With the price of gas quickly approaching $5 a gallon, a solid gas rewards credit card can help you keep a lot of your hard earned cash right where it belongs – in your pocket.Gas rewards credit cards save you money by giving you cash back on your fuel purchases. The cards highlighted below also allow you to each cash back in other categories like at grocery stores and restaurants.
In fact, many gas rewards credit cards can be used for the majority of your spending because they give you cash back on every purchase that you make. Below we outline our favorite gas rewards cards, and how to maximize your rewards with each.
Blue Cash Everyday isn’t just a gas rewards credit card (in fact it’s one of our our top rewards card choices for 2012), but the rewards program just happens to be structured so that it’s one of the best cards for earning cash back on gasoline.
Blue Cash Everyday Rewards:
- Earn 100 Reward Dollars after you make $1,000 in purchases in the first three months of Cardmembership
- Earn Cash Back: 3% at US supermarkets, up to $6,000 per year in purchases, 2% at US gas stations & select US dept stores, 1% on other purchases. Terms and limitations apply.
- Cash back is received in the form of Reward Dollars that can be redeemed as a statement credit.
- Simple and Straightforward: With the Blue Cash Everyday Card, you can start earning cash back. No rotating reward categories. No enrollment required.
- No annual fee, 0% intro APR on purchases for 12 months. After that, your APR will be a variable rate, currently 12.99%-21.99% with flexibility to pay over time.
- Terms and restrictions apply
If you are a member of Costco this card is completely free with no annual fee.
Costco TrueEarnings Rewards:
- 3% Cash back at US gas stations and on gasoline at Costco up to $4,000 per year in purchases, then 1%
- 2% cash back at US restaurants; 2% cash back on eligible travel purchases, including at Costco; 1% cash back on other purchases, including at Costco
- Terms and limitations apply; You will receive your cash back annually in the form of a reward coupon
- The Two-In-One Card: it’s an American Express® Card and Costco membership card, with no annual fee for Costco members
- Cardmembership offers access to benefits such as Global Assist and Purchase Protection* *Underwritten by AMEX Assurance Company
- Terms and restrictions apply
If You’re a Government Employee, in The Military or Volunteer With The Red Cross You Can Earn 5% Back on Gas, Here’s How…
Another downside is that to apply, you’ll have to be a member of the U.S. Military, U.S. government employee or employee or volunteer with the American Red Cross.
Pen Fed Visa Platinum Rewards:
- 5% cash back on gasoline purchases.
- 0.25% cash back on all purchases.
| Gas Credit Cards Cash Back Comparison | |
| Blue Cash from American Express | 2% All Year – No Caps! |
| Discover® Open Road Card | 2% automatically at gas stations and restaurants all year long* |
| TrueEarnings(R) Card from Costco and American Express | 3% All Year (Annual Fee if you aren’t a Costco Member) |
| Pen Fed Visa Platinum Cashback Rewards Card | 5% All Year (Govt employees only) |
| Chase Freedom Card | 5% (During certain times of the year) |
| Citi Dividend Platinum Select MasterCard | 5% (During certain times of the year) |
| Discover More Card | 5% (During certain times of the year) |
As you can see with the table above, both the Discover Open Road and Blue Cash from American Express offer year round cash back rewards on gas. With Discover Open Road you earn 2% cash back on fuel purchases from the start. Blue Cash from American Express lets you earn up to 5% cash back on fuel purchases however there is a small catch. You need to spend $6,500 with the card before you reach the 5% tier, before that you earn 1%. Another downside to Blue Cash is that you can’t earn 5% cash back on discount gas purchased at Costco.
When looking for the right gas credit card for you it’s also important to understand there are really two types of cards. The first type, (the kind we recommend getting) is a general gas credit card like the Discover Open Road Card, that gives you cash back regardless of what gas station you use the card at. There are also station specific gas credit cards, however we really don’t recommend these since you only save money when you buy gas from a specific station. The station specific cards generally don’t give you a higher % cash back anyway, so it makes much more sense to stick with a general gas card.
There is one exception however, if you often use a BP gas station, you may want to check out the BP Visa Gas Card from Chase which offers 5% cash back, all year at all BP gas. The BP Visa also offers 2% cash back on restaurant and travel purchases and 1% back on everything else. Below we compare rewards offered by the popular station specific credit cards.
| Station Specific Card Rewards Comparison | |
| BP Visa Gas Card from Chase | 2.5% at BP Gas Stations |
| CITGO PLUS Credit Card | No rewards |
| ExxonMobil Personal Card | No rewards |
| LUKOIL Platinum MasterCard | 4% at LUKOIL or Getty Stations |
| Shell Credit Card | No rewards |
| Sunoco Credit Card | 2 POINTS per dollar |
For additional cards that will give you rebates on gasoline, check out this post that outlines most of the gas credit cards out there.
Kevin Fleming founded CreditShout in 2008 to help people manage their credit and finances. Kevin wants to make it easy for anyone, regardless of their level of financial knowledge to understand credit cards and what may seem like the complex world of personal finance. | 
