Using Credit Card for fuelling up your vehicle is now as common as it can get. All credit cards floating in the market can be used to purchase petrol in any petrol pump.
However a fuel surcharge is imposed on the consumer if he uses a credit card option to buy fuel. When payment of fuel at petrol pumps are made by cards, a fuel surcharge of some percentage is levied by these outlets over and above the cost of fuel.
There are principally three ways of plastic payment for fuel purchase: pre-paid petro cards, co-branded petro cards and plain vanilla credit cards.
Pre-paid Petro cards
Pre-paid fuel cards allow you to load certain amount of money in the card and when it is swiped for fuel, the bill amount is debited from the card. It has an electronic chip which stores information about the amount of money that you have loaded in your card. Every time you use this card to make a purchase, the amount is deducted from the card. You also earn rewards points while using such cards. The reward points can be redeemed for petro miles or rewards that are decided by the issuer. Also there always is a surcharge wavier on using a pre-paid petro card of a particular company.
Presently there are two types of pre-paid cards in the market named as HP Smart 1 and BPCL Petro cards.
HP Smart 1 provides you with following features:
- 5% rewards on total spend at any Hindustan Petroleum retail outlet.
- All petrol and diesel fills, lubricants, servicing, and even your shopping bill at HP Speedmart Stores (convenience store) will be eligible for reward points, provided you use the HP Smart 1 card to pay for these services.
- Thes accumulated reward points can be redeemed for free fuel.
The card can be loaded for minimum amount of Rs 250 and in multiples of Rs 50 thereafter.
The BPCL Petro card offers you:
- Reward points called petro miles earned for all purchases from any retail outlet of Bharat Petroleum in India. However the reward points in this case differ based on what products are purchased.
- These reward points can only be redeemed for gifts at BPCL outlets or through its website.
- The minimum loading amount for this card is Rs 500 and subsequently you can load the amount in multiples of Rs 100.
Indian Oil offers an XTRAPOWER fleet card program. Fleet Card is a smart card, which can be used by the card holder to make purchases of fuel/ lubricants at designated retail outlets of IndianOil. The card includes the features like:
- There are two variants of XTRAPOWER fleet card Prepaid & Credit.
- On prepaid cards, the pre-loading facility is available at designated Retail Outlets of Indian Oil. You can also deposit the desired amount in Central Cash Management System (CCMS) through designated of HDFC bank.
- Attractive rewards on purchase of fuel & lubricants through the Card.
- Personal Accident Insurance Cover and Medi-claim for fleet owner, driver, co-driver and helper.
- Opportunity for earning additional rewards on purchase of J.K. Tyre and Exide Battery.
- Facility to track each vehicle.
Both pre-paid petro cards of HP and BPCL are available for a one time fee whereas the IOC fleet card does not any annual fee but there is no surcharge waiver in case of a fleet card.
Co-branded petro cards
A co-branded petro card is a credit card which is sponsored by both the credit card issuing company and the participating fuel company. One can also use a co-branded petro card to pay for his fuel. This card provides an advantage of getting a surcharge waiver, apart from being a usual debit/credit card. The surcharge levied is on fuel is 2.75 % or Rs 10, whichever is higher. The co-branded petro cards also earn reward points over and above the surcharge waiver.
Co-branded credit cards floating in the market include some like IOC-Citibank and HPCL-ICICI Bank and Smartfill, a card by BPCLand StanChat Bank.
IOC-Citibank co-branded card offers:
- Savings of up to 5% to cardholders on their petrol spends at select Indian Oil retail outlets across the country.
- Customers using this card will avail two reward points per use at an IOC retail outlet and one point each at other outlets, on every purchase worth Rs 100.
- The reward points can be redeemed for free petrol, Servo engine oils and lubricants at IOC petrol pumps.
HPCL-ICICI Bank co-branded earn reward points named as ‘Speed `o' miles' and these points can be redeemed for free fuel at HPCL Petrol Pumps or against gifts available in the ICICI rewards redemption catalogue. Some other features of the card include:
- It is eligible for 5% discount on tyres, batteries and auto accessories sold at select HPCL petrol pumps.
- 15% discount on P-UC (pollution under control) check, labour charges on servicing and minor repairs at HPCL petrol pumps.
- Minimum assured Cash Back per transaction of 1%.
- 1 reward point earned on every Rs.200 spent on all purchases except on fuel purchases at HPCL outlets.
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