Fuel is a daily expense for everyone, and having a credit card that offers cashback or rewards on fuel purchases can be quite beneficial. For those who spend a significant amount on fuel, it can lead to substantial savings simply by using the right credit card. Let’s explore some of the best fuel credit cards in India for 2024 that rewards fuel purchases & something interesting for those who’re new to this.
The Issue with Fuel Cards
If you’re looking for traditional fuel cards, I can list at-least 10 of them, something like below:
But the concern is that there are 3 major issues with most of these “fuel” marketed credit cards which will ruin your time and energy when you take them. They’re:
You may not get expected rewards/cashback on fuel spends because sometimes Merchant Category Code (MCC) are not properly updated with the merchant.
Even if you find the right fuel stations that gives accelerated rewards (let’s say 4%), you’ll find meagre max caps every month.
Even if you’ve cracked the code for above two concerns, the last trick used by the banks is that you’ll get peanuts when you spend elsewhere other than fuel (like 0.25%). Now, you shouldn’t forget that non-fuel spends are essential to reach the required spend target to get the annual fee waiver. So overall reward rate goes for a toss.
These issues have been repeatedly seen in every fuel credit card ever launched in the country for over a decade. Unfortunately that’s how the business of fuel credit cards work and it may never change.
Not to forget that, managing a separate card for fuel alone is another time & wallet consuming thing. So you shouldn’t be falling for that ideally.
Instead, keep the strategy simple by choosing cards that either gives regular rewards on fuel spends or through milestone spends.
And if that’s not sufficient, there is one more thing you would need to know. Let’s begin with the list of cards before getting there:
AmEx Gold Charge Card
Reward Rate: ~5%
Best for: Spends of 6,000 INR / month
Read review & apply: Amex Gold Charge
Note that Amex has 0% fuel surcharge with HPCL Petrol Stations. The sweet spot is to use Amex Gold Charge for 1,000 INR*6 times a month to earn regular rewards+monthly bonus while enjoying 0% surcharge at HPCL.
AmEx Platinum Charge Card
Reward Rate: ~1.25%
Best for: Spends of any volume
Read review & apply: Amex Plat Charge
While no one should get Amex Platinum Charge just for fuel spends, it doesn’t hurt using it when you already own one.
While there are no cap per se, you’re still limited to the fair usage policy with HPCL to enjoy 0% surcharge.
AmEx MRCC
Reward Rate: ~5%
Best for: Spends of 20,000 INR / month
Read review & apply: Amex MRCC
While Amex Membership Rewards Credit Card doesn’t get you regular points on fuel spends, the monthly bonus is sufficient to give you a handsome return on fuel spends.
Milestone Credit Cards
If above cards doesn’t work for you for whatever reason, there are other ways to choose a card for fuel spends and that’s when you’ll need to explore: milestone credit cards.
You’ll need to pick the credit cards that gives pretty good reward rate on reaching spend milestones. This would include cards like IDFC Vistara, SBI Vistara Prime, SBI Aurum, Amex Travel Card, Amex Reserve.
As of now, Axis Bank has excluded fuel spends for milestone rewards as well (at-least on paper), and other banks might follow anytime.
HP Pay App
If you’re not happy with the returns on above cards, we finally have a golden method that could help you save over 10% on fuel spends, through HP Pay.
HP Pay is a loyalty app by HPCL which can be used to pay for fuel at HPCL outlets. There are two ways to go about it:
HP Pay Voucher: You shall buy HP Pay fuel vouchers online and add those vouchers to HP Pay app and pay for fuel.
ICICI FasTag: You’ll need to buy Amazon Pay vouchers, add to amazon pay balance and use it to recharge ICICI Fastag account. Now while paying for the fuel, you can choose ICICI Fastag and pay for your fuel.
The Fastag route is bit complicated but worth it. In fact some POS at HPCL/IOCL can take Fastag fuel payments directly without HP Pay but from my experience it’s rare to find, so HP Pay comes handy.
So both of these HPPay methods are quite lucrative as one can save well over ~10% on fuel spends, for example, you can buy Amazon Pay Vouchers from HDFC Gyftr portal using HDFC Super Premium cards like HDFC Infinia to earn 5X rewards and use them for fuel as mentioned above.
But remember, you may run into issues any-day with this. Recently, ICICI bank disabled fuel spends on Fastag for some users and one needs to call and request to enable it again.
The Fastag route is bit risky because one day they might remove the functionality and you might be left with few thousands on your Fastag Account. So take calculated risks accordingly.
Final Thoughts
Choosing the best credit card for fuel spends can be complicated at times, but I hope the information above helps you make an informed decision.
Ultimately, it comes down to personal preference, especially since fuel expenses for most people don’t even cross ₹1 lakh a year. So, it might not be worth stressing too much over a relatively small spend.
Personally, I used to rely on Amex Charge cards for fuel, but lately, I’ve switched to HP Pay with ICICI Fastag, which has been working smoothly for me. I hope it stays for sometime, but you never know.
Make hay while the sun shines!
Which one is your favourite method to save on fuel spends? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.