What is the best gas credit card? The answer is not black and white. While it may be tempting to just pick the card with the highest listed reward rate (see the table below), there are other things to consider first.
The Costco Factor.
* Costco has cheap gasoline, but most gas card programs exclude wholesalers from their 2%-5% gas category reward rates, somewhere in the fine print.
* In fact, it’s probably safe to assume that the only way to get more than 1% rewards pumping gas at Costco is with the Costco True Earnings card, or the Costco True Earnings Business card. The fine print on these cards explicitly states that Costco qualifies for the bonus reward rate.
* Card issuers that explicitly ban Costco gas from their “gas reward rate” include American Express, and Citibank.
* Costco only accepts American Express.
Cheap Gas Stations, like ARCO.
* Gas stations such as ARCO in California often charge about 4% less if you pay in cash, and only accept debit cards otherwise. Furthermore, their gas tends to be about 5% or more cheaper than at national chains like Shell. Clearly, you should not pump with a 5% card at Shell if you are just as happy with ARCO gas which costs 9% less.
Diesel, Airplane Fuel, Marine Fuel, and Huge Gas Tanks
* Many cards, such as the Shell card only pay bonus gas reward rates for gasoline, not diesel fuel.
* Many cards, including Shell and PenFed Platinum Cashback Rewards don’t pay bonus gas reward rates for Airplane or Boat fuel.
* Many cards have restrictions on the maximum number of gallons you can pump each time (e.g. 75 gallons with the Amex Costco card), or with the maximum you can spend each time ($400 with the Blue Cash card). Check the fine print first!
Limits on Gas Rewards.
When looking at the table below, keep an eye out for the right column, which limits how many dollars worth of gas qualify for the bonus rate each month. Restrictions start impacting you if you spend in excess of $200 per month on gas. This is taken into account on our Reward Credit Cards Home Page.
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