Gasoline has always been quite expensive in the past years and has recently gotten a lot cheaper this year due to the global demand dropping significantly from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Although most of the country is still on quarantine, we will eventually start going out whether its for work, necessities like grocery shopping or meeting your friends who were also rotting at home from the quarantine. Sooner or later most of us that are privileged enough drive cars or motorcycles need to get where we need to be and gasoline is an unavoidable cost.
So why not have a gas credit card in your wallet and save some cash? What are gas credit card even?
Gas credit cards are cards that give you a certain percentage of rebate whenever you fuel up as well as other extra perks such as discount on car oils or car services.
RCBC Bankard Phoenix card
RCBC has partnered up with Phoenix Fuels to make a co-branded gas credit card. The card gives you a 5% rebate on Phoenix Fuels purchases at participating Phoenix Fuels gas stations nationwide as well as three (3) towing and emergency assistance service per year.
There is also a welcome bonus of ₱500 worth of Phoenix Fuel to be credited to your Phoenix RCBC Bankard Mastercard for a minimum fuel spend of Php2,000 at participating Phoenix Fuel Stations nationwide within 75 days from card issuance date.
You also earn non-expiring reward points for airmiles and shopping vouchers but is really a non factor. The free accident insurance you get with this card might come in handy though.
Get this card for the fuel rebates and if you get into car accidents often. Note that rebate amount is capped at ₱500 per month to be computed on transactions posted per statement cycle with an annual fee of ₱1,800 charged to you at ₱150 every month.
Related: How to clean your credit cards
Shell Citi card
Citibank has partnered with Royal Dutch Shell Philippines to give you up to 5% rebate on Shell fuel purchases. Also get up to 5% rebate on toll fees, auto repairs, accessories, and services nationwide.
Take note it said "up to 5%" so could actually get less depending on how much you use the card. Check out the table below.
So every month you need to spend at least ₱10,000 to avail of the 5% rebate in all of the above mentioned categories. Otherwise you're just left with the 3% on Shell fuel rebates.
This is probably to discourage people getting the card just for fuel rebates. Annual rebate amount is also capped at ₱15,000 with an annual fee of ₱2,800 for the Platinum card and ₱2,500 for the Gold card.
Related: Credit card tiers in the Philippines
Petron-BPI Mastercard
BPI has a partnership with Petron offering you a co-branded credit card giving you a 3% rebate on fuel purchases on participating gasoline stations, which is the lowest among gas rebate credit cards. The card comes with a ₱200 worth of Petron fuel as a welcome gift.
No complicated charging but no thrills for this card either. Annual rebate amount capped at ₱15,000 with an annual fee of ₱1550(waived on first year).
Bottom Line
Gas rebate credit cards help you with your bottom line at the end of the year. It might not seem much when you compute how much rebate you get per month but it really does add up and helps you save a few thousand Pesos every year and we're all about saving money and getting you closer to free travel no matter how small the savings are.
There are other credit cards that offer fuel rebates as well but fall under the cash back credit cards category and we are focused on gas rebate credit cards only for this article.
Hope this article helped you decide which gas rebate credit card to get!