Some stores have revived the old two-tier pricing model for gasoline, most offering about 4 ¢ / gallon (or so) cash discount.
Reports from the field indicate this option has proven widely popular in test markets, some retailers reporting lines out the door during peak times, others having to install an extra cash register and hire more employees to meet the demand.
Retailers reportedly save 1.5 - 3% per gallon ( about 6 to 12¢ per gallon around here) by not having to pay the credit card companies when consumers pay cash but retailers do incur additional costs if they have to hire more help by offering the cash discount.
Among consumers, these discounts are reportedly most popular among those paying $100 per tank and up and based on initial popularity these discounts seems to make lots of sense to some.
Personally, it makes no sense whatsoever; no way I’m making a trip inside and waiting in line to save about 40 ¢.
In my mind, this sentence is the key to your OP. Unless I had plans to use this method consistently, every time I filled up, it’s not worth the added inconvenience.
Since gas prices have gone well over $3 here in the LA area, I’ve occasionally been confronted by two gas stations across the street from one another where the station on the “wrong” side of the street is maybe five cents cheaper. My instict is to go for the cheaper station, but ultimately I’ll do one of these :smack: and realize that it’s nowhere near worth saving $0.75 to wait for a light cycle so I can make a U-turn, fill up, and then have to make another U-turn to get back going the way I was headed.
That’s my long-winded way of answering “no” to your poll.
Well, I already get a 5% discount on gas (and anything I buy AT a gas station) with my Chase Mastercard. So I guess it woulnd’t work for me. What I want to know is how they’re getting away with this. It’s against the terms of their merchant agreement. You can NOT charge more for using a credit card (even if you disguise it as a discount for using cash). On a small scale, sure, alot of companies get away with it, but, this sounds like something that’s hit some of the major media outlets (you didn’t give a cite so I don’t know if this is local or national type news).
I had a 5% cash back on gasoline and groceries card that was cancelled by the issuer (as a “business decision”) for everyone who held the card, to take effect 6/30/06.
Now that the first domino has fallen, others may be underway.
never could understand how they could make any money on that business model unless beaucoup card holders were carrying a healthy balance
I wonder how many will stay in line with their engines running, inching ahead every so often, only to burn more than they saved just waiting in the line.
Around here, we have Arco stations that don’t even take credit cards. It’s either cash or a debit card (for a $0.45 fee). But they have a machine at the pump islands into which you can feed money so you don’t need to go into the store. And the difference is more than $0.04. Depending on which station you compare it to, the savings are anywhere from ten to twenty cents per gallon. So I definitely go there for gas.
I was thinking the same. I also wonder how many people drive an extra 2-3 miles out of their way just to get this “cash discount” and then go back to the original place. My old room-mate drove 2 miles north of town here to spend less on gas - only to drive back into town to the apartment (probably burning more than she ever would have saved)
The Kroger where I shop weekly has a gas station. They offer 3 cents off per gallon, to Kroger card holders. Since I’m going there anyway, I fill up at their station. Every Sunday. Sometimes I’m just topping off the tank, sometimes needing a full tank. Makes sense to me.
Well, we get 10 cents off per gallon for every $50 we spend on groceries at one store, and you can keep accumulating until it’s free if you want, though I usually cash out by 30 cents off per gallon.
I have 2 CC’s that give me 5% back on gas, I haven’t been notified that it’s going to change, but who knows.
Anyway I have others that give me 3% and 1.5% back, even at the lowest number at the current price of around $2.89/gal it doesn’t pay to pay by cash as I get over $0.04/gal back at my lowest % back card.
Also to me cash is more expensive to use, extra trips to the bank or ATM, ATM fees, time spend updating bank records, more chance of mistake and being overdrawn (more fees), chance of loss of cash, greater chance of running out of cash (the cash I keep on me I keep for weeks if not months - I know about how much I have at all times).
And as pointed out in the artical, if you pay cash you have to go in 1 or 2 times, which has increased sales of items inside the store, so yea you may have just ‘saved’ $0.40 on 10 gal of gas, but you just bought a coke for $1.75 that you didn’t need, and had to make a early trip to the ATM to get another $50, which gave you a fee of $1.50 and not to mention the time involved.
Me, I will just pay the $0.40 higher (if there is no better alternative), and save all that extra expense and extra time (and calories for the coke), and eventually get $1.44 back.