What Is a Gas Card and How Do You Use One? Everything You Need to Know

Managing fuel costs for your fleet of vehicles can eat into your bottom line and give you a constant headache. Volatile gas and diesel prices, coupled with the administrative burden of tracking and managing individual gas station purchases, can reduce profits and slow your business’s ability to grow and expand.

Gas cards could be the perfect strategy to help you lower your fuel costs and manage your fleet more efficiently. In this article, we’ll explore what gas cards (also known as fleet cards) are, share the best fleet cards on the market, and explain how they can help streamline your fleet operations, control fuel spending, save on maintenance, and more.

Short On Time? Here Are The Key Takeaways

• Gas cards are credit cards that are designed for use at gas stations. Similarly to traditional credit cards, they are a fast and secure form of payment for drivers.
• These cards offer rewards on gasoline and diesel purchases at gas stations, and they can also help simplify expense management and provide detailed fuel purchase data.
• Businesses of all sizes can use gas cards to reduce administrative tasks and lower overall fuel costs.
• Consider factors like network coverage, discount amounts, card fees, and reporting features when choosing the right gas card for your business.

What Is a Gas Card?

A gas card is a credit card, debit card, or prepaid card that’s specifically designed for purchasing gasoline and diesel fuel at gas stations. Similarly to traditional credit cards, all types of gas cards offer some sort of incentive, such as discounts at the pump, rewards points, rebates, or other benefits to cardholders.

Gas cards offer several advantages over traditional payment methods, particularly for businesses managing multiple vehicles. These advantages include reduced costs, greater security, controls over spending, fleet insights, and more.

Several financial institutions offer gas cards to help you improve your fuel economy and save you money. These cards may be in partnership with specific gas station chains, oil and gas companies, or EV charging stations, or they may be standalone cards that offer benefits at any gas station. Read on to learn more about what gas cards are, how they work, and the benefits they offer.

The Benefits of Using a Gas Card

Using a gas card can offer a variety of benefits, depending on which card you choose. We explore the most important ones below.

Rewards and discounts on fuel

Many gas cards offer per-gallon discounts on fuel purchases, either at participating stations or at all gas stations. Fuel discounts can range from a few cents per gallon to a few percentage points per gallon, depending on the card. For example, Comdata offers rebates of up to $0.25 per gallon. While these discounts might sound small, they can add up quickly – especially for businesses with several vehicles and/or high fuel consumption.

Some gas cards also offer volume discounts based on your fleet’s total monthly or quarterly fuel purchases, which can further increase your fuel savings throughout the year. Finally, gas cards can offer rewards programs that offer cashback or points you can redeem for future fuel discounts, maintenance services, or even office supplies.

These rewards are designed to incentivize businesses to stay loyal to a specific gas card provider and use their card more often.

Expense tracking and management

Distributing gas cards to your drivers eliminates the need for them to use company credit cards, checks, or petty cash for fuel purchases. Instead, all fuel purchases can be connected to one bank account and can be managed either on a per-card basis, a per-vehicle basis, or an account basis.

Tracking and categorizing fleet expenses can help you develop a better understanding of your vehicles and drivers, helping you to optimize your fleet.

Additionally, this minimizes the cost of expense reporting, reduces the risk of unauthorized spending or fraudulent activity, and helps make accounting and tax preparation a breeze.

Transaction and fleet insights

Many gas card providers offer detailed reports on fuel purchases, including the date, location, amount spent, and vehicle identification (VIN) number. The data collected from drivers can be analyzed on a per-driver level, a route level, or the fleet level. You can even analyze vehicle data based on fuel type: gas, diesel, clean energy alternatives, or even electric vehicles (EVs.)

Comprehensive fleet data allows you to track fuel consumption trends, identify gas-guzzling vehicles or inefficient drivers, plan routes more efficiently, plan and schedule vehicle repairs, and potentially negotiate better rates with fuel suppliers.

Improved financial security

Cash and checks come with the inherent risk of loss or physical theft, and traditional credit and debit cards are often linked to a business’s main bank account. This opens you up to a risk of loss if a driver’s cash or card is stolen and used, and trying to get compensation for such a loss, either from a bank or insurance company, can be a difficult process.

Gas cards, however, are generally not linked to your main bank account. They can be canceled or deactivated easily if stolen, and spending controls can ensure that gas cards can only be used at gas stations, on electric charges for EVs, or for vehicle repair and maintenance. This limits any potential thief’s ability to steal money using a stolen gas card.

Fuel management features

Some fuel cards have additional features like mileage tracking, route information, maintenance and repair data & scheduling, fuel budgeting tools, and controls over who can use the card, when, and on what. You may also get real-time transaction alerts, giving you even greater control over your fleet’s fuel spending.

These features can generally be accessed via an online portal provided by the financial institution issuing the gas card.

How to Check if You’re Eligible For a Gas Card

Many gas card providers offer programs that cater to businesses of different sizes and complexity. Eligibility criteria may vary depending on the specific provider or financial institution, but generally, any legitimate US business with one or more vehicles can apply for a gas card program.

Finding out if you’re eligible for a gas card is generally as simple as contacting a gas card provider. This can typically be done by phone, at a bank branch, or online via a credit card signup page.

On most card provider’s websites, you can check your eligibility for the card you’re interested in by filling out and submitting information about your business. The information they request can include your business’s revenue, bank account information, credit rating (also known as your business credit score), fleet size, geographical location, and more.

If the bank determines that you’re eligible for the card, it will let you know via an email or physical letter. After that, you can apply for the card, and if approved, start using it right away.

How to Use a Gas Card

Using a gas card is as simple and convenient as using a traditional credit or debit card. Here’s how to go about it:

• Present your gas card at the pump: Just as you would do with a regular debit or credit card, you’ll need to insert, swipe, or tap your gas card at the gas station’s card reader.
• Authorize the transaction: Many gas stations ask for some form of verification, like your zip code or a PIN. Enter this information when requested to do so.
• Fill up your vehicle: Once your gas card has been authorized and accepted, proceed to pump the desired amount of fuel into your vehicle. If there’s a purchase limit on your card, the refueling process will stop automatically once you reach that limit. If there’s no limit, you can top up the vehicle or refuel as much as you need.
• Retrieve the receipt: This step is optional, but most businesses encourage fleet drivers to save their receipts for accounting and tax verification purposes. However, with most modern gas cards, transactions will be automatically available through your gas card provider’s online portal.

Finding the Best Gas Card

To find the best gas card for your business, simply follow this step-by-step process:

Step 1 – Analyze your business

Is your fleet of vehicles small, medium, or large? Do you have one vehicle, 10 or fewer, or more than 10? How complex are your routes, and in which geographical locations do you operate? Understanding the size and complexity of your business will help you determine the best card and provider for your needs.

Step 2 – Identify your needs and goals

Once you’ve developed a picture of your business, consider what business needs a gas card could help you address. These could include saving on fuel costs, implementing controls over spending and card usage, saving on repair and maintenance costs, collecting fleet data to help manage your fleet more efficiently, assistance with route optimization, increased financial security, and more.

Step 3 – Find the best gas card for you

Once you understand your business and have identified your needs and goals, it’s time to find the best gas card for your situation.

Network coverage

Some gas cards offer extensive coverage across the United States and some only offer regional coverage. Others cover refueling points in multiple countries, allowing you to save money across borders. Still others only offer discounts at specific gas station chains, which they have typically partnered with.

Consider the geographic areas your fleet operates in and prioritize networks with stations conveniently located along the routes your drivers typically use. Also, consider the cost of gas at the stations on your routes – are their prices typically higher or lower than competitors in the same areas? Similarly, consider whether the card offers discounts at repair shops in your area and along your routes.

The best gas card for you will be one that operates in your geographical region and offers discounts at gas stations and repair shops that your drivers typically utilize.

Discounts, rewards, and rebates

Next, consider what discounts are offered per gallon of fuel and at repair facilities in your area. Discounts can range from 3-4 cents per gallon (which is around a 1% discount) to up to 5% or more per gallon, depending on the gas card.

Also make sure that the card offers discounts on the types of fuel that your vehicles use – whether that’s gasoline, diesel, alternative fuels like biodiesel, or electric vehicle charging. Some cards only offer rewards on certain types of fuel, so it’s best to double-check!

Credit card and account fees

Consider the fees charged by the gas card company before signing up. Does it charge an annual or monthly fee to use the card? Similarly to traditional credit cards, some gas cards charge up to a few hundred dollars annually to use the card, so this fee can be significant.

Similarly, does the card charge transaction fees or foreign transaction fees? Most cards charge some kind of foreign transaction or foreign conversion fee, and if your fleet operates internationally (driving into Canada or Mexico, for example), then these fees can add up quickly.

Additionally, some cards offer waived fees if you meet certain spending thresholds. This is a way of incentivizing businesses to keep using their card for the long term.

Fleet insights and reporting features

Does the gas card provide detailed transaction data and reporting tools to help you understand and manage your fuel expenses, maintenance costs, and fleet efficiency metrics? This type of reporting can be crucial for identifying gas-guzzling vehicles, drivers who require additional education, vehicle maintenance needs, route optimization opportunities, and more.

If you want to fix or improve something, you first have to understand it. Comprehensive, data-driven fleet insights and reporting features give you the information you need to make decisions that can improve fuel efficiency and minimize costs.

Electric vehicle charging support

Some fleet fuel cards offer support for electric vehicle charging in addition to traditional gas purchases. If your fleet uses electric vehicles, this type of gas card could be perfect for you, allowing you to reduce costs at both the pump and the plug.

Not all gas cards offer discounts at EV charging stations, but the number that do is steadily growing. Some fuel cards are entirely catered towards businesses with electric vehicle fleets, so if you have a significant number of EVs in your fleet, utilizing both a gas card and an EV card could be an ideal option.

Customer service

Evaluate the gas card provider’s customer service reputation. Prompt and helpful customer support can be vital if you encounter an issue with your card and need help right away. Most credit cards are very reliable these days, but drivers getting stuck at middle-of-nowhere gas stations because of gas card issues is the last thing you want.

The gas card should have a dedicated customer service team who can assist anytime, anywhere, whether you need them to disable or cancel your card remotely, help you dispute a fraudulent charge, or ship you a new card overnight.

Additional features

Consider other features, such as mileage tracking, fuel budgeting tools, software to locate low-cost fuel along your routes, relationships between your gas card provider and repair or maintenance shops, and discounted vehicle washes. They can save you money and allow you to focus on what really matters: running your business.

The Best Gas Cards for Businesses

Here at Expert Market, we conduct extensive research into a range of products, services, and software platforms – including fleet fuel cards. Below, we’ve collated some information about the networks, discounts, and features on offer from the top fleet fuel card companies.