Best way to buy gas ?

[dragonwalker]

For the past 1-2 years I've been using my Gas Buddy app on my phone to get find the cheapest gas new me and it happens to always be Arco. I have also been purchasing Arco gas cards at the supermarket with my American Express Cash back card that gives me 3% back on purchases including the gas cards. Just the other day when I went into making my usual gas card purchase I was informed that gift cards would now have to be purchased in cash or debit. I haven't been able to find Arco gift cards in any of my local markets or stores. Do any of you who live in the Los Angeles area know where I can find Arco gift cards?

Better yet, does anyone else have a better suggestion to save on gas? I don't want to do anything too dramatic however my previous plan worked our previously because I didn't have to do anything extra. I do my grocery shopping at Smart and Final. I do know about the possible savings going through Ralphs but is it worth it?   

[DangleStash]

If you buy a decent amount of groceries, I recommend the American Express Blue Cash Preferred Rewards card.  It's 6% back on groceries up to $6k spend a year, and 3% back on gas, 1% on other stuff.

I don't spend enough on groceries to justify it, but once I move out then this is the route I'm going to go.

Also, keep an eye on slickdeals.net.  I see gift card promos come up fairly frequently to buy Mobil or Shell $100 gift cards for $90.

[GuitarStv]

Rarely.

[PhysicianOnFIRE]

Rarely.

Nice!

I have a local fundraiser book that gives me 10 cents off per gallon all year long. Currently, that's 5% off per gallon, but was closer 8% off last fall. I had to buy the book but it's chock full of coupons for other stuff, too.

[NoStacheOhio]

I just use the Blue Preferred for 3% back on gas. So far none of the grocery stores in our area have restricted gift card purchases, but I go to three or four different gas stations, so it's not worth it.

Does your main gas station have a credit card with cents off?

[Syonyk]

Grocery store "gas points" are nice, if you have them available.  My wife lets me know when it's getting up there and I go fill the truck up - on occasion, I've capped out the 25 gallon limit on those. :)

TBH, I don't spend much time worrying about it.  A few cents a gallon here or there is under my threshold for "things worth my time to think much about."

[Tom Bri]

Grocery store "gas points" are nice, if you have them available.  My wife lets me know when it's getting up there and I go fill the truck up - on occasion, I've capped out the 25 gallon limit on those. :)

TBH, I don't spend much time worrying about it.  A few cents a gallon here or there is under my threshold for "things worth my time to think much about."

I always get the 25 gallons. I have a few gas cans I take with me to get the extra.
Where I live Schnucks has a gas card for groceries.

[horsepoor]

I also do the store points thing with Fred Meyer (Kroger). Then I use a BofA MasterCard that gives me 3% back on gas as well.  One quarter per year Discover usually does 5% back too.

[Syonyk]

Grocery store "gas points" are nice, if you have them available.  My wife lets me know when it's getting up there and I go fill the truck up - on occasion, I've capped out the 25 gallon limit on those. :)

TBH, I don't spend much time worrying about it.  A few cents a gallon here or there is under my threshold for "things worth my time to think much about."

I always get the 25 gallons. I have a few gas cans I take with me to get the extra.
Where I live Schnucks has a gas card for groceries.

I... miiiiight have a 5 gallon can or two I've taken. :)

[Laserjet3051]

Grocery store "gas points" are nice, if you have them available.  My wife lets me know when it's getting up there and I go fill the truck up - on occasion, I've capped out the 25 gallon limit on those. :)

TBH, I don't spend much time worrying about it.  A few cents a gallon here or there is under my threshold for "things worth my time to think much about."

Here in socal, Vons (grocery store) gas points are worth up to 30 cents per gallon. We shop a lot at Vons and thus earn the 30 cent per gallon discount continuously. This is quite a bit more than just a few cents on the gallon.

[Syonyk]

Grocery points are worth it. IMO, messing with gift cards and such isn't. For me.

[Emg03063]

The best way to buy gas is not to.  I would focus on reducing gallons burned per mile traveled, and overall miles travelled by car rather than worrying about saving 3% on $ per gallon.  What's your annual mileage and current fuel economy?  Are you hypermiling, carpooling, combining trips, walking, biking/using public transportation where possible?  Is your car in good repair, and are your tires inflated properly?  Are you using low rolling resistance tires?  Does an electric car or plug in hybrid make sense for you?  If so, that 3% should be so negligible enough in the grand scheme of things as to not to be worth worrying about.

[Syonyk]

There's that option too, though it's a bit hard to haul a ton and a half of cinderblock on bike.

I look for what discounts I can when I need to fill the truck, because it does take quite a few gallons.

[Emg03063]

Unless you need to haul the block up or down an mountain or off road, I don't see any reason why an ebike with regenerative braking and purpose built trailer with low rolling resistance tires couldn't handle that particular task with relative ease.  What's the max grade you need to haul you?

[Syonyk]

Unless you need to haul the block up or down an mountain or off road, I don't see any reason why an ebike with regenerative braking and purpose built trailer with low rolling resistance tires couldn't handle that particular task with relative ease.  What's the max grade you need to haul you?

I live on a pretty steep hill (not exactly sure of the grade but I can see if I can figure it out with some topo maps), and there are quite a few pretty steep hills between me and the nearest home improvement store.  And then about an eighth mile of gravel driveway ("road mix") or so to where I'm using them.

It's a 30 mile round trip up into where I buy such things, which is well beyond the range of my current ebikes, even with no cargo.  I'd need a huge (expensive) battery to make that run loaded - probably 5+kWh, which is entirely overkill for most of my riding (I plan to build a 1-2kWh battery for long range work, but even that wouldn't haul over half a ton).

Building a trailer for this particular use case would cost me a whole lot more than just using the truck when I need to haul heavy or large things.

Is it technically possible?  Possibly.  Would that be an insane amount of money for infrequent use, and still not be capable of other things I use my truck for, like towing?  Certainly.

[RootofGood]

Right now I'm still burning through the $300 worth of Exxon/mobil gas cards I bought at 10%+ off from a slickdeals deal.  When you drop $30 to fill the tank less than once per month it takes a while. 

If you shop at Von's/Ralph's/Kroger, some folks swear by their cents off gas deal.  They give 4x reward points on gift card purchases fairly often, so you can buy a $100 GC to somewhere you shop all the time and get $0.40 off per gallon (up to 35 gallons, at least for Kroger).  Not a bad deal if you're putting 15-20+ gallons in your tank.  I rarely spend $100 at kroger in a month to even get $0.10 off per gallon, and only need about 15-16 gallons at a time (minivan), so I don't personally use this deal very often (just use gasbuddy and pay the price wherever is convenient).

[johnny847]

eBay regularly has sales on gas gift cards. There are none available at the moment but they typically run for 5-10% off.

You can also get 2% back in eBay Bucks (basically expiring eBay credit - you can avoid the expiration by buying an eBay gift card) but you have to accrue at least $5 in eBay bucks in a single quater. Otherwise you forfeit your eBay bucks.

You can also get 1-2% back by going through a shopping portal such as TopCasback (referral link), Splender (referral link) or shopathome (not a referral link).

You can use eBay gift cards to buy other gift cards on eBay. If you have a business credit card, you can buy eBay gc for 5% off at staples.com or other office supply stores.

If you have Amex cards, you can wait for Amex offers such as $10 off $50 or more at Office Depot, which sells eBay gift cards (or probably gas gift cards too).


If all that is too complicated, there's also this credit card that earns 5% as gas stations.

[Syonyk]

Oh, and for long distance travel, GasBuddy has a trip planner that will optimize for low fuel costs.

[geekette]

I have $350 worth of Shell cards I got at 20% (Harris Teeter runs promos quite often).  I should unload them on eBay or something, but I keep thinking they'll be useful someday. 

We don't drive much and both my mother and I (one car on either side of the pump) can tank up once a month at Kroger for $1/gallon off and that's about all we need (you get points for Rx too, so we almost always have enough for $1/gallon off).

[Choices]

I see with my new Citi card for Costco that I can get 4% back on qualified gas purchases, including Costco gas which is already rock bottom.  I am certainly not going to miss only being able to use Amex there, now any Visa card is allowed for Costco items (need the Citi card to get in the door though).

The Shell card from years ago was 5% back which was terrific, but unfortunately all of the Shell stations pulled out of my area about 5 years ago.

I second this. Our Costco is always 10-30 cents/gal less than other stations nearby. With the 4% back on the Costco visa, it's an even better deal.

[BudgetSlasher]

Where I live the state is divided in two the southern half of the state is in the OTR (ozone transport region) and as a result uses RFG (reformulated gasoline, a more expensive gasoline) so when outside of the 7 counties the gas prices are lower by a noticeable amount due to fuel type. Which means trips across the line often pay for themselves (at least as compared to running the same errands in RFG territory).