Practical Plastic

Gas-Rebate Credit Cards Help Savings

Just because gasoline prices are dropping to the $2-per-gallon "comfort zone," you aren't buying into the fantasy that all is well now at the gas pump, are you? Puh-leeze! Try not inhaling so many fumes the next time you fill up! This is no time to get slap-happy at the gas station.

But the time is right to catch up with the Consummate Consumer's savvy traveling salesman, Ira Stoller, whose job survival demands that he stay on top of ways to save on the punishing price of gas.

When last we visited Stoller, more than a year ago, he was crisscrossing New Jersey's turnpiked terrain selling telecommunications equipment, putting 40,000 miles a year on his car and calling gas prices that, like now, were hovering above $2 a gallon "highway robbery!"

One of his methods of cutting travel costs was to upgrade his gas-rebate credit cards whenever necessary to get the best deal. He has saved hundreds of dollars shuffling his gas-rebate credit cards like a poker player in search of card issuers who up the ante.

Now the 69-year-old Stoller has cut back his annual mileage to closer to 26,000 miles. But, still, "I'm concerned about gas prices," he says, reporting that last week he found regular in central Jersey for $1.91 a gallon, "the lowest we've seen since Katrina!"

So what's in his wallet these days? Stoller says he still uses the trusty Citi Dividend Platinum Select card from Citibank that he switched to last year. The no-annual-fee card has several upsides, offering 5 percent cash rebates on gas, grocery and drugstore purchases from stand-alone stations and stores (not warehouse clubs, discount stores, department stores and convenience stores) and a 1 percent rebate on other purchases. Only downsides are that rebates are capped annually at $300 and it takes good credit to get one.

"Not to be outdone, Chase has a card which also gives 5 percent on gas and grocery purchases," says Stoller, referring to the Chase Cash Plus Rewards Visa card.

Several other gas-rebate cards offer 6 percent or more in rebates on gas purchases -- but usually with a hitch, such as the good deal lasts for 60 days before going back to a so-so deal, or it's good only for a specific brand of gas. Among those, says Stoller, is Chase's Hess credit card, offering a 10 percent rebate on Hess gas purchases for the first 90 days and 5 percent thereafter.

"The champion," he says, of those short-term deals for now is the Shell MasterCard that offers a 15 percent rebate on subsequent purchases of Shell gas for the first 60 days and 5 percent thereafter.

Shell MasterCard spokeswoman Elizabeth Hudson says the card has offered the core deal of a 5 percent rebate on Shell gas purchases since it began in 1993. But its current introductory promotion triples rebates for the first 60 days on any new account through Jan. 15. "That's not just for gasoline," says Hudson. "For all other everyday purchases, you get a 1 percent rebate applied toward your future Shell gasoline purchases, and for the first 60 days that triples. . . . You can imagine the savings."

Hudson calculates that with the 15 percent rebate, if gas is an average $2.35 a gallon, you save about 35 cents a gallon -- on 20 gallons that's $7. "It can really help you cut your driving expenses," she says. "We wanted a bold, in-your-face offer."

But this caveat: To make a gas-rebate credit card valuable, do as Ira Stoller does and pay off the monthly balance every month on time.