Gas credit cards can earn you rebates or cashback to help save money on your gas bill.  We’ve recently looked at ways to make more money during bad economic times but the other side of the accounting equation is obviously to spend less money.

With high gas prices continuing to climb, saving money on gas is important to many of us and gas discount cards can help reduce the bill a little. There are many options to choose from; before you apply for a gas rewards card, be aware the features such as reward limits, introductory rates, and rewards earned can vary from card to card.  To help you find a good gas card we’ve put together a review of some of the top gas credit cards:

Discover Open Road Card

With the Discover Open Road you’ll get a 5% cash back bonus on the first $100 spent on gas and auto maintenance purchases a month. 

On all purchases over the initial $100, you’ll earn a tiered amount that reaches 1% once you’ve spent $3000 for the year.  Of course this is not hard to do with rising gas prices and all non-gas purchases you make with the card count toward the annual total.  You receive up to 1% on the non-gas purchases as well. 

One side benefit is that you can receive 5–20% cash back on purchases made from a separate shopping site offered by Discover.  The Discover Open Road card also features an introductory offer of 0% APR on balance transfers and 0% APR on purchases, both for a limited time.  There is no annual fee.

American Express Blue Cash Card

American Express’s Blue Cash card gives you up to 5% cash back on gas, in addition to supermarket and drugstore purchases.  The Blue Cash card also has a tiered rewards program, you earn 1% on the first $6500 you spend in these categories and 5% on anything above that amount. Purchases other than gas, supermarket, and drugstore earn 0.5% ($0-$6,500) and 1.5% (over $6,500).

This is one of my favorite rewards cards since we put almost everything on our card and far exceed the $6500 in spending.  The Blue Cash card is also offering a 0 % introductory offer on purchases and has no annual fee.

Chase Freedom Credit Card

The Chase Freedom Credit Card offers 3% cashback on your top 3 spending categories each month.   The categories they use are things like gas stations, quick service restaurants, grocery stores, and telecommunications.

If your gas purchases are one of your top 3 expenses on your card you’ll receive 3% cashback, otherwise you’d earn 1% cashback.  There is no annual rewards limit for the standard rebate, unlike the bonus categories which go back to 1% after $600 in rewards.

Chase is offering a $50 bonus rebate when you signup for a Chase Freedom card, you can redeem your bonus after making your first purchase and there is no annual fee to worry about.

Chase BP Visa Card

The downside of the Chase BP Visa Card is that it only offers rewards for gas purchased at BP gas stations.  The good news is that it pays 5% rebates on gas, 2% rebates on restaurant and travel, and 1% back on everything else.

Another bonus is that the card offers double rewards during the first two billing cycles. This means you earn 10% rebates on gas, 4% cash back on restaurants & travel purchases, and 2% on all other spending.

The Chase BP Visa card currently has an introductory offer of 0% APR on balance transfers for 6 months so you could potentially move the balance from a different gas card to your BP Visa and pay no interest on it for half a year. The card has no annual fee.

Summary
 The gas card review wraps up this week’s coverage of financial tips for a bad economy.  Hopefully it was helpful and gave you a few ideas that you can use, here’s a reminder of how you can make money from the falling dollar, a down real estate market, and a recession.  

We finished it up with this review of how you can save money on gas with the following rewards cards:

• Discover Open Road
• American Express Blue Cash
• Chase Freedom Visa
• Chase BP Visa