I keep 3 cars filled, pumping 25 gallons at a time, once/wk plus one extra each month. Yes, filling cans can be annoying at times, but less so than paying full price to fill a car after letting half of a free fill-up go unused.
*My gas rewards are capped at 25 gallons, and can offset nearly the full price, not just $1 off each gallon. For only a buck a gallon, I don’t know if I’d worry about it or not.
LOL no, Detroit🤣
Idk, I see it as a time saver as I only go to the gas station once every seven to ten days for multiple cars.
I put a pencil to it and at $35 dollars a crack(we drive a lot) I saved about $12k over the last 7 years so it seems worth it to me. It felt extremely rewarding paying 10 cents a gallon last March and April (worked everyday thru so called lock downs so my mileage didn’t change)
5% in gift cards as rewards is not the same as 5% cash in my book. Nevertheless, with the other offers I’m averaging well over 20% so it works for me.
Ah ok. I was confused at first. I didn’t realize the base points are only redeemable for gift cards and not cash back. Thank you for clarifying that.
Hopefully, not part of city hall/jail. 
Just taking a moment to agree with you. When it comes to rewards I’m strictly a “show me the money” kind of person. Gift cards detract from my ability to use my rewards CCs to earn still more rewards. Cash is king!
well the Amex BCP is 6% grocery and comes with the 95.00 fee but there are bonus signups of 300 for this card. Capped at 6k yearly. So 360 cash (as a credit) -95.00 =265 back for free groceries with this card.My family of 4 has gotten these.1200 in sign up bonuses and first year no fee!!. The Amex OBC cash card not available is no fee, 5% at groceries BUT need 5600 spend before it kicks in and 5% up to 60k. Buying VGC gets the 5% starting quite quickly. have 2 of these cards and after 2 weeks Im getting 5% at groceries plus my family getting 6% with the BCP cards. As for gas…penfed has the cash rewards card for 5% back on gas at pupmp only, not is the store. Comes off the top. had this for 4 years.Spend 100.00 on gas per month pay 95.00. no need to store gas…Dangerous. Only problem with the Blue cash Amex cards is liquidating the VGC. And be careful buying them I buy groceries with the VGC. % years of doing this and no questions from amex…yet.
Lol no, in the suburbs north of the city.
Yeah my goto card for groceries/gift cards was the BCP which I’d rotate with (for example) chase freedom in a grocery quarter/Discover, etc.
I quit buying VGC when they eliminated variables from earning fuel points what was that back in 2014 or 15? Wow, maybe I’ve been doing this longer than I realized. Now I mostly buy Amazon or Home Depot. I just don’t want to pay the fees. I use the gc’s for subscribe and save at Amazon and I do a small amount of reselling, which usually is profitable but my goal is only to break even on the cost of the item and usually I succeed with that.
I don’t see any danger in storing fuel in your garage but I know many do and people have to make their own judgments there. For me not getting the full 35 or using two vehicles to do it would be too much work. We all have our own limits or what we think is worth it.
I was going to pair the gas purchases with the Kroger MC since they’re offering 55 cents off a gallon for a year and it does pair with fuel points but then I realized these SYW deals are just insane so I’ve held back from pulling that trigger on that for now but I probably will in the next few weeks and use the SYW for something else as after the dollar off for fuel points the 55 cents a gallon is probably 25% cb.
thanks for the info. I am way behind buying VGC due to covid. Not many trips to stores, but I try for the groc cat. Really like the vanillagift.com since you can get a basically blank card with your name on it. I use the Disc Miles for 3% after 1 year. So far no trouble liq. these at grocery store. Nobody has asked to see the card yet but I have not made too many trips to liquidate. Did about 10 cards in the past 6 days. BTW vanilla gift used to have no fee specials but not for the past year. Also great for signup bonuses for BOA. They do not care what you buy.
That’s because you’ve only got 6 weeks of warm weather.
Near one of the great Simtel archives/mirrors, no doubt. I almost miss four seasons. ALMOST.
Simtel!! Now there’s a name I have not heard in a very long time!!!
Well I’m on the Far East side and we still have two seasons - hot and cold. Though tbh, the winters are not as bad as they used to be.
Oh and Kroger’s has 4x fuel points this weekend on gc.
a new discussion. Anybody remember the BOA Better Balance Reward card?? I have 2 from about 4 years ago. Make 30.00 per Q. on 2 cards. 120. per year x2 =240.00. All you do and am still doing is make a small pruchase each billing period and do not pay till you get the bill online or in mail. So probably one of the best deals still going. 4 years at 240 peryear = 960. All I do is reload my Dunkin card with 10.00. Sometimes Amazon reloads for 4.00. Some aholes used to do .50 and .99 cents reloads but I would rather do a real purchase. Dont think its available now. Waiting for shoe to drop any time.
and Im going back in the game with my Old Blue cash amex card…5% at grocery /gas/drugstores After 6500 in spend. Due to covid I have not used the card for 18 months. Will buy Secure Spend cards at CVS and Acme. Or One Vanillas. Had card for years and never a problen so far with amex, but as above, with BBR from BOA, shoe could drop. I try to add in a cheap (very cheap) item along with 4 GCards. Dont know it it helps but in my heyday (I have 3 OBC cards ) never a problem. Hard to find something cheap in CVS these days. Maybe lifesavers. Gum will pull out my fillings.HaHa. Acme I can get a can of tuna!!
Be very careful with AMEX and GC purchases in card bonus categories. They are one issuer that definitely looks at the details of your purchases and are notorious for clawbacks in this very situation.
AMEX and US Bank are the two that I would not mess with on GC purchases. Chase and BoA otoh really don’t care.
thanks for the info but I guess Ill find out and report back. I do pay for the BCPreferred the 95.00 per year for wife and my card. Dont know if this helps or not. Had BCP and OBC for years. maybe its helping. Ill report back.
I’ve been buying GCs for years, upgrading and downgrading between BCE and BCP. There is no other reason to justify paying the annual fee for BCP.
I’ve got one. It is indeed dead for new applications.
just to get this straight. OBC card is a MS card because: what person would spend 6500 before even getting to 5% in G/G/D (gas grocery drug) ?? And the limit of 65k per year is also out of reach for 99.9% of folks. So…Before Covid my sons and I used 3 OBC cards and hit the maximun in about 6-7 months. 1% on the first 6500, then 5% till 65k. Never a problem with Amex for 3 years prior to Covid. Now i want to start to ramp up again after not using cards (except online for food deliveries to keep cards active). Are you definite that they will close accts for MS. How do they expect a customer to get to 65K? Really!!. Doc has no late info on this. Personally I have a BCP and pay the fee as it might help. I also have 2 Amex biz cards. No 3rd party info from CVS or grocery stores to Amex like Staples does. We also buy a few items to make it not so obvious, but in the past I just gave up and bought the gift cards 3 or 4 at a time. I know Freedom Unlimited and a few others give 3% back in grocery/drugs, but this is much better. . For sure. if anyone out there knows of some acct s being shut, Im all ears.Thanks for reading!!. Stay healthy!!
some updates. FT forum on OBC as of 6/21 seems to say that Amex only cares about ms for bonuses and GC spending is still ok, so far…BTW I was shut down in the Oct 14 or 15 sweep on OBC. Tried to buy 2 Vanilla cards at cvs and declined. called and was told the bad news. 6 months later applied under new limits (65k) and was approved plus my other OBC survived.