How to pay the absolute lowest price for gas - I'm thinking its NOT Costco!

Hello my friends. Before I begin, I do want to point out that I searched for "gas" since I am sure this topic has been addressed before. I didn't find this topic on the first few pages and I wasn't about to shuffle through all 71 pages looking to revive this topic. So I hope no one minds that I start a new one.

Well anyway, I finally got around to getting a costco membership. After I posed for my picture and was handed my card, I didn't even enter the store to look around. I immediately left the store and headed straight for the pumps!! Man was I excited, I was going to stack my 5% penfed rewards with the costco gas selling for a 10 cent discount and then come post the experience on here and get lots of green. Well you guys know what I am about to say. Imagine my disappointment when its rejecting my cards and asking for PIN codes!! I drove off with an empty tank crying, it was so sad, a grownass man crying like that. You would have cried if you saw me.
Later I did some research and discovered what, again, I bet most of you already know. That you can use only AMEX, debit cards, or costco cash cards at the pump. No problem, I have a no-annual-fee AMEX card (actually 2, another for my wife "employee" that gives 3 points per dollar rewards for gas. But then in the fine print it says it must be a standalone gas station and that costco is excluded. What the hell does a guy gotta do in society to get ahead these days!!
So I am now thinking that there is no possible way to get credit card rewards with costco gas. I am thinking that penfed's 5% rewards, which is always going to be better than 15 cents per gallon as long as gas is more than $3/gal, will always be better than costco's 10 cent discount. A real bummer since one of the big reasons I got the costco card was for the gas....

But anyway, as I see things, the best way to purchase gas is to use grocery rewards, if they are available where you live, and stack that with 5% gas rewards. I can't think of another way - costco doesn't even fit into the equation.

Thoughts? Anything I am missing?

Yup. Penfed card is good.

Use your Penfed card and buy costco cash card on costco.com then use cash card to pay for gas.

Buy Arco GC's at safeway with Blue Preferred or Sallie Mae. Gets the cash price.
When safeway fuel rewards reach $1.00 off per gallon (or $2 in some geographical areas) then stock up at the safeway pumps (car & gas cans).

Other than the limited time promos like AMX Like Link Love the strategy above generally beats Costco by a wide margin.

There's always siphoning from your neighbors who don't have locking gas caps

Edit: There is also a strategy involving 7-eleven & plink.com that gets 15% if done correctly. I posted about that site a while back but the thread did not receive any real action.

I'm born and raised in Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, so I know what you mean when you say Arco and safeway. But now I'm a Minnesota man so most of these solutions won't work for me.

Anon94305, you are suggesting to use the Penfed card to buy the costco cash card? Do you get 3% grocery store rewards when you purchase the cashcard online? I am a new costco member, so I am not sure if costco is considered a grocery store since you can buy so much stuff there, and am even more doubtful if you are buying the card online from the costco website. Please let me know your experiences.

Krutis: Wow, no annual fee. This might be exactly what I was looking for. Thank you very much for sharing this with me!!

The Costco branded AMEX gives 3% at Costco gas stations

http://mytrueearnings.com/

terms :
"Each Eligible Purchase on your TrueEarnings® Card from Costco and American Express shall earn a Reward of 1, 2, or 3% of the purchase amount as follows: 3% on the first $4,000 in eligible purchases each annual reward period (1% thereafter) of gasoline at Costco and domestic stand-alone gas stations (excluding superstores, supermarkets, convenience stores, and warehouse clubs other than Costco);"

OliverQuackenbush said:   Well anyway, I finally got around to getting a costco membership. After I posed for my picture and was handed my card, I didn't even enter the store to look around. I immediately left the store and headed straight for the pumps!! Man was I excited, I was going to stack my 5% penfed rewards with the costco gas selling for a 10 cent discount and then come post the experience on here and get lots of green. Well you guys know what I am about to say. Imagine my disappointment when its rejecting my cards and asking for PIN codes!! I drove off with an empty tank crying, it was so sad, a grownass man crying like that. You would have cried if you saw me.

you need to get out more

I buy BP gift cards at Kohls with Discover and Chase Freedom and get the 5% discount at certain times of the year. Sometimes there is an extra bonus like on Black Friday.

During the year Publix will sell gift cards at $10 off $50, with a $50 purchase (used to be $25).

My local BP(next to a Kangaroo so prices are lowest in my area) gives the cash price for gift card purchases, so it lowers the price per gallon by a $.05.

Save just over 12% on my yearly gas purchases with this strategy.

For the record, I do not overspend on groceries to reach the $50. Everything I purchase at Publix is researched to be the lowest price for that item.

If you have a Costco Business AMEX (my household is a business as far as AMEX and I are concerned), you will get 4% back on gas from AMEX. In order for grocery store gas stations to end up cheaper here, I would have to spend a lot at the higher priced grocery store to earn a reward and bridge the 20 cent per gallon difference in the price of gas. For us that doesn't make sense.

CostCo TrueEarnings Business AMEX. 4% back on gas (including at CostCo). I also have the SallieMae MasterCard which gives 5% on gas, so I buy gas at CostCo only when it's at least 1% (currently about 4¢) less than the cheapest station where I can use my MasterCard.

Chris.

Solandri said:   Cratos said:   E85 biofuel. where I live it's 3.15 vs almost 3.80-4 for regular gas (almost $20 difference on tankful)
just make sure your car is compatible (few are),
E85 ethanol has 27% less energy per gallon than gasoline. So while you're paying $3.15 per gallon, on a per mile traveled basis you're paying the equivalent of $4.31 gas.

Or put another way, if you fill a 15 gallon tank with E85 at $3.15/gallon, you'd pay $47.25. But that tank will only take you as far as 10.95 gallons of gasoline. 10.95 gallons of gasoline would've cost you $43.76 at $4/gallon.

This is correct. DO a search where you live for 100% gas stations and check prices. Regular gas can have up to 10% ethanol. Often its a better deal to pay a little more for pure gas.

brettdoyle said:   The absolute lowest price would be to fill up your tank and drive off, while not paying anything. If you can find a gas station that lets you pump before you pay which used to be the norm.

Most gas stations in Minnesota allow prepay. The majority of them write down your license plate before "switching on" the pump. If you drive away, they'll report you. The next time you get pulled over, BAM, felony.

kvs25 said:   Here in NJ, cash and credit prices are different (credit is higher than cash). If I buy a gas station GC at a supermarket and try to use it, they will count that as cash, correct?? and NOT credit?

I'm in NJ.

I have a Chase BP Gas card. It used to be good, now not so much... BUT... here local BP stations will sell gas at 'cash' price if you use your BP CC card. Great savings to me, about 8c a gallon each fill up.

Buy gift cards at a grocery store that offers 4X gas points. You save $1 per gallon plus an additional 5% off with a good gas rewards credit card. I'm not sure anything can beat that.

jamesboy said:   Buy gift cards at a grocery store that offers 4X gas points. You save $1 per gallon plus an additional 5% off with a good gas rewards credit card. I'm not sure anything can beat that.

What gift cards are you buying?

If you are paying full price for a gift card, you are losing money on the front end (gift card) to save it on the back end (gas).

Solandri said:   Cratos said:   E85 biofuel. where I live it's 3.15 vs almost 3.80-4 for regular gas (almost $20 difference on tankful)
just make sure your car is compatible (few are),
E85 ethanol has 27% less energy per gallon than gasoline. So while you're paying $3.15 per gallon, on a per mile traveled basis you're paying the equivalent of $4.31 gas.

Or put another way, if you fill a 15 gallon tank with E85 at $3.15/gallon, you'd pay $47.25. But that tank will only take you as far as 10.95 gallons of gasoline. 10.95 gallons of gasoline would've cost you $43.76 at $4/gallon.

E85 efficiency ranges based on how old your car is (the technology) -- I have done some research on why my wife's 97 Taurus FFV gets absolutely terrible gas mileage on E85 in my opinion. They only made 5100 of these stupid things, and somehow we ended up with one. You can't draw a straight line for E85 -> Regular Unleaded for a MPG conversion. You can talk about the amount of energy in the fuel, but you can't say how it will perform in an unknown user's car. He may have a brand new Ford with FFV, or he may be like me and have a 97 Taurus FFV. Newer cars, it will be better -- Older cars, much worse.

jnheinz said:   You can talk about the amount of energy in the fuel, but you can't say how it will perform in an unknown user's car. He may have a brand new Ford with FFV, or he may be like me and have a 97 Taurus FFV. Newer cars, it will be better -- Older cars, much worse.Newer may or may not be better, I don't think you can make that claim. All the studies I have seen have E85 between 24%-30% less efficient than standard gas. From personal experience my 2005 Nissan Titan got about 25% less mpg with E85. It seems pretty fair to use 27% as a baseline figure.

Using your example of a 2012 Ford with FFV (an auto focus). With gas it gets 28/40. With E85 it gets 20/28. That is 29% and 30% worse mpg with E85.
A 2000 Taurus (couldn't find data on a '06) get with gas 17/26, and with E85 it get 12/19. So 29% and 27% worse mpg on E85.

So newer is not always better. But E85 will always be worse, and always roughly around 27% worse, give or take a few percent.

Link to all 2012 vehicles mpg with E85

LiquidSilver said:   jnheinz said:   You can talk about the amount of energy in the fuel, but you can't say how it will perform in an unknown user's car. He may have a brand new Ford with FFV, or he may be like me and have a 97 Taurus FFV. Newer cars, it will be better -- Older cars, much worse.Newer may or may not be better, I don't think you can make that claim. All the studies I have seen have E85 between 24%-30% less efficient than standard gas. From personal experience my 2005 Nissan Titan got about 25% less mpg with E85. It seems pretty fair to use 27% as a baseline figure.

Using your example of a 2012 Ford with FFV (an auto focus). With gas it gets 28/40. With E85 it gets 20/28. That is 29% and 30% worse mpg with E85.
A 2000 Taurus (couldn't find data on a '06) get with gas 17/26, and with E85 it get 12/19. So 29% and 27% worse mpg on E85.

So newer is not always better. But E85 will always be worse, and always roughly around 27% worse, give or take a few percent.

Link to all 2012 vehicles mpg with E85About 25% worse in my Suburban. We ran one tank of E85 through it a few years ago - never again. Corn is for eating!

kintro said:   I doubt it's full price unless the store doesn't allow cc payment for GC's. Presumably he'd buy GC's with a 5 or 6 percent CB card. Some stores are harder to reach 5%+ CB through merchant coding (ie forementioned ARCO who only takes cash/debit, Target, SWA, Alaska Air, PETsMART, TRU, etc).

So it's not like robbing Peter to pay Paul because there's a CB benefit to buying the GC's and also the CB + fuel reward discount when gas is purchased.

I'm not worried about the Cash Back from the credit card, you can get that with any purchase. I'm talking about buying a gift card for the store or buying a gift card for a restaraunt or Home Depot, etc.

If he's buying the gift card for the store, he's locking himself into higher grocery prices. If he's buying it for another store, than paying full price for the value of the card will eat away at any discount at the pump, since gift cards for many retailers can be bought online for big discounts.

depalma13 said:   kintro said:   I doubt it's full price unless the store doesn't allow cc payment for GC's. Presumably he'd buy GC's with a 5 or 6 percent CB card. Some stores are harder to reach 5%+ CB through merchant coding (ie forementioned ARCO who only takes cash/debit, Target, SWA, Alaska Air, PETsMART, TRU, etc).

So it's not like robbing Peter to pay Paul because there's a CB benefit to buying the GC's and also the CB + fuel reward discount when gas is purchased.

I'm not worried about the Cash Back from the credit card, you can get that with any purchase. I'm talking about buying a gift card for the store or buying a gift card for a restaraunt or Home Depot, etc.

If he's buying the gift card for the store, he's locking himself into higher grocery prices. If he's buying it for another store, than paying full price for the value of the card will eat away at any discount at the pump, since gift cards for many retailers can be bought online for big discounts.
depalma you are correct for gift cards that can be bought for a discount in excess of 13-14%. Hard to find for the gift cards I need.

Costco is the closest gas station to my house, so that's where I go, usually at an hour when it's not jam packed.