So I’ve had a BP gas credit card in my wallet for most of my adult life – 30 years to be exact. So it came as somewhat of a shock to me when I received a letter the other day informing me that BP is discontinuing its gas-only credit cards, and moving all of its cardholders over to a BP-branded Visa card.
But I’m getting ahead of myself – let’s take a quick look at the history of the private-label gasoline branded credit card.
Credit cards first appeared in the 1920s (indeed, some of the earliest cards were for gas companies), but didn’t really become commonplace until the 1960s. By 1970, the industry had consolidated down to four major networks: Diners Club, American Express, BankAmericard (now Visa), and Master Charge (now MasterCard), all of whom collected a processing fee from the merchant for each purchase to cover their operating and marketing expenses.
Of course, all the major gas companies also issued their own private label cards as well, and in the early days, there was frequently tension between bank credit cards and gas branded cards.
Gasoline sales were (and remain) a low-margin business, and credit card processing fees can take a big chunk of those profits, so oftentimes it was up to the individual station owner whether to accept general-purpose credit cards or not. Until the 1980s, gas companies didn’t charge station owners transaction fees on their private label credit cards to incentivize their use, so many opted not to accept bank credit cards.
Therefore the only guaranteed way to pay for gas (other than by carrying a stack of cash or traveler’s checks) was a gas company credit card (ideally several, in case your preferred brand didn’t have a station close by). My grandfather, who was in outside sales and basically worked out of his car when I was growing up, probably had half a dozen gas station credit cards in his wallet.
Remember these?
Private label gasoline credit cards exploded in popularity during the Arab oil embargo of 1973 and 1974, which drove the cost of filling up to higher than the amount of cash a typical consumer had on hand, as well as forcing some people to leverage credit to finance their fuel purchases.
Gasoline stayed expensive throughout the ’70s thanks to inflation and global events, and by 1979 both Texaco and Mobil had stopped accepting all credit cards other than their own proprietary cards, further necessitating the carrying of multiple private-label gas cards.
This move would prove to be both short-sighted and short-lived. By the early 1980s, Texaco and Mobil had both reversed their stance on bank cards, and the long, slow decline of the proprietary gasoline credit card had begun.
Today, every major gas brand licenses its branding to bank-issued credit cards, and what was once a cost center has now become yet another revenue center.
Backside of my old BP Card. Member since 1992, until 2022.
As a result, gasoline-only cards are getting harder to find. I haven’t checked how many petroleum companies still issue gasoline-only credit cards, but after May 22 there was one less, as BP is transitioning all their gasoline cardholders over to a BPMe Rewards Visa. There’s no option to stay on the current account, and the only way to opt-out is by canceling your account, which after 30 years of being a customer is exactly what I did.
Now you might ask why I still care about private label gas company credit cards in this day and age, when you can just use a debit card or some other credit card? To me, they offer at least two benefits:
- A low-limit credit card limits my exposure to skimmers and PIN readers, both of which fuel pumps are frequent targets of, as opposed to risking my debit card which has direct access to my checking and savings accounts.
- Having young drivers in the house, gas company cards are convenient to give to my kids until they are financially self-sufficient. Unlike bank cards, gas cards can only be used to purchase gas (and maybe small snacks in the convenience store).
By switching over to a Visa card, these benefits are gone, and my BP card has become just another credit card, for which I have no particular use.
No doubt BP sees the writing on the wall: As cars continue to get electrified, fewer people will stop at their gasoline stations to get their petrochemical fix. While this transition will take decades, the arrow of history on this is already clear, so BP needs to start looking for new revenue streams, including licensing its logo for co-branded credit cards.
So what’s in your wallet? Is everyone else using credit and debit cards to pay for gas, or are you, like me, still clinging to gas-only cards, that relic from another era?
I also remember when stations would only accept their own brand of credit cards. Starting my career in the early 80’s, I must of had 5 different gas station cards. All that went out the window when stations would accept any Visa or Master Card. Once the pumps accepted debit cards, I let the gas brand credit cards expire. I’d watch then drop off my credit reports as time passed.
This is a really interesting topic. I had kind of forgotten that any of the oil companies was still offering a proprietary credit card.
I remember around the time I graduated from high school, I was thrilled that Mobil Oil Company thought enough of me to send me a credit card application (You are pre-approved!) I applied and got my card, then discovered that there were maybe only one or two Mobil stations in my hometown and neither was anywhere near where I lived or worked.
This was when most oil company retail networks went from national to regional, with most consolidating into a geographic area and having a significant presence there. My go-tos became Shell and Marathon, but then when traveling you had to pay attention to where you bought gas (and look on the back of the card for the related brands that accepted that card.) My Mobil card came in handy when visiting Philly. I think they all either converted to a MC/Visa or I just dropped them after regular cards became commonly accepted. I can’t tell you how long it has been since I had a dedicated oil company card.
I grew up in New Jersey, and my dad always had a Mobil card and an Esso card. The Esso card was useful on road trips, as it was honored at other descendants of the original Standard Oil empire (Sohio in Ohio, Amoco/Standard in large swaths of the Midwest, Plains, and Mountain states, Chevron/Standard in California and the Southeast, and probably others I don’t remember). I kind of recall the Mobil card had more limited agreements and didn’t have nationwide usefulness. I also remember back in 61-62 there were independent stations in the more remote parts of the Southwest that had huge billboards stating they accepted any major-company card. I don’t know how that worked, but those were the bills that took months to trickle in once we were back home. I had some gas cards (as well as department-store cards) for years after I started working, but I gave them all up once MC/Visa/Amex acceptance was universal.
By the way, someone should do a post on the transition in the 60s from U.S.-highway culture (independent motels and local eateries) to Interstate-highway culture (chains for everything). I could, except I don’t have the pictures necessary to illustrate such a project.
Tom, thanks for looking at the slice of the recent past that I’ve completely forgotten about.
My folks had gas-station credit cards, and I recall that when I was a young adult in the 1990s, my father urged me to apply for my own “to build up credit.” I don’t remember if I actually did that or not… if so, it was short-lived, since by then credit cards were accepted at just about all gas stations and the gas-station-only card seemed superfluous to me (credit-building or not).
Your points about the benefits of gas-station credit cards are interesting, and I hadn’t thought of them.
After I got my drivers license, I would often take my parents’ cars out to fill up with gas, and they’d give me their gas card for that purpose (usually Mobil or Sunoco). One little detail I’d forgotten about is shown on your featured Sohio card — at the bottom it says “Obtain license number from vehicle at time of delivery.” Inevitably, the person in front of me in line would forget their plate number, so they’d have to run back to the car to check on it. That always seemed like a silly requirement, because you could tell the clerks any combination of numbers and they’d write it down… really didn’t add any security unless the clerks actually verified the plate number.
I was told at a young age not to charge gas or food because by the time that the bill came due, all you had to show was farts and fumes.
Last night, we stopped at a marina in the inlet I live on to refuel my friend’s Grady White. 87 octane unleaded was $5.75 a gallon, and we needed a couple hundred gallons of it. The gentleman who assisted us asked if we had an account. My friend didn’t have an account, and asked what was involved. “I just need your address and phone number,” was the answer. In a fraction of the time it took to pump the gas, my friend had an account that allowed him to make $1,300 gas purchases with a signature and no identification. What a glorious reminder of what society was like forty-five years ago, when you could go to the local hardware store and sign for everything you needed for spring. They’d deliver it all too, having your address handy since it and your word were taken over the opinion of a credit agency.
I have noticed several brands of gas offering gas credit cards that get you a few cents off the price per gallon, which considering there are some stations that charge about $0.05/gallon for using a ” regular ” credit card might make it worth it to some customers.
And now I see some brands of gasoline offering discounts if you download their APP and use it for paying gasoline purchases.
My first credit card in the later 80s was a Texaco card. Gas cards were easier for a young adult to get than general credit cards then.
Good ole Sohio! No fuel line freeze up or Sohio pays your tow!
My first card was an Exxon card. It was because I worked at the local Exxon station so it was easy to get.
Great article, brought back memories!
First got a Chase M/C Shell credit card in 1995. At that time, you got 5% off Shell gas, and THREE PERCENT cash back all other purchases! I guess that was too good a deal for the consumer, so then it became a Visa Shell card, with 1% cash back on everything and 5% on rotating categories. That in turn became a Chase Freedom card, and the Shell logo was dropped, so there’s no more affiliation with Shell.
Incidentally, I always pay for gas in cash–it avoids scammers and the gas station makes a little more profit on the cash sale.
Interesting…I had a Shell-only credit card starting in 1982 (I just found it in a drawer), which was replaced (as I recall, no choice) by a “First Card” Shell Mastercard, issued by the First National Bank of Chicago. Pretty sure this was in 1989, because although the card gradually morphed into a Chemical Bank/Shell MC and then a Chase/Shell MC, and finally just Chase Freedom Visa, it still says “Member Since 1989” on the front.
Some gas company cards were good for stays at Holiday Inns and the like, although the credit limit was fairly low. Still, motel stays weren’t as expensive as they are now.
There were also air travel cards issued by United and I assume the other airlines.
I also have a Chase Freedom Visa card, which started out as a Chase MasterCard Shell card in 1993. I didn’t use it all that often for Shell gas, since the 5% discount would often not undercut competing gas station prices. The 3% cash back for all other purchases though was quite generous for the time.
Interesting that they dropped private label. Private label is alive and well at the big box home improvement stores. I picked a Lowe’s card recently as it provides a 5% discount on all purchases. Like your BP card, it is issued by Synchrony Bank.
In the early ’80s private label was the suggested way for a young person to build credit. A Sears card was usually very easy to get, as were gas cards. I think mine was Mobil, chosen because it was the nearest station, and directly on my drive to a part time job. Definitely created loyalty for the gas station, and some stations offered a little discount for cash or private label vs. a Visa or MasterCard.
Even with roller coaster gas prices (sound familiar?) I was easily able to afford my monthly bill as school, work and home were all very close. The card made me feel mature as I would fill my tank full from a quarter tank, while my friends were constantly running on fumes and dropping $3-$5 dollars in at a time, wasting a lot of gas just buying gas.
The cards were also a way for companies to handle fleet vehicles. When my dad would bring home a company car, there was little card portfolio in the glove box with several different brands of gas cards.
Sears was my first Credit card, followed by a Texaco card.
Yes, my interest in money/ finance converged with cars. I still have a lot of Craftsman stuff that I bought from Sears, Robuck and Company.
Craftsman seems to be in a revival. Lowe’s has a growing array, and I read conflicting reports on how it relates to their Kobalt line. ACE Hardware also has deep Craftsman lines at this time. Craftsman seems to be moving a decent amount of production to the US.
There is some open question to the Craftsman lifetime warranty as sold by Sears. Apparently, if you push the right Lowe’s manager the right way, your Sears warranty is still valid.
Sears sold the rights to use the Craftsman brand to manufacturer Stanley Black and Decker, for exclusive sale (for now, anyway) through Lowes, Ace Hardware, and Amazon. There are still Craftsman tools sold at the handful of Sears stores still open (mostly “Sears Hometown” small stores that mainly sell appliances, with some tools and lawn/garden gear, maybe mattresses), but these are unrelated to the Craftsman tools sold elsewhere and can be made by anybody, anywhere. And yes, there was a tentative agreement for Lowes (and Ace?) to continue to replace any broken Sears-era Craftsman hand tools for free without a receipt, and vice versa. That lifetime warranty helped sell lots of Craftsman tools, and resulted in Home Depot and Lowes adopting similar policies for their Husky and Cobalt hand tools respectively. But neither of those brands were anywhere near as well known as Craftsman, and until about 25 years ago Sears stores were everywhere compared to HD or Lowes, making the warranty more useful. The owners and retailers of the Craftsman brand know the warranties are a big part of its appeal.
Sears also sold the Diehard battery brand to Advance Auto Parts.
Have never used credit to pay for gas. My dad used an Esso credit card until the mid-70s before switching to a Canadian Tire card. These are American Esso cards, but this is how I generally remembered them appearing. I’d say Petro-Canada points cards may be the most popular gas company cards (of any type) in Canada today.
I had Petro points, Esso points, etc., but I just stick to my bank issued credit card. It gives the cash rebate at the end of they year. If I happen to go to Shell, I can use my CAA card and get pennies off per litre.
I’ve always found paying for gas with cash very inconvenient. At least in my neck of the woods, you have to pay first, so I don’t know how much it’ll take to fill the tank. I would have to guess and if I hit that amount first, I don’t have a full tank. If the tank fills first, then I have to go back inside and wait on line to get my refund. Credit is so much easier, although more expensive. MUCH more expensive these days!
I should have mentioned it, but I do use my debit cards. I did use cash years ago.
I’m old enough to recall these gas-only credit cards. My Dad had a few, as did my great uncle. But in 1979 when I was in my 18 to 19 year-old ‘establish credit’ stage, my Dad suggested I get a gas only credit card. I can’t say if I ever had one, thinking that my first credit card was from Montgomery Wards (and yes, I stupidly bought gas with it). Recalling that 1981 was a really bad year for gas prices, $1.219/gal ($3.915/gal adjusted – wow, today’s prices REALLY suck!, but I digress), it’s probably why I used the credit at such a young age. But it worked, as I established good credit, which today is just north of an 820 credit score!
I think the trend by the early eighties was away from gas only credit cards. Today, it seems all about the gas rewards offered up by grocery stores and such. A regional chain of stores around here (Giant) has paired up the Shell’s Fuel Rewards program (they have a LOT of partners, like Advance Auto Parts for example). The other day, I filled up at $3.379, while everyone else was paying just shy of $5 per gallon, through careful use of my ‘points’.
As to the QOTD at the end of this post: “What’s in your wallet?”… yes, as cliché as it sounds, a Capital One Venture Card is one of them. 😉
‘Bout the only thing I remember about ’em is this scene from 1994’s “Reality Bites”. The backstory: Winona Rider’s character’s father handed her a gas card on her graduation from college and told her he’d pay the bill for a year. In accord with the film’s title, she can’t find a job. Father tells her she needs to show more ingenuity, and so:
The musical reference to gas-only credit cards that I remember best is in The Dead Milkmen’s classic song “Bitchin’ Camaro”….
So you’d better get out of my way
When I come through your yard
‘Cause I’ve got a bitchin’ Camaro
And an Exxon credit card
I suppose that would still be “Esso” to our friends up north, speaking of old classic gas station names in response to “Sinclair” below. Thanks Dan, BTW.
A gas credit card was one of the very first cards I got to establish a credit history along with a card for JC Penny. Both were in the fall of 1972 when I was 19 years old. The gas card was from Shell which I used almost exclusively for about 15 years or so. By then I also had VISA but having VISA did not make me stop using the Shell card. What stopped that was the now increasingly larger gap between name brand gas and no name gas stations pricing.
So from that point on I have always paid in cash and have never used a Visa or Mastercard for buying gas. I have also never used those cards to purchase groceries either. I have always felt that if the item is a short term item and used immediately, gas and food qualify, then pay for them immediately and have.
Phone apps have largely replaced gas station credit cards. I still have a couple of oil company cards, but no longer carry them. I use them in conjunction with the phone app. Paying with the phone app drops the pump price $.25/gal (Conoco, Phillips 66 or Union 76) or $0.20/gal (Sinclair).
Sinclair still exists? I haven’t seen a Sinclair station since the late seventies.
Yep, though only in certain states. I’ve always liked their green-dinosaur mascot.
Yeah, me too. I recall being a little kid and driving down into southwestern Virginia with my parents and seeing a rather big one on the side of the road as an attraction. At least I think it was the Sinclair Dino, as that was typically where we would stop for gas before getting onto I-81 if memory serves.
There are a few around in Northern California, although they’re not very common compared to the other major brands. There’s a place along my commute (back before I started working from home) that actually switched brands to Sinclair a few years ago.
Yes. Saw a Sinclair station in Fort Bragg, CA.
Sinclair is pretty common, though not quite Chevron/Shell ubiquitous, in the interior West.
Yes, high test dino juice remains available at several locations in Omaha, NE. However, a quick bit of research on the Sinclair website indicates the following:
HF Sinclair (NYSE: DINO), the new parent entity of HollyFrontier, has completed its acquisition of Sinclair Oil. As a subsidiary of HF Sinclair, we’re in the process of updating our website to reflect this change.
Our big green friend’s future is uncertain, but I hope he keeps going for a while.
I find it rather ironic that prior to temporarily moving to Maryland in ’62-’63, I’d never seen a Sinclair station. Now, here you are in Maryland and haven’t seen a Sinclair station in over 40 years, and we have one in town here in the SF East Bay where I grew up.
They were giving away these tumblers when we lived there.
I have a set of 6 of those glasses!
We had somewhere around 6, too, but I only have 2 now. They evoke pleasant memories.
They’re a major brand here in Colorado along with Wyoming and Utah (they’re based in Utah) and probably most of the Rocky Mtn states. I actually filled up there today as they were some 40c cheaper than the next option up in Laramie, WY ($4.28 for regular 85, $4.58 for 88 and $4.88 for 91octane), so low it’s almost free! Some are now using “Big D” as the main branding and Sinclair in smaller text. Same dinosaur out front of each one.
I had a gas card briefly in the ’70s until I moved from Illinois to Colorado where the local fuel (mostly Conoco) was not the card I had (Amoco). That was that.
Now I use a second card to get a better price. In Wyoming I have a Maverik club card that, when shoved in first before my credit card, reduces the per gallon price three or four cents. In Arizona I go to Costco where one must use their membership card first and then a Visa card to pay (used to be AMEX). Costco is much cheaper there than regular stations; I go there at 7 or 8 am to avoid lines.
I started out as a cash only guy, if I didn’t have the cash for it I didn’t buy it. My first apartment started the change, after paying my rent with cash for about 8 months suddenly there was a notice passed out thru the slip it under your door system, Cash would no longer be accepted as payment for rent, checks only!
My first attempt at credit was at the bank, wanted a loan to purchase a snowmobile, nope!
Next was Sears, no credit for you!
Then it was Super America, local gas chain. Turned down the first two times I applied. Finally got the card on the third try. I wanted the their card, they were close by, open 24 hours and I was tired of writing 8-10 checks a month to them.
Now since the pandemic everything is purchased by card. 1-5% cash back depending on what I buy and where I buy it.
The small business guys get cash, non-franchise restaurants, dog groomer, hair cuts, my tire guy, always tip servers directly with cash, etc.
Everybody else, its charge it unless you offer a real cash discount.
Charga-Plate it’s what’s in my wallet, errr pants I mean.
After the first gas crisis, didn’t the major brands charge 5 cents/gal more for credit vs. cash, even with their own cards?
We found a copy of a typed letter my grandfather had written to Standard Oil of NJ (Exxon) in 1933. He was a county clerk of court in Tobacco Road, but unlike most lawyers, flat broke, because he’d bought stock on margin and then signed a contract to build a house in August 1929 (after he’d won the Democratic nomination to his office, which he held until his death in ’64). He was writing to tell Esso that he couldn’t pay his gas bill because the county couldn’t collect enough taxes to pay its employees.
“After the first gas crisis, didn’t the major brands charge 5 cents/gal more for credit vs. cash, even with their own cards?”
In our area, it seems to vary. Some of the smaller independently owned Shell stations for example, or even local places like Carroll Independent Fuel, still charge 5 (or more) cents per gallon for credit. But in larger cities (like here in Baltimore), many of the larger gas stations and convenience stores, like Wawa, Royal Farms, etc., charge the same price, cash or credit.
Out here they all charge 10 cents more for credit cards in this area; now some have raised that to 12 cents.
I haven’t seen that in the East in decades. I don’t think many gas stations want to be known to have a lot of cash on hand.
Fascinating, in this country nobody but nobody uses cash everything is done by cards from the smallest purchase to the largest or done by instant bank transfer on your phone.
I use diesel fuel cards everyday to refuel the truck I drive however the limit is $1000 on one and $500 on the other brand,@ $3.01 per litre 425 litres is well over the limits but I only use around 200 litres per day so the system works fine.
Some states set regulations or passed laws that gasoline retailers could not charge more for credit (though some allowed a loophole of giving a discount for ‘cash’). I don’t think it was or is totally uniform.
The local independent “US Pro” gas station near my house only took cash and debit cards, no pay-at-the-pump, when we moved here a few years ago. A few years ago they started taking CC’s. A few months ago they put up a new sign with two price columns, and finally started charging 10-12 cents more for credit cards. They’re still 40-80 cents per gallon cheaper than the Chevron across the street, which often seems busier.
I had a summer job after freshman year in ’79 with the part of the DoE that regulated fuel sales. DoE invoked emergency allocation rules for wholesale diesel that spring, and the one guy who’d designed and understood the required forms went on vacation for two weeks, so we clerks would transfer calls from bemused wholesalers around the building until they gave up.
Late in the summer, I was privileged to help answer the phone for the head of the Economic Regulatory Administration (the name of the outfit). He wore sandals with his suit and rode the bus to work. He decided that to prevent price gouging (i.e., the free market, which eventually solved the supply issue under Reagan), retailers could charge a maximum of 15.4 cents over their wholesale cost for gasoline. This was after gas had gone from the .60s to over a whole dollar!! per gallon.
I remember the gas cards. Mom was dedicated to Gulf. My grandmother’s favorite was Sinclair. I didn’t have a gas card until it was time to leave Atlanta for Philadelphia for grad school in 1983. I got a Texaco and Shell card at some point, and my mom co-signed my first Master Charge card. Mom had a wallet full of department store cards, too. Shell was cheaper when I lived in SF for a year (1990). My gas cards (and a few others) went by the wayside when in 1997 when my gym locker at SUNY-Albany was broken into carefully and just the paper bills and one credit card was taken (AT&T Universal gold card–discounted LD phone calls), and $662 later got it cancelled when I discovered it missing two hours later. So I called my dad about losing a wallet and he said: Why the f*** are you F***ing carrying so G**D*** many F***ing credit cards? Taking the hint, I got my credit report and discovered I still had a lot of open accounts and went on a cancelling spree. By this time gas cards had no added value so they were gone, so were all the dept store cards (I never carried them, but took advantage of one-time discounts). A minor mistake was cancelling my first Master Charge (now MasterCard) account because it was my oldest account and that affects your credit rating (no points for responsibly reducing your credit exposure; in fact, by reducing your overall amount of credit you have (denominator), it increases the % of credit used that remains unchanged (numerator), so credit card companies now think you’re a reckless spender and then ding your credit score. Aren’t algorithms just great?). Since then I’ve only carried three cards: AMEX, Visa (Costco), and MasterCard (1% back and no fees on overseas purchases). I think Shell still offers their card, but with so many retailers trying to get in the back card game with incentives, it really depends on what vendor you want to use the most, like airlines for the miles.
When I was of age, mom would hand me her Gulf card and tell me to fill up her car the next time I went out. That was the first time I used a credit card on my own. The station we used I knew most of the technicians (mechanics) by name and the manager / owner was Mr. Armstrong, so they knew me already. Using the card was one more baby step to growing up and living on my own.
Points off for having too many credit cards and bank accounts…points off for having too few. Points off for carrying too much debt…points off for carrying too little. Points off for paying your bill a day late…or a day early. It’s a giant scam magicked into existence on a foundation of legal fairytales for the further benefit of the already-wealthy.
Amen.
WOW! Sorry, my condolences on the situation in Canada. In the US, there is absolutely no penalty for paying your bills early. I am chronically allergic to debt and in the rare instances I take out credit, usually for some incentive, I pay it off early in every sense of that word and/or T&Cs. My wife is prone to applying for credit cards to get some sort of incentive (within reason, to be fair), and I periodically close the resulting accounts.
While you are absolutely correct that there is a ratio of debt to credit available aspect to credit scores, there is no practical penalty to closing cards. If you are dumb enough to whittle your open to buy to a few thousand dollars, even charges that you pay off automatically each month will create an unfavorable debt to credit available ratio. Credit scores have to be based on available data, and if you create no data, you will have a low score. Math sucks. Ask a programmer to whip up something on a zero data set.
Source: Credit score well north of 800 since dirt was discovered. Involved in commercial and consumer financial products since two score and seven months ago.
Proof, Not a Corporate Shill: When I ran my rental property business, I took into account that some people have a lack of credit experience – the young, most frequently. I looked for a lack of malicious credit abuse. If you had a few lines of credit, and handled them responsibly, you were in.
I was talking about the situation in the US; things are marginally less Ferengi in Canada.
It was explained to me (by a reputable and performant US financial adviser, speaking about the US system) that consistently paying off one’s credit cards in full is bad for the credit score. I’m sure I’m forgetting the details, but that was the nub of it, and it made perfect sense to me in a system predicated on ever-increasing consumption and designed to wring maximum money out of consumers by nudging them into more and more debt. You said so yourself: if you create no data, you will have a low score. For me that’s uncomfortably close to gambling-style “if you don’t play, you can’t win!” type of magical thinking.
I don’t intend you any personal slight or insult; you sound like a stand-up guy. But your 800+ credit score doesn’t make me want to emulate you, it just tells me you’re good at playing the shell game. Me, I find it odious and offensive, and I try to minimise my involvement with it.
(I don’t know what “whittle your open” means, but I checked and found that I had, in fact, zipped up my trousers)
I, too, fell into the FICO credit score rabbit hole. I paid off the mortgage on my rental property and my credit score was dinged by 10-15 points depending on the credit agency (TransUnion, Experian, Equifax).
Since I had already paid off my home and car a few years earlier, the only remaining outstanding credit was my credit cards which are a higher risk than a car loan (some chance of recovery by the bank) and a mortgage (greater chance of recovery by the bank). Since I just retired and was putting large balances on the cards for travel, my score eventually recovered.
What a racket!!
When I started driving in the 60s my mother gave me a gas credit card in her name “for emergencies”. I did not ever have to use it, but it was nice to have it for back-up.
My older brother’s best friend in high school had his birthday right around Christmas. He was the only child of a quite well off family, and the year he turned 16 he got a new red 1965 Corvair Monza for Christmas and a gas credit card for his birthday. Because they did not want to spoil him the Corvair was only a 3 speed. They did not spring for the 4 speed.
Shell gave me a card when I couldnt even get a Sears card. It helped me build credit history. Eventually had Shell, 76 and Texaco, which covered everywhere I traveled in the West. Fraud happened twice with the Texaco, before pay-at-the-pump, handing it over to the cashier.
Today, Costco has the cheapest gas, so I have the Costco Visa, used to be American Express.
When I worked for a small Shell dealer, we actually paid for gas deliveries by handing over a stack of Shell card receipts directly to the driver.
Interesting article. I had no idea that gasoline credit cards still existed. I remember my parents using them back in the 1970s and that one of my father’s cards was stolen and later found by the FBI when they cracked a case involving a major credit card theft ring.
My first job out of college was in sales, with a six-state territory in the Southeast. I acquired several gas credit cards, including Gulf, Texaco, and Exxon, which I rarely used because they always charged extra for credit purchases. Given my father’s experience with card theft and the reasons cited above, I preferred to use gas cards when on road trips. By the late ’80s, they were gone, as I was living in NYC and rarely drove, so I switched to using Visa or Mastercard when buying gas.
On my 16th birthday Grandpa gave me a book of 76 “Autoscrip” which was a form of gift card for gas.
ARCO stations on the West Coast may have been the last holdout not accepting major credit cards. ARCO stations are always cheaper than the other major brands, but it once came with the limitation that the only payment options they accepted were cash, debit (for which they charged a transaction fee), or ARCO’s own credit card. That might no longer be the case, though. I don’t usually fill up at ARCO anymore, so they may have started accepting credit cards now. I’m not seeing the credit card offered on their web site anymore, only a “fleet card” for businesses.
ARCO stations are the only places I’ve ever seen where you could pay at the pump with cash, too. There was a kiosk in the middle of the island where you could enter your pump number and then insert a couple of bills. They didn’t make change, though, so you still needed to go inside the store if you needed change. I’m using the past tense because when I did sometimes go there it seemed like they were removing those machines.
ARCO has started accepting major credit cards recently. There is a credit vs cash price difference at our local stations (usually about 10 cents).
Tom Halter writes: “A low-limit credit card limits my exposure to skimmers and PIN readers, both of which fuel pumps are frequent targets of, as opposed to risking my debit card which has direct access to my checking and savings accounts… ”
I’ve recently been worried about this exact fact and am thinking of starting to use my old green AMEX credit card at gas stations and super markets rather my VISA Debit card.
Not sure if or when I’ll make that switch. For on-line purchases I only use the AMEX card because the card is perceived (by me) as safe and American Express seems to be a well managed company. I have been buying on-line using AMEX since the early 1990s.
However, both VISA and MasterCard have advertised similar safety policies, e.g., (VISA): “Visa’s Zero Liability Policy* is our guarantee that you won’t be held responsible for unauthorized charges made with your account or account information. You’re protected if your Visa credit or debit card is lost, stolen or fraudulently used, online or offline …”.
So, switching from VISA to AMEX for gas and groceries may not be necessary.
I also like a thin wallet, so I have always avoided collecting more cards than needed. After all, Wallet Neuritis (Fat Wallet Syndrome) can be painful.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28294069/
Don’t let this happen to you!
I once had a credit card with only a $2,000 limit. It was the one I used for on-line purchases. Should someone attempt to buy jewelry or expensive electronics, they would easily hit the limit and void the transaction.
Out of the blue, the bank took it upon itself to up the limit to $5,000. When I called, the only way to drop the limit was to close out the account!!!!
Have an ExxonMobil card and will have to “pry it from me”. Just kidding, I don’t want to expose CC # when buying gas. Save 10 cents a gallon after having it for so long, help a lot lately, along with 38 mpg.
And oil companies are going to go into EV charging biz, so don’t expect them to “go away” soon. “Charge your EV charge fees”.
Pre-COVID, Mom flew into town but didn’t get a rental car. She asked if she could drop me off at work and use my Chevy Volt. That was perfectly fine to me.
My Volt was fully charged when she drove it and she returned it with some battery left. As she was leaving town she wanted to slip me $20 bucks for gas. I reminded her that she hadn’t used any gas and had driven the Volt on battery alone. She gave me the $20 anyway.
I still remember when I was just pre-driving age and paying attention to how things work, when the cashier would take Mom & Dad’s credit card and put it in the imprint machine before having them sign the imprint slip. “Chug-gunk!” By the time I started driving, they were just starting to have credit card readers on the newer pumps to keep you from having to go inside the store at all.
As a child, I had no idea about the history of Standard Oil, but was fascinated by all the different logos on the back of my father’s Chevron card.
It was odd to see the same sign with different names on it when we drove on long trips. What gives?
Standard Oil of Indiana had the oval with torch, and names Standard or American, depending on state.
Became Amoco, and then bought out by BP. A few die hard station owners kept Amoco signs up well past BP buy out.
Now, Amoco brand is back, to go along with BP in same market. Sort of like Exxon and Mobil, sometimes across the street from each other.
When Standard Oil broke up, all of the new companies got the right to use the Standard and Esso (Esso = S.O. = Standard Oil) brands in their own regional territory. But if they did business elsewhere, which is to say on another Standard company’s turf, they had to use a different name. So Standard of Indiana could use the Standard name in its home region in the Midwest, but their gas stations on the East Coast used the “American” brand (eventually Amoco).
Of the U.S. children of Standard Oil, only Standard of New Jersey really continued to use the Esso brand. As their national ambitions grew, they needed one brand they could use coast to coast, which is when they came up with Exxon (and a spiffy new logo designed by Raymond Loewy).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil
To see where some of the old brands ended up.
With every merger/acquisition it gets more complicated. Outside North America CalTex (Standard of California and The Texas Company) is Chevron’s brand, a joint venture that existed decades before Texaco was acquired. I notice Chevron stations being rebranded as Texaco in Hawaii. Why? Who knows?
Yes! The only gas-only card I ever carried was a Standard Oil/Amoco/American card which my dad gave me when I went off to college (“For emergencies.”). I seldom used it, but was fascinated by the collection of different names for what I guessed was all the same corporate entity.
That’s the first I’ve heard of UTOCO, I’m assuming it was for Utah Oil Company. I’d heard of most of the others as my dad explained the break up to me when I noticed that the Standard and Amoco signs were the same except for the name.
By the time I moved to WA the stations were branded Chevron. For what ever reason there is one station in Bellevue that carries the Standard name. It remained a proper service station for a very long time and had the mostly the old school torch logos and a couple of Chevron logos. When they tore it down to build a C-store I was sure it would be a Chevron but they put up new Standard signs.
When it was still an old school service station I assume the owner’s contract was perpetual and was stubborn so stuck with the name just because he could. Now I’m guessing they want to keep the trade name active in the state.
Yep, Chevron logo with Standard name…Amoco logo with Standard name…something to do with keeping hold of a complicated mountain of trademarks by keeping them in continual use.
Way back, Standard of California corporate locations were branded “Standard” while independent dealers were “Chevron”. Same logo, but different lettering.
Found this commercial from 1987:
Sohio was rebranded as “Boron” in western PA, where I grew up. The logo was the same except for the lettering. As I recall, Boron stations started popping up in the mid-1960s. My mother was loyal to Atlantic, later ARCO, and she had one of those Atlantic/ARCO gas cards.
I got my first credit card from Mobil in 1977 (a gas-only card).
The ARCO brand name was sold by BP to Marathon Oil, for use outside Northern CA, OR, and WA. There are 2 ARCO stations in all of Chicago area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARCO
Remember those credit card machines well. Before I went to college, worked 6 0r 7 days a week for an Esso franchisee. Customers would retain a paper receipt and I would submit the carbon and base copy at the end of the shift to the dealer (my boss). Yes, we were supposed to record the plate number along with the number of gallons and fuel grade. My boss was strict about getting the customer’s signature. The “Esso” card could be used for things like oil changes and Esso rental cars. About half of our customers in the late 60’s, early 70’s used those cards. Got John Lennon’s signature one day. He was known to travel with Yoko up the Taconic Parkway in his Chrysler Town and Country. Had the idea to pay for the gas myself and keep the signature. Couldn’t have been for more than 10 dollars. Not that big of a fan though. Somebody had to use the restroom and I gave them the key. Didn’t see them after that. We had a men’s and a ladies rest room at our shop and they were usually fairly clean since the staff used them as well as customers. No soap. Staff would use soap from the coin op car wash machine as needed.
Great story Donaldo!
I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that Lennon owned one of these (and apparently parked it in NYC too, albeit probably in an indoor garage at the Dakota).
https://www.lennonwagon.com/the-story
Am pretty sure that that is the same Chrysler I put Esso Extra in. Would have been fairly new at the time. Didn’t even realize it was them at first. We would store the paperwork in a little lock up compartment in the slider machine. Our shift ended at 10 PM and we had 2 people working on a weekend evening shift. Looked like I got a clear signature. Have always been more of a fan of the pop music of the early 60’s. If Ronnie Spector had been my customer…
BP has switched credit card companies a couple of times. I think the last one before this recent switch was through some outfit called Synchrony Bank.
And, IIRC, those Synchrony cards were Visas (and with a high credit limit, too). While I still have a BP account (including through the current outfit), I haven’t used it in years. So, it’s been a long time since the BP card was not affiliated with some sort of financial institution.
I find that fascinating, too—all of it—especially as he’s biographed to have been a terrible driver who hated driving. Maybe that was only in England!
Great write of a fascinating topic, Tom. I remember my dad telling me after I graduated from college in ’87 that I should apply for gas credit cards, as paying them off was a good way to build a strong credit score.
Living in the NYC metro area, I had Exxon, Mobil, and Texaco cards, with Mobil being the one I used most. Getting to stop by a number of Eliott Noyes’s crisp modern stations, many still with the circular illuminated pump shelters. I may have a Sunoco card too, for visiting my parents in New Jersey and trips to Philadelphia.
I gradually stopped using them, although I did get a Mobil speed pass in the late 90s, when I was driving up to Westchester a lot for business, and they owned the Parkway service plazas. Living ny NYC by then, you tended to fill up outside of town, ideally in NJ where gas was noticeably cheaper, and pumped for you, too.
I think I finally cancelled them all when I was getting ready to buy my apartment in 2003, and my sister advised me to cancel any credit cards I didn’t regularly use to improve my credit score. A bit of bookended family advice, as it were.
I’m a bit older, I gave up my gasoline credit cards years ago. My parents persisted quite a bit longer , in fact I think my Mother still has a Chevron card, which is particularly interesting in that she stopped driving altogether a year ago (we’d been driving her before that, but that’s when she gave up her license).
I didn’t realize that some gas companies would only take their own card (or cash). I did run into stations (as I recall in California) that charged more for credit but still would take a visa card instead of cash.
Initially I had my own gas credit card (Gulf) but I was kind of aping my Dad, and eventually gave it up at some point in favor of just using my Visa card…probably in the late 80’s. I did also have individual department store credit cards, including of course Sears (still have Sears Mastercard…at some point I think they converted the Sears card to a national bank card rather than one that could just be used at Sears.
I still have some of the maps given out by the gas stations (mostly Gulf) and some state-issued ones. I enjoy looking at maps, and even kept some from foreign countries I’ve visited, even though I’m unlikely to go there again. Kind of odd behaviour on my part I guess.
Jeezo-Peezo ~ I remember using an even more basic version of the credit card machine in 1972 or thereabouts….
I’m slowly reading the comments, it’s a great history lesson for some, good life lessons for others…..
-Nate