.. Typically put $200 on each card and buy 3 cards when we take a long, long trip.. Those work reasonably well but sometimes when the balance gets to $75 you end up having to take them inside for the clerk to run them through..

Prepaid cards prevent our accounts from getting hacked or stolen and limits us to $200 per card max loss if the prepaid card gets hacked or lost..

Many Years ago....Service Station Credit Cards were the thing to have/use for fuel purchases.
Dad had a Texaco, Shell and Conoco

NOW ---any Visa, Mastercard, Discovery etc CC can be used and get CASH BACK
Easy-peasy ---no need to try find a specific service station just to use their CC
Pull up, pay will Cash Back CC, fill up and continue trip.

1 CC is set up for 3% Cash Back on Fuel
1 CC is set up for 3% Cash Back on Grocery
1 CC is set up for 3% Cash Back for On-line purchases

2 other CCs are set up for all around use....just as backups

bp visa card is 10 cents off per gallon