Though gas prices may be falling, getting a gasoline credit card is still one of the best ways to save money on gasoline. But choosing one can get a little tricky. Here are few guidelines to understanding the choices that are available to you.

Station specific cards

The first type of cards available are station specific cards. With these cards, you can earn rebates when you use the card at specific gasoline stations. The rebates range between 3% to 5%. You will typically earn 1% rebates on other purchases.

These cards either allow you to cash in your rebates or automatically credited to your next statement. Some allow you to earn rebates just from gasoline purchases but others allow you to earn rebates on all purchases made at the gas stations. The best cards pay 5% rebates. An examples of station specific card is Chase BP Visa®
Rewards Card, which pays 5% rebates on purchases made at BP Amaco stations, but also pays 2% rebates on dining and travel purchases.

Any Gas Station Credit Cards

There are a couple of gas credit cards that allow you to earn rebates when you make use your card at any gas station. Example of such cards include the Chase PerfectCard™ MasterCard® and the Discover® Gas Card.

The Chase Perfect Card pays 3% cash rebates on gasoline purchases. The Discover Gas Card goes better, paying 5% rebates, but only for the first $1,200 in annual gasoline spending.

Other Cash Rebate Credit Cards

Most cash back credit cards pay anywhere from 2% to 5% cash rebates on purchases made at supermarkets, gas stations and drugstores. The Citi® Dividend Platinum Select® Card for example, pays 2% rebates on gasoline purchases. The Blue Cash® from American Express pays 5% rebates but only after you spend $6,500 annually.

No Perfect Card

As you can see, there is no perfect card. Both the Blue Cash and the Discover Gas Card pay 5% rebates. But the Blue Cash requires annual spending to exceed a threshold before you earn 5% rebates and the Discover Gas Card limits the 5% rebates to $1,200 in annual gasoline spending.

Write down your monthly expenses (including gasoline spending) and choose a gas credit card that best fit your spending pattern. But certainly consider a gas credit card to save on your gasoline spending.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 11th, 2007 at 5:45 am and is filed under Gas Credit Cards, Tips and Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.