Credit card rewards for fuel

[Jim K]

Stumbled across this and thought it might be of general interest. I wanted a dedicated credit card that lived in my flight bag. Did a bit of research and settled on the "Citi Custom Cash" card. It gives 5% back on up to $500/mo on whichever category you spend the most in. Because I dedicate it to avgas, assuming the FBO didn't code it wrong, that's fuel. Doing the math, that's 22.5¢/gal off of $4.50 avgas.

It's not life changing, but it'll basically buy a "free" fillup once a year. $500 will cover me most months unless we go on a long trip. Above that, it drops to 1%, so I'm better off with my primary 2% cash card.

Anybody got any other credit card deals that work well for avgas?

 

[masloki]

I wish it worked but my Costco Citi card rarely treats AVP/etc as gas. I found one transaction in September that counted as an "Automated gas dispenser," none in Oct-now.

 

[NoHeat]

5.25% on gas, including aviation fuel. Bank of America Custom Cash Rewards. No annual fee.

Reward is outright cash of 3%, boosted by a multiplier if 1.75 (to make it 5.25%) if you have >$100k at Merrill Edge, Merrill, and BoA combined. (Moving an IRA to MerrillEdge is a good way to qualify).

Reward is capped after $2500 per card per quarter of transactions (but there’s a workaround: there’s no limit in the number of such cards that you can hold, so I have several, each with the $2500 per quarter cap.)


BTW, regardless of the card you use, it’s good to know that maintenance is coded as fuel, by some FBOs. That makes a big difference to me.

 

[schmookeeg]

I wish it worked but my Costco Citi card rarely treats AVP/etc as gas. I found one transaction in September that counted as an "Automated gas dispenser," none in Oct-now.

Mine works on avgas. I was trying to figure out how, as a EV driver, I had maxed the 4% for gas category last year. Took me a while to realize what was up.

 

[Shawn]

I am a points whore and know that they are not as "great" of a deal but I am a bigger fan of using a card that gives you something you will actually use vs just cash back. Hotel, airlines, or even a Disney rewards type card.

I have more Southwest and Marriott points than I know what to do with using those two cards almost exclusively on everything I possibly can over the past decade +. I have friends that pretty fully fund their Disneyland trips for a family of 4 by focusing all their spending on their Disney cards.

 

[Jeff767]

If you find you can’t use cash please send it to me!

 

[JOhnH]

I wish it worked but my Costco Citi card rarely treats AVP/etc as gas. I found one transaction in September that counted as an "Automated gas dispenser," none in Oct-now.

Same here. I had a SunTrust card that paid a premium for gas. Out of about a dozen Avgas purchases, only one of them showed up as gas and the rest only only paid 1%. I could have gotten 2% with one of my other cards. I'll be applying for a card soon that pays 2% on everything and use perhaps another dedicated card, like an Amazon card that pays 5% on Amazon purchases.

 

[JOhnH]

I am a points whore and know that they are not as "great" of a deal but I am a bigger fan of using a card that gives you something you will actually use vs just cash back. Hotel, airlines, or even a Disney rewards type card.

I have more Southwest and Marriott points than I know what to do with using those two cards almost exclusively on everything I possibly can over the past decade +. I have friends that pretty fully fund their Disneyland trips for a family of 4 by focusing all their spending on their Disney cards.

I used to be the same way. I am a lifetime Platinum Marriot card holder and have over a million points built up. But as time goes on I get fewer and fewer upgrades, rooms cost more points and fewer good rooms are available for points. I left AMEX's Delta Skymiles program a few years ago for similar reasons. The more points I built the more they charged. I was saving for a couple of 1st class tickets to Europe, which were listed as costing around 100,000 points each. But the point cost kept going up and by time I reached enough points, it cost 300k points each to get reasonable tickets. For a 100k points I would have had to fly out one day and return the next, or fly out one day and return over a month later. I wanted about a10 to 15 day trip.

 

[Huckster79]

I use a Bank of America card that lets me choose a category to put at 3% reward on. I use that one exclusively for petrol be that 87 octagon for the car or truck or 100LL… then I use a Citicard for all else as that’s 2% on everything.

so far has worked great! I bill everything I can through them both, has been a couple thousand bucks of “free money” a year…

 

[JOhnH]

I use a Bank of America card that lets me choose a category to put at 3% reward on. I use that one exclusively for petrol be that 87 octagon for the car or truck or 100LL…

Does that work consistently for Avgas?

 

[NoHeat]

Does that work consistently for Avgas?

I'm not Huckster, but yes, it does for me. Huckster's card is surely similar to the BoA cards that I mentioned in the third post, and that worked for Avgas at every airport I've visited. It also works for maintenance if the the merchant (FBO) codes all their transactions the same way, as fuel.

 

[Huckster79]

Does that work consistently for Avgas?

so far has! Especially if it’s an automated dispenser.

I do credit card processing for a living. Every account is given an MCC (merchant category code) all the automated dispensers should be coded as such. The time I could see it wouldn’t is is if the fuel pump wasn’t automated and ya have to go into the FBO to run the card. Sounds like #Noheat ‘s FBOs card processor classified him as petroleum sales so the card brands just see that so wouldn’t matter what you buy through that cc terminal the card brands would see “petroleum”. At that point it would depend on what category they assigned the account. Some businesses got more than one category at that point it’s up to us to choose what fits the best. If it was set as something besides fuel in that scenario it would go through as a regular retail transaction.. sounds like but w almost all fuel dispensers automated you should be good 95% of the time.

 

[Huckster79]

I use the rewards dollars for “goof around” investments. I buy things I wouldn’t with my normal investments…

 

[Derald Madson]

Stumbled across this and thought it might be of general interest. I wanted a dedicated credit card that lived in my flight bag. Did a bit of research and settled on the "Citi Custom Cash" card. It gives 5% back on up to $500/mo on whichever category you spend the most in. Because I dedicate it to avgas, assuming the FBO didn't code it wrong, that's fuel. Doing the math, that's 22.5¢/gal off of $4.50 avgas.

It's not life changing, but it'll basically buy a "free" fillup once a year. $500 will cover me most months unless we go on a long trip. Above that, it drops to 1%, so I'm better off with my primary 2% cash card.

Anybody got any other credit card deals that work well for avgas?

Assuming I spend at least 500$ a month on gas (easy to do) that'd save me around 275 dollars a year. I'd rather keep using my Amex. 300 points a fill up, two fill ups a year, enough points for a round trip ticket to Europe every 6 years. But I put everything on the Amex, annuals, maintenance, groceries, etc. so it ends up being enough every two years for two people plus hotel.

 

[Derald Madson]

I wish it worked but my Costco Citi card rarely treats AVP/etc as gas. I found one transaction in September that counted as an "Automated gas dispenser," none in Oct-now.

This is another reason I'm afraid to buy a gas specific card.

 

[genna]

I wish it worked but my Costco Citi card rarely treats AVP/etc as gas. I found one transaction in September that counted as an "Automated gas dispenser," none in Oct-now.

It doesn’t really matter which card(as in issuer). Maybe the type of card matters if they code differently for Visa(Costco) and MC(Custom Cash), both are Citi cards btw. I’m not sure if that's even a thing. But it’s pretty much how the merchant codes the card reader. If you buy at self fuel, I my experience (YMMV) it’s almost always coded as fuel and all cards I’ve ever tried gave fuel discounts. Paying at FBO is almost never coded as fuel.

I don't like points cards. Or more accurately I don't like cards which have points you can't convert to cash. If you use their services a lot, they make sense. I don't. I also don't use any cards with annual fees. 100$ fee eats quite a lot into the benefits you get from the card unless you spend a lot.

I treat the cash back a bit like a game trying to maximize it as much as possible including using cards for only one merchant or one category and buying gift cards when category pays 5%. It all averages to about 3-4% cash back per year. Enough to pay for a couple of first class tickets to Europe every 6 years if I chose to do that. Or spend on something else.

 

[the400kid]

I am a points whore and know that they are not as "great" of a deal but I am a bigger fan of using a card that gives you something you will actually use vs just cash back. Hotel, airlines, or even a Disney rewards type card.

I have more Southwest and Marriott points than I know what to do with using those two cards almost exclusively on everything I possibly can over the past decade +. I have friends that pretty fully fund their Disneyland trips for a family of 4 by focusing all their spending on their Disney cards.

Marriott is devaluing the program (again) starting in February, so those more points than you know what to do with will now easily be used up. They are changing to a "dynamic" program, which means the number of points needed per night is based on what the hotel is charging for a room. In other words, that one night stay in Paris or London that had cost you 80,000 points could now cost 200,000 points per night.

 

[Jim K]

I'm not crazy about points cards either. I'd rather decide where I spend the money. I do have a little FOMO from my highschool friend who is a points guru and takes a trip at least once a year, she claims entirely on "points". I don't intend to ever intentionally fly commercial again; is there any points games worth playing with that caveat?

I had a card a few years ago (pre-airplane) that was 3% on fuel, and I experience the coding issue. Seemed like I only got the 3% about 2/3 of the time, so it wasn't that great. I cancelled it when I went through my hard-core Dave Ramsey phase. What I like about this one is that the category floats so if they have the code wrong it'll still count. The risk of course is that I buy gas twice and the use different groups, so I only get half. They seem to group it into only 7 big categories, so i'm thinking it will work out.

5.25% on gas, including aviation fuel. Bank of America Custom Cash Rewards. No annual fee.

Reward is outright cash of 3%, boosted by a multiplier if 1.75 (to make it 5.25%) if you have >$100k at Merrill Edge, Merrill, and BoA combined. (Moving an IRA to MerrillEdge is a good way to qualify).

Reward is capped after $2500 per card per quarter of transactions (but there’s a workaround: there’s no limit in the number of such cards that you can hold, so I have several, each with the $2500 per quarter cap.)


BTW, regardless of the card you use, it’s good to know that maintenance is coded as fuel, by some FBOs. That makes a big difference to me.

That's pretty good. I wonder if there's any other multiplier deals like that. I also hadn't thought of holding multiple cards. I like to simplify where I can though, so I don't think I'm willing to go that far, or move retirement accounts to gain 1/4%.

 

[AndyTowPilot]

Stumbled across this and thought it might be of general interest. I wanted a dedicated credit card that lived in my flight bag. Did a bit of research and settled on the "Citi Custom Cash" card. It gives 5% back on up to $500/mo on whichever category you spend the most in. Because I dedicate it to avgas, assuming the FBO didn't code it wrong, that's fuel. Doing the math, that's 22.5¢/gal off of $4.50 avgas.

It's not life changing, but it'll basically buy a "free" fillup once a year. $500 will cover me most months unless we go on a long trip. Above that, it drops to 1%, so I'm better off with my primary 2% cash card.

Anybody got any other credit card deals that work well for avgas?

If an FBO did code it wrong, try calling your credit card company. I did this with marine fuel. My marina wasn't categorized as a fuel sale establishment, but with a quick website reference provided to BOA, they were happy to add that categorization and allow me to get the rewards!

 

[Pinecone]

Marriott is devaluing the program (again) starting in February, so those more points than you know what to do with will now easily be used up. They are changing to a "dynamic" program, which means the number of points needed per night is based on what the hotel is charging for a room. In other words, that one night stay in Paris or London that had cost you 80,000 points could now cost 200,000 points per night.

That is a bummer. I enjoyed several Formula 1 weekends, using points for the weekend when the rooms were expensive, but the points cost was the same.

 

[Clip4]

3% with American Express + you can get 5-10 cent discount at the pump with Shell Rewards.

 

[iamtheari]

Delta miles. The more I fly, the more I can fly.

 

[MonkeyClaw]

It's not that the FBO codes the purchase wrong, it's that they don't want to participate in the promotion. The extra rewards are, at least partially, paid for by the FBO via CC fees. They don't want to pay extra for your cash back, so they don't label the sale as a gas sale. I don't know all of the ins-and-outs of how it is done, but this is why our FBO doesn't use the 'Gas' code at our airport.

 

[Whitney]

It's not that the FBO codes the purchase wrong, it's that they don't want to participate in the promotion. The extra rewards are, at least partially, paid for by the FBO via CC fees. They don't want to pay extra for your cash back, so they don't label the sale as a gas sale. I don't know all of the ins-and-outs of how it is done, but this is why our FBO doesn't use the 'Gas' code at our airport.

Curious about what they code fuel sales as then, if not as fuel?

Water?
Parts?

I would question their accounting practices if the IRS or Revenue Canada.
Them to purchase a lot of fuel, but not sell much...hmmm

 

[schmookeeg]

Curious about what they code fuel sales as then, if not as fuel?

Water?
Parts?

I would question their accounting practices if the IRS or Revenue Canada.
Them to purchase a lot of fuel, but not sell much...hmmm

It wouldn't get to the tax authorities, it's just a code sent to the credit card processor to figure out what products were sold, and charge the merchant fee accordingly.

Our "product code" was set by our fuel supplier who also handled our CC processing for the self-serve terminal. We weren't part of any of it. I would think mis-code is far more likely to be an FBO that runs their self-serve terminal through the same payment gateway as, say, their FBO desk or flight school, and it all probably gets lumped under "General Merchandise" because nobody inquired further or cared enough to seek out this real odd technicality.

 

[Rcmutz]

I use the Venture card. 2% back which can be applied as credit toward any travel cost, hotel, rental car, airline ticket costs, purchased with the card. Use it for avgas and other purchases over $500. Pays for vacations each year.

 

[rene86mx]

so they don't label the sale as a gas sale. I don't know all of the ins-and-outs of how it is done, but this is why our FBO doesn't use the 'Gas' code at our airport.

The FBO doesn't need to add anything or say I want to participate in the promotion.

It all depends on interchange fees. Interchange fees is what your credit card receives as revenue from you using your card. From those interchange fees plus your annual fee, they fund the rewards.

Interchange fees depend on a very complex decision model that depend on the industry of the merchant and the card you have (platinum credit cards have higher interchanges than debit cards) among other data points.

So, if the FBO when they were onboarding with their credit card processor did not mention they sell fuel and instead said they provide aviation services or something like that, their MCC code (Merchant Category Code) which is assigned by the credit card processor is not set up as fuel, hence your credit card company has no way of knowing they sell fuel.