I was reading a guest post on Doctor of Credit this morning regarding Master Lists of Gas Station rewards, written by Josh over at Frugal Hack Me. Both are very good sites, but I’ve been thinking about something to write today, and this one irked me. Before I go on, there’s a ton of work here, and if you compare it to the typical credit card pimping blog it almost feels wrong to call this out, but I gots to.
You can check out the post that offended me here. And this is the 30,000ft view of it:
Josh compiled a list of 22 Gas Rewards programs. Twenty Two! Each program was then ranked from 1-5 based on how awesome they found it to be. Criteria for awesomeness:
- 1/5 – The rewards are far too difficult and/or expensive to earn and there’s no sign-up bonus or everyday bonus.
- 2/5 – The rewards are a tad bit expensive to earn and there’s not an everyday bonus or a sign-up bonus.
- 3/5 – The rewards are easy to earn, but there’s not an everyday bonus or a sign-up bonus.
- 4/5 – The rewards are easy to earn and there’s an everyday bonus OR a sign-up bonus.
- 5/5 – There is a sign-up bonus, an everyday bonus, and there are plenty of ways to earn rewards.
Sounds reasonable so far right?
Here’s my beef.
Firstly, why have a list of programs I cannot use? Out of the 22 listed there was a mix of gas station programs, such as Shell, BP, Exxon et al, along with grocery stores, such as Kroger and Stop and Shop. What you’ll find is that most states will only have a couple of such grocery chains, for example in New York we have Stop and Shop, but no Giant stores (they are across the river in NJ, same family, different brand).
The simple answer to this question, is that everyone can drop in and pick the best program based on their location. Of course, I’m miffed that my No.1 program is ranked so low, and a program I don’t really understand is ranked so highly.
How Master Lists are used
As a New Yorker looking at that master list i’d be looking between gas station chains (somewhat national coverage) and local grocery stores. So I might look at:
Stop & Shop Gas Rewards
- Sign-up Bonus: None
- Everyday Bonus: None
- How to Earn:
- Shopping – Earn 1 point per $1 spent. For every 100 points you earn, you get $0.10 off the gallon. Points totals under 100 in a calendar month expire.
- Gallon Limit: 35 gallons
- Notes: Rewards expire 30 days after earning them and they aren’t the easiest to earn.
- Rating: 2/5
and the chains, such as BP:
- Sign-up Bonus: $0.10 off per gallon when you register.
- Everyday Bonus: None
- How to Earn:
- Fuel Purchase – $0.05 off per gallon for every 20 gallons purchased. There is a minimum of two transactions that must total 20 gallons.
- Gallon Limit: 20 gallons
- Notes: This is BP’s response to Shell’s Fuel Network. It’s pretty straightforward, but it seems like it’s much easier to earn money off the gallon with Shell’s program vs this.
- Rating: 4/5
or Shell
- Sign-up Bonus: $0.20 off per gallon on your second fill up and another $0.20 off per gallon after linking a card.
- Everyday Bonus: $0.03 off per gallon.
- How to Earn:
- Portals – $0.05 off per gallon for every $50 spent.
- Referrals – $0.20 off per gallon for every referral.
- Misc Offers – ex. $0.05 off for spending $100 at electronics stores.
- Gallon Limit: 20 gallons per reward.
- Notes: This is one of the most robust rewards programs around. Shell offers many different ways to say money off the gallon, so you’ll want to check your account regularly. Also, Shell uses your maximum reward at once. So, if you have $0.50 off a gallon or $0.05 off a gallon, it will use the total reward regardless of how many gallons your filling up with (max 20).
- Rating: 5/5
This is poppycock (I think!)
Shell gets the best rating here, and Stop & Shop gets a really crap rating. Interestingly, Stop and Shop partners with Shell, so you have to pick one or the other at the pump. I pick Stop and Shop.
Technically, I should pick BOTH. I actually read the post today because I don’t know enough about the gas station rewards programs, but looking at Shell, it seems to have a high rating through all sorts of convoluted crap. Portals, Misc Offers, what the what!? I can’t keep up with this for 5 cents here and there.
Stop and Shop is awesome because the Gas Rewards program runs bonus multipliers.. on gift cards..
Note that when they aren’t on a bonus they earn zero rewards, but all you do is keep an eye out for what is coming up, we have a thread on this in the forum that is updated with the weekly flyer: Stop and Shop, how to reduce gas prices by over 50% Technically now it would be to reduce them by 100% as the base price has dropped.
Show me the money!
All this talk of 3 cents here, 5 cent there.. I only use Stop and Shop for $2.20 off per gallon. I buy my giftcards when they come on bonus, and a $500 card gives me $2.00 to $2.50 per gallon (the cap is $2.20 per transaction, $0.30 cents carries forward) and that is up to 35 Gallons. One gift card = $77 in savings per fill up.
As noted previously, the best thing to do would be for me to use the Shell card for 3 cents off per gallon for the lulls when Stop and Shop isn’t offering $2.20 off per gallon. But really… do I want to sign up for a new program and carry a new card to save a quarter per fill up?
Conclusion
Master Lists are dangerous because the author (myself included) has to dive into the realm of theory, and sometimes that can lose site of the real value in a list. Stop and Shop for me gets 6 out of 5 because when they run an offer, I can pick up a months worth of free gas in 5 minutes. The only real way I can see to move past this is to throw in reality checks.
In this case, the reality check would be ‘How much, per month, do you save on gas with your method?’ the follow up question must always be ‘How long does that process take to create?’ without these, the lists lose perspective.
Who knew gas station reward programs could invoke such strong feelings? 😉
It’s true that the best program for me may not be the best for you, but I was writing solely on research from the program websites. I saw no mention of gift card promotions (I guess I should frequent the forum more often), so I just rated it based on the (seemingly) difficult point acquisition methods.
As you mentioned, though, master lists are difficult, especially if many of the places/items on the list are location specific. However, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be created. They can still provide a lot of information that could be adjusted based on reader/blogger responses. It then becomes a resource with the help of others.
So, it may not be a “master list,” but instead a “community list.” That just doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
Yeah, I guess I see where you are coming from. My thought was that it perhaps shouldn’t be a blog related thing since it requires active crowdsourcing. Having to take a comment and update a list is inefficient, and surely many will go missing.
I’m leaning towards wiki’s and fora for these master lists and allowing the users to curate it, seems the only effective way to produce something that is reliable (since even the perfect list will outdate)
Master List of Things That Piss Off Matt:
1. Master Lists
oooh don’t push me.
Are you trying to say that the list should be longer?
The list really is pretty long…
I am starting to wonder why I read both posts, original and Matt’s spin off report. My employer pays for my gas, though they may want me to spend the 100 hours trying to figure out how to save the three nickels. I would say your rebuttal proved what is necessary in order to make gas more affordable, and yet the method was not even discussed.
I mentioned the method and linked to the forum which talks about it.
You want a bow and arrow to go with that?
I’d say the Master List:
–gave you some info you otherwise didn’t have
–gave you something interesting to think about
–gave you a blog post topic
Don’t be that guy who writes comments from an Anon account.
I feel slightly guilty for not doing the Fuel Rewards Network thing, I’m glad I’m not alone. I do keep an eye on a local grocery store that does the 2x 4x or 5x fuel rewards on gift cards. For a long while there was always an easy way to get a good gas discount.
My big delemmia these days is go I add on a crappy drive through car wash for $5 so I can trigger the $5 off $30 sync offer. So far the answer is no, that is just silly. (And no, buying something inside doesn’t seem to trigger it).
When venting it’s important to have your facts right, especially when reporting something that is just “across the river in NJ!” I’m in NJ and have 4 Stop and Shop’s within a 15 minute drive from my house! You are right that Giant is owned by same parent company, but they are located in Pa, as well as in some other states.
Incorrect sir. It is perfectly acceptable to vent without any regard to facts.