This one might be a bit off-topic from our usual overlanding or gear-review blog post, but hopefully some of our readers might find it useful. Fuel is normally the biggest expense we have when traveling. We try to eat fairly cheaply and try to camp for free on public land, so it’s high gas prices that end up taking the biggest bite out of our traveling budget.
Full disclosure: This post includes an affiliate link to one of the apps we recommend – Upside
Someday, perhaps we’ll be able to unroll a blanket of super efficient solar cells and charge up an off-road vehicle that’s actually affordable and offers decent range. For now though, we’re still bound to burning dinosaur bones in order to reach those places we love to explore.
The following are some ways we’ve found to cut down on fuel cost, by using some of the myriad fuel discount programs available to consumers.
Which Gas Rewards Program Works Best For Travelers?
After trying several of the more popular fuel rewards programs over the past five years, we concluded that for those who travel frequently to new places across the USA, there really isn’t one clear winner in terms of overall savings, but some are better than others at keeping money in your wallet.
Programs like Shell Fuel Rewards are great, (and free to join) getting you up to 5 cents off per gallon, but the main purpose of these is to get you to visit their stations, which may or may not have the best fuel price around. Even a five cent per gallon discount isn’t worth much if the station just across the street is 6 cents cheaper.
For adventure travelers exploring new parts of the country, being able to be flexible with brands and rewards programs is key to saving money.
Fuel Rewards vs. Fuel Discount Programs
Programs like BPme Rewards, Exxon Mobil Rewards+, Pilot Flying J myRewards Plus, and others are worth joining, but only if you’re diligent about using them. Some of these, like Murphy Drive Rewards require redeeming points to get fuel discounts vs. a per gallon discount at the time of purchase, which is simply a ploy to get you to come back to the station. It’s much better to receive a discount at the time of purchase vs. a reward, which you may forget to use.
Our Experience Using Two Gas Rewards/Discount Apps
Fuel discount apps take the place of individual gas station discount programs, with pricing deals worked out behind the scenes that may include discounts for paying with debit (GasBuddy). We first began our fuel cost savings quest by using the Upside app, which we found did offer substantial discounts (in the form of cash back rewards) at many of the stations in our home area of Austin, Texas.
How Upside Works: After accepting and completing the “deal” using the app, your linked credit card is charged the regular fuel price. Later, a cash reward is credited to your account in the amount of the savings vs. full price. Upside normally offers a very generous reward for the very first use, with savings of up to 40 cents per gallon or more, just to “reel you in”. Even a one time use may be worth it for this app, which saved us $14 on one fill-up in New Mexico.
The downside is, when we traveled to more rural places, such as out in west Texas, many of the stations that Upside listed, in places such as Ozona, Fort Stockton and Sonora, were not where they were supposed to be on the map after hitting “navigate to station”. (We ended up visiting some vacant lots, the U.S. Post Office, etc.) When parked at the actual station, a message often told us we were at the wrong spot. For us to get credit, the app had to pinpoint us at the station’s exact GPS coordinates. Although Upside gave us the option to “submit your receipt manually”, this wasn’t something we really wanted to deal with.
Outside of major urban areas, the savings offered by Upside were fairly minimal. Often the discount wasn’t as much as as the station’s own loyalty program, such as Shell Fuel Rewards – which you can’t combine with Upside or other rewards programs.
The Bottom Line on Upside? Upside is easier to use than signing up for multiple fuel reward programs and in urban areas can often save you quite a lot. Because you use your own credit card, unlike GasBuddy’s “Pay With GasBuddy, which utilizes your debit card,) you can earn points from cards like our Wells Fargo Autograph – which pays 3 cents back per dollar on fuel!
Keep an eye on the app, especially if you haven’t used it in a while. To get you back to using it, they’ll often give discounts well over 30 cents per gallon!
If you want to give Upside a try, you can use our promo code at Upside.com and use code 8WREX for an extra 15 cents per gallon off your first fill-up.
GasBuddy – Beats Upside, But With a Catch – A second app, GasBuddy, is more user-friendly than Upside, and in our experience typically offers higher discounts. This app uses crowdsourcing to locate the lowest gas prices in an area, and is generally fairly accurate. Even if you don’t use the “Pay With GasBuddy” or “GasBack” features, it can often help you find the lowest priced fuel in an area.
How GasBuddy Works: After accepting the deal and using the “Pay With GasBuddy” card, your bank account will be debited, with the savings-per-gallon applied. Using debit instead of credit may not be that convenient for everyone, hence the downside.
If using a linked credit card you earn “GasBack”, which can also be earned from online purchases through their app from some retailers, along with participating restaurants. (We got $53 in GasBack by ordering a set of Nitto Ridge Grapplers from Tire Rack and checking out through the app.) Be patient though, since it can take 90 days or more before you’re account is credited.
How Much Does GasBuddy Save? – How much you save can depend on what part of the country you are traveling in. In Moab, UT, for example, we found that average savings with Gasbuddy was only around 4 cents per gallon. Back in Austin, TX, where we live, the average savings was around 8 cents per gallon.
The downside of using GasBuddy is that in order to get the highest savings, you must use the “Pay With GasBuddy” feature. This involves using their own payment card, which takes the place of your bank’s debit card and requires entering a pin number at the pump.
GasBuddy Premium – For us, GasBuddy’s $10 a month “Premium” membership didn’t prove to be worth it, since the highest savings only go to those using premium gas, not regular – not enough to offset the monthly fee. It does include roadside assistance, but we already get that for a dollar a month from State Farm.
Fuel Discount Programs vs. GasBuddy and Upside
If you don’t mind having a wallet full of discount cards from different stations, programs such as Shell’s Fuel Rewards are actually worth using to save a few cents per gallon. If they offer an instant discount at the pump and not points, they’re much easier to use than either apps or reward programs which involve points which have to be redeemed.
Safety – One thing to consider about using some app-based fuel rewards programs is that they involve several steps, consuming your time and attention when fueling up. Do you really want to be the distracted person at the pump or in the car messing with your phone in a strange area, or do you just prefer to get your fuel and go?
Privacy Issues With Gas Discount Programs
It’s worth mentioning that both GasBuddy and Upside use location tracking and can and do sell that information, along with your purchasing history, to third parties. You can disable location tracking, but in doing so you’ll find the apps hard to use. Even some gas rewards cards may share your purchasing data with third parties. The adage “you never get something for nothing” applies to most of these programs.
Grocery Store Gas Rewards Programs
Some grocery store chains, including Safeway/Albertsons/Randalls and Kroger, offer fuel rewards programs and you can get some extra fuel savings from everyday grocery shopping. Typically, you get one point per dollar spent, with extra points on some categories, such as gift cards. With Safeway’s program, 100 points = 10¢ per gallon Gas Reward and you can redeem up to $1 worth per gallon.
Grocery store points expire, and have a ton of conditions for using them, not to mention taking a looong time to add up to anything significant. Again, redeeming rewards isn’t as convenient as saving immediately at the pump, which why we don’t use these as much.
Combining Gas Discount Programs With Reward Credit Cards
One way to squeeze even a bit more out of gas rewards programs is to use a credit card which offers cash rewards for gas purchases. The Wells Fargo Autograph card, with no annual fee, offers 3% cash back at most gas stations and 1% back at warehouse and grocery store stations; however, we’ve noticed that sometimes we still get the full rewards amount at these. (We recently used our Wells Fargo Autograph card at a Walmart (Murphy USA) and received 3% back – besides the 10 cent per gallon Walmart Plus discount, for total savings of 18 cents per gallon.)
Unlike gas savings apps, some credit card rewards can be layered with loyalty programs such as Shell Fuel Rewards, for even greater savings. Just be sure to look for credit cards which offer true cash back, which you can apply to your bill, not points, which must be redeemed only for certain items.
If your bank has a rewards program, as Wells Fargo does, you can often save 2% or more by signing up for deals, like the one below, which can be layered with other rewards programs for greater overall fuel savings.
Open Roads
TSD Logistics (Open Roads) is a commercial fuel discount program that offer discounts up to 30 cents per gallon on diesel. Open Roads also open to non-commercial users who use diesel. We don’t have any personal experience with this service, since we use gasoline, but some RV’ers we’ve heard from swear by it for savings. For more you can visit TSD Logistics (not a referral link). Among the stations included in this program are Loves, Petro, Kwik Trip, Speedway, RaceTrac and several others. According to the website, gas will be included in the program at some point.
Saving By Planning Ahead
The difference in gas prices found in one area can vary drastically from from another a few miles down the road. Anyone who has ever run low on fuel and been forced to stop at some small towns out west, just off the interstate, knows what we’re talking about. It can pay to plan your route using price finding apps like GasBuddy, so you can only fuel up when you need to, in cheaper places.
Which Fuel Reward – Discount Program Do We Use Now?
After several years of trying to chase down fuel discounts and rewards through a number of programs, honestly we now get the most savings by fueling at Costco and stations affiliated with the Walmart Plus program. In most parts of the country, theses discount stores beat most gas stations in terms of price – and they’re getting their fuel from the exact same refineries as the major brand stations. (Where we can’t fill up at Walmart or Costco, we use Upside or Pay With Gasbuddy.)
Walmart Plus (similar to Amazon Prime) costs $100 a year. Along with free home grocery delivery (which saves gas) and other benefits, membership gets you up to 10 cents off per gallon at Murphy USA, Walmart, Exxon and Mobile stations and allows you to purchase fuel at Sam’s Club at the member price. Using the Walmart Plus fuel savings program is as easy as entering a six-digit code or scanning a QR code, which is much easier than using the GasBuddy or Upside app.
Note: If your family’s combined driving is less that 17,000 miles per year, (assuming 17 mpg and a 10 cents per gallon discount on 1,000 gallons) you probably won’t come out ahead if purchasing a Walmart Plus subscription just for fuel savings alone. We joined Costco and Walmart Plus for the additional savings benefits, so fuel savings are just a bonus.
The main reason that membership-based discount stores like Sam’s Club, Costco and programs such as Walmart Plus usually beat most other gas station’s prices is that for them gasoline is what’s referred to as a “loss leader” in the industry. These are products sold at or near actual cost, simply to get more traffic into their locations.
Love ’em or hate ’em, these discount retailers can save you some hard cash when fueling up on your next road trip. As with everything else, your own mileage may vary, so to speak. There may be some other gas savings program out there that beats the aforementioned ones – if so, please let us know about it!
