Will People Do Anything for Cheap Gas?
Written: Jul 23 '00
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"Forget it." "It’s not worth the effort." "You really don’t save anything after the first 90 days." These are some of the feelings that I experienced after using Priceline’s and Webhouses gas card for the first time. On first look, it sounds great. I say I want to pay 5 to 15 cents less per gallon than the average price for that region and If I get my price, I can buy up to 50 gallons that don’t expire for 90 days. But let’s take a closer look.
getting the cards:
I went to Priceline.com and signed up for the free gas card. At this point they really don’t want any other information except your home address and email address. I expected it to arrive in less than a week. We’ll 3 to 4 weeks later I finally received the card.
Using the card:
The premise here is that gas stations needing business are willing to discount their gas for volume. Therefore, they will let Priceline.com know what price they will accept at any given time. You, however, don’t know ahead of time, what prices and what gas stations are willing to offer these discounts.
I really wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I decided to register. I knew the price for gas in my area was about 1.79 a gallon at the time. So I though I would be willing to pay 10 to 15 cents less. After registering the card to me by assigning the card number to my account and giving them my REAL credit card to bill for the gas, I was ready to bid for gas.
I selected my zip code and was told to choose 3 gas stations in my area. We’ll only two gas stations came up. "this is where I ran into trouble" I saw that they quoted the average price for gas a 1.80 in my zip code. I thought that was about right. But then I decide to check other areas of my state that I would be in that weekend. I selected another town and got quoted the average price of 1.79. Still very close, but I knew that gas was cheaper in the other area. So I decided to mix and match zip codes. I selected the two gas stations in my zip code and three gas stations in the other zip code.
The bid:
Now a screen with 4 choices came on the screen. 1.75 a gallon - Great Chance, 1.69 a gallon - Good Chance, 1.67 - Fair Chance and 1.65 a gallon - Low Chance. I thought that I should always try the cheapest or it really wasn’t worth it. Saving 15 cents a gallon sounded good to me. I selected the 1.65 a gallon and the next screen asked my how many gallons I wanted. We’ll, If I can use this for the next 3 months and save 15 cents, I might as well take the maximum of 50 gallons.
The problem:
I hit the button and I saw a screen that said I was accepted 5 times. I thought, great. I get to buy gas at 1.65 a gallon at all 5 gas stations that I had selected. I hit the continue button to print out my stations receipts. On problem, I only got one of the gas stations. And it was the one in a different part of the state that I really wasn’t sure where it was.
The previous screen was very misleading. It looked like I had received 5 different confirmations for getting my price. When in actuality, it was the same station, but in 10 gallon increments. I was really upset. I was stuck with 50 gallons of gas at a station that I was unfamiliar with, in a town 35 miles from my house.
The search:
We’ll I was leaving for that town the next day, so I decided to find the gas stations. When I arrived at my destination town. I drove into the gas station, which was actually a convenience store with a couple of Texaco pumps. To my amazement, the price of the gas was already a 1.69. Now, I’m only saving 5 cents a gallon. (.05 X 50 gallons = 2.50 dollars) Not exactly the big savings I was looking for. And now I’m stuck going to the shady convenience store in a town 35 miles from my home.
Pumping the gas:
OK, I needed gas, lets try the card. Your suppose to use the card just like a regular credit card at the pump, with one exception, after you feed in the card, you need to key in a 6 digit confirmation number that was on your pre-printed gas station confirmation page. I inserted the card and punched in the number, and hit enter. Then nothing happened. I didn’t it again and again with the same result. OK, I’ll go inside. But, I saw a line almost out the door, with what looked like the must unsavory of characters. "I’ll come back", I said to myself. A week later, I tried again with the same result. This time I did go in and the attendant didn’t even know what a Priceline gas card was. But luckily her credit card reader accepted the card. I had to tell her how much gas I wanted to pump, which didn’t thrill me either.
The fine print:
So, I ended up in the wrong part of time at a price that really wasn’t so special. What happened if I had selected the 1.69 a gallon price. (I would have been paying the exact same price with no savings at all.) Now, the fine print say that after the first 3 months of free trial membership, you will be billed a 3.00 dollars handling charge. (a nominal fee they say) We’ll it isn’t so nominal, when for 50 gallons that I might not even use in that time frame cost saves me only 2.50 and it will cost me 3.00 dollars next time to do the same thing. (my math may not be too good, but I thing I’m taking a .50 cent hit here!)
Conclusion:
With all the hassles, I may give it one more try only in my town to try actually get the 15 cents off my areas gas, but if I don’t, I’m not using the card ever again. Way too may issues to save a few cents. (if your lucky).
Recommended:
No
Type of Products Delivered: Household items
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Epinions.com ID:
pweisenberg
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Member: Peter Weisenberg
Location: Hartford, Connecticut
Reviews written: 261
Trusted by: 444 members
About Me:
Enjoying the ride, only 19 more years til I retire!
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