The average national gas price now exceeds $5 a gallon, and experts predict prices will rise to above $6 during the summer. 

A good gas credit card will provide you with cashback and/or reward points for fuel purchases to optimize your spending. 

In this article, we will focus specifically on cards that offer consistent cash back or points on gas. While several other cards offer quarterly rotating gas rewards, we’re looking at consistent gas rewards cards to maximize your total gas savings.

Gas Card #1: Abound Credit Union Visa Platinum Card

While you may not have heard of this card, it has one of the best value for gas rewards at 5% cash back on gas purchases. It also has 1% cashback on all other purchases and a rotating 5% cashback on other categories throughout the year, including streaming services, Amazon purchases, travel, and health fitness. 

Although you can apply for the Abound card without becoming a member, the risk is that credit unions tend to remove card benefits when there are too many applicants. 

It's usually the way credit union cards work, so this card may not be suitable for everyone. 

Gas Card # 2: Citi Custom Cash® Card

The Citi Custom Cash card is good choice for a no annual fee keeper card. In addition to 5% back on gas, it also offers 5% cashback on a handful of other categories, including restaurants, home improvement, grocery stores, and select travel. The benefit of the Citi Custom Cash Card is that even if your spending habits change and you spend less on gas, this card can still provide valuable rewards to you in other categories.

It is also flexible in how you choose to spend your rewards. The Citi Custom Cash card rewards are in the form of Thank You points™. This means that if you chose to redeem your points for travel, you could potentially receive more than 5% cash back that month.

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The drawback is that there is a $500 per month earning limit on rewards. This means that if you spend more than $500 on eligible purchases during the month, only the first $500 will receive the 5% cashback benefit. 

Gas Card # 3: Cardless Card - New Orleans Pelicans

Cardless is a white-label card-issuing service that partners with brands. The Cardless family of credit cards is a series of cards that allow various brands, focusing on American basketball and European football (soccer) teams, to have their own branded, customized credit card. 

We’ll look specifically at the New Orleans Pelicans credit card. It offers some great rewards on gas – 4x rewards points with no annual fee and no monthly cap. The 4x rewards work out to 4% cash back since Cardless calculates its rewards points at 1 CPP.

The drawback to Cardless is that you are only allowed to have one Cardless card at a time. So if you already have a Cardless card for your favorite team, you can’t get the Pelicans card to cash in on the gas points. If you are interested in a Cardless card for special deals on your favorite team’s tickets and merchandise, you would be losing out on those things to have a Pelicans card just for gas, so choose wisely. 

Gas Card # 4: The PenFed Platinum Rewards Visa Signature® Card

With the PenFed Platinum Rewards Visa Signature® Card, you earn unlimited 5 points per dollar spent at the gas pump, including EV charging stations. This is among the best rewards rates you will find on gas. Along with free fuel rewards, the card also pays unlimited 3 points per dollar on groceries and 1 point per dollar on everything else.

However, there are a few things to be aware of. For starters, you must join PenFed's credit union to apply. Getting a PenFed membership requires an application and a $5 deposit into a savings account.

The redemption options are also limited, as you can’t use your points to redeem for cash back. A PenFed spokesperson confirmed that points earned with a Platinum Rewards card are usually worth about 0.85 cents each. Considering this card has no annual fee, its redemption value isn’t that great when compared to other no-annual-fee rewards cards.

On the other hand, travel points are potentially worth 1.7 cents each on average, depending on dates and options. There may also be travel booking fees when redeeming for travel.

Another thing to note is that since the PenFed Platinum Rewards Visa Signature® Card is a credit union card, you'll have to keep a close eye to ensure that the points or deals on the card don’t change or decrease.

Credit unions typically make a larger percentage of their income from credit cards and other loan interest than larger banks, so they are more likely to change the terms of their credit offers to ensure that it remains profitable to them.  

Gas Card #5 & 6: Costco Anywhere Visa® Card by Citi or Sam’s Club Cards

These cards are designed for buying gas at the respective wholesale clubs. Not only can you take advantage of the discount gas at your club store, but you can also earn cash back with your credit card. 

These are both similar cards in terms of rewards level. The Sam’s Club card gives you 5% cash back on gas purchases for up to $6,000 a year, which works out to about $500 per month in gas, and then 1% cashback above $6,000. Depending on your membership level, there may be additional reward caps on earning and redemptions.

The Costco Anywhere Visa® Card by Citi gives you 4% cashback on your first $7,000 in gas purchases in a year and then 1% rewards after. One major drawback is that you can only redeem cash back once per year.

If you aren't already a member of Costco or Sam's Club, these card options might not be for you.

However, if you are already a member, this could be a valuable way to save on your gas budget. The ideal strategy is to get the card for whichever store is most convenient to you.

Gas Card #7: Bank of America® Customized Cash Rewards Credit Card

The Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards Card isn't as competitive as some of the cards on this list, but it still offers decent gas rewards.

With only 3% cashback on gas (or your other chosen rewards category) for most users, it doesn’t look as good as 4% or 5% like some of the other offers we’ve looked at. However, if you are already a Bank of America or Merrill Lynch customer, this might be a good option for you. 

Bank of America and Merrill Lynch offer tiered rewards levels for their current customers, so if you have more than $35,500 saved or invested in a portfolio, you will be eligible for higher rewards percentages.

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With a bit of research and planning, you may be able to earn up to 5% back (or even more) on gas purchases and other expenditures. To learn more about these top gas cards for 2022 in more detail, check out the video below.

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