Gas Companies Aren’t Selling Me Their Credit Card

It seems like all the “rage” now in my city — every time I fill up my car with gas I get a commercial on the pump screen before they print out my receipt. It always says something like, “You could have saved 5 cents per gallon today if you had used the Shell Credit Card.” Yeah, yeah, yeah — can I just have my receipt?

The reason this may look like a good deal is that while it says “5 cents” some people might translate this into “5 percent.” If the card did pay 5 percent, that would be a pretty decent return. But it doesn’t offer that — it offers 5 cents per gallon off.

Let’s say a gallon of gas costs $2.60 (I’ve paid more than this on most recent gas purchases, but I’ll go low to help the card companies out). That’s a 1.9% discount per gallon. Not bad, but my Schwab Visa gives me 2%. In addition, it gives me 2% off EVERY purchase — and I buy a whole lot more other stuff on it than gas. Many (most?) of the gas cards pay 1% on non-gas purchases — even those that do offer (usually for a limited time) 5% back on gas purchases. So the cards aren’t really that great of a deal. And yet, I have to endure a commercial every time I fill up.

Could you just give me my receipt, please?