ARCO Credit Card

30 Aug, 2009  Credit Cards Arco Credit Arco Credit Card Card Credit Card

Is an ARCO credit card really a good deal or just questionable marketing? As a resident of Southern California, there are quite a few ARCO gas stations around here. Their motto is “straight up gas” and they claim to be an average of 5 to 10 cents cheaper per gallon than other stations. But my review which follows exposes the facts.

Paper, Not Plastic
Now this is a huge inconvenience for many. They do not accept Visa, MasterCard, Discover, or American Express cards for payment. Besides cash, you can pay with a debit card. But the kicker is that they charge a “convenience fee” of 45 cents to do so.

So let’s do the math. Let’s say they truly are 5-10 cents less for every gallon (they’re not but I’ll discuss that in a moment). If you bought 10 gallons and saved 5 cents per gallon, that would equal 50 cents total. Now if you paid with your debit, that would mean hypothetically you only saved 5 cents. If you have an ARCO gas credit card though, they do waive this fee.

Lower Quality Fuel?
First of all, I need to be careful what I’m about to say so I don’t get sued by ARCO. I am in no way claiming their fuel is lower quality. Rather, I am merely mentioning a few unsubstantiated rumors I have heard from various sources.

A car dealer informed me not to use their gas in my car. She claims that it is is “watered down” and if you’re going to use it, you should put an octane booster in right before you fill up the tank – otherwise the fuel injector will wear down faster.

Regarding the above statement, she doesn’t mean literally that water is used to dilute its concentration. What she was referring to, I believe, is what I heard from another person about ethanol. He said that ethanol is commonly added to gas. However he said that concentration should not exceed 10%. He told  me he suspects the gas ARCO uses might be higher ethanol concentrations – it still meets the legal requirements, but it’s more than the average amount added. Again, I need to mention this is what he told me and he did no present me with any proof of this claim.

“Regular” Stations
So how much more do the “other” stations cost? Well I’ve kept an eye on the discrepancies constantly over the years. There are “name brand” stations around me such as Shell, 76, and Chevron and I would say on average they only run 5 to 7 cents more. Being that there are cards that save 3 to 5% (notice that’s percent, not cents) per gallon, that would mean if it were $3 gal., I would be saving 9 to 15 cents. That’s much more than what I would be saving at ARCO even if I paid with cash there.

So is an ARCO credit card going to save you money? It doesn’t look like it. You will probably be better off with using a instead.

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