Fueling/Flying J discounts/other fuel discount cards

[mbulriss]

Hi Wallace!

How are things going? Yes, I thought the Discover "Gas" card was
useful info for our members with all the fuel we go through in our
Birds. I learned about the Discover gas card from McMahan, even
though I had a regular Discover card for years before. They kept it
pretty low key.

The Discover "Gas" card is a regular Discover credit card, so it is
accepted basically anywhere (assuming the merchant takes most major
credit cards) and can be used for any purchases. I have never had it
turned down for fuel purchases since most fuel stations take every
possible charge card in existence. The Discover "Gas" card just has a
focus on 5% cash rebates on fuel purchases as it's marketing strategy
in order to get it into your pocket. Their rebate on regular
purchases isn't that hot - a sliding scale from .25 to 1 percent of
total charge volume annually. A visit to
http://www.discovercard.com/apply/ will give you an overview of their
'affinity' cards. There are lots of 'affinity' cards that have rebate
hooks (GM Card, Ford, airlines, etc.) but they are usually really only
'credits' against future purchases of that particular brand. The
Discover program is one of a very few with cash rebate programs. They
also have a new business card with 5% fuel, 3% office supplies and 1%
all else that we received a flyer on, but I didn't see at their site.

One caveat: The "gas" card started about two years ago with no cap on
the rebates. I guess some of us burned them over the past two years
by charging large amounts of fuel and paying it off each month. I
believe a recent notice indicated they now have a cap of $150 or $200
in fuel rebates at the 5% level before going to the regular purchase
rebate. That's still a bunch of fuel purchases ($3-4k) before going
to another 5% rebate card. No cap on the sliding scale purchases.

HTH, YMMV, FWIW, etc.....

Mike Bulriss
1991 WB40 "Texas Minivan"
San Antonio, TX - awaiting the floods......


--- In WanderlodgeForum@yahoogroups.com, Wallace Craig
wrote:
>
> Mike, is the discover "gas" discount card widely accepted? Does it
allow for other things than gas, oil, snacks, etc? I share your view,
always go to truck lanes; I would never even try rv lane.
>
> mbulriss <mbulriss@...> wrote: Re the recent topics above, I am
surprised that any BB drivers use the
> RV lanes at Flying J since, as Bruce said, they are typically very
> tight, usually backed up and have the slow (typically 5-10 gpm
> depending on pump setting and age) passenger car pump nozzles. I
> personally use the truck islands with the high speed (up to 30 gpm)
> fuel nozzles and spend 10 minutes fueling rather than half an hour or
> more. Besides, the one time I pulled into a spacious Flying J RV
> island (just to top off) when the RV pumps were all empty and the
> truck islands were all backed up, the manager came running out shaking
> his head and waving me over to the truck pumps! I personally have
> never seen a Flying J (or any other real truck stop) restrict fuel
> purchases to any dollar amount at the truck pumps.
>
> As an example of why not to use passenger car pumps, I recently filled
> up at a grocery store near the house that was 20 cents/gal lower than
> the truck stops and it took ~45 minutes to get 200 gallons using the
> passenger car pumps! The attendant was kind enough to ask if we
> needed a larger $ limit before we started. She set it at $300 and
> then re-set it again when we maxed that out. Oh yeah, got a call from
> the credit card fraud department before I got home regarding the
> back-to-back purchases. I gave them my cell phone number and they
> usually call me immediately after I buy fuel for the Bird! I actually
> appreciate them checking.
>
> The Flying J RV card I have was sent to me as part of my FMCA
> membership. It does a couple of things. It allows you to receive the
> cash price even when using a credit card (3 cents per gallon
> discount). And then they give you the 1 cent per gallon discount on
> top of that. As someone else mentioned, that discount supposedly
> can grow depending on total monthly purchases, but I've not seen it.
>
> FYI, no one has mentioned gas discount cards, but we also pay for all
> of our fuel purchases with the Discover 'Gas Card' which then gives us
> a 5% cash rebate. That's way better than the 1 cent. The Discover
> Gas Card is a separate program from the regular Discover cards. I
> saved about $200 on fuel last year using that card. Yes, that's a lot
> of fuel.....
>
> FWIW,
> Mike Bulriss
> 1991 WB40 "Texas Minivan"
> San Antonio, TX
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> Wallace Craig
> 95 WLWB 42
> Azle, Texas
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