Petrol credit cards

Yes. You could choose a flat rate card which offers a cash rebate on all spending, including petrol, since almost all cashback cards also let you take advantage of significant onsite petrol discounts. Alternatively, choose a cashback card which lets you combine petrol with another category of purchases for rebate returns (e.g. petrol + dining, or petrol + groceries).

Yes. You can expect to get some of the following additional benefits with your card:

• First year annual fee waiver, or a two-year waiver
• A sign-up or first purchase cash or merchandise gift
• A petrol card pre-loaded with a credit amount (e.g. a $150 Caltex StarCard)
• A credit, discount or cashback for Grab rides
• Air miles or rewards points, including a sign-up points bonus in some cases

No, the rates vary from card to card, although they nearly always have the potential to reduce petrol prices by between 14% and 24% with a combination of discounts and rebates.

Each card will often specify which brands of fuel qualify for the discount and cashback, e.g. Caltex only, or Shell and SPC stations only, or Esso and Caltex stations only. But there are cards which offer cash rebates on all petrol spending worldwide, regardless of the brand, although the onsite petrol discounts will only apply islandwide.

Many cards have a very low starting rebate each month (e.g. 0.3%), but once a monthly target spending level is reached (e.g. $600 total purchases in any category) a much higher rebate percentage will be applied to all of that month’s purchases.

The cashback earned is usually paid into your account quarterly, at the beginning of the second month of the following quarter.

Although there are a few cards with no cap on the amount you can earn, most cards will have a monthly limit (as low as $40 or as high as $100, depending on the card). Some caps are applied quarterly or annually.

In addition to an annual fee of between $80 and $195 or more, look out for possible foreign currency transaction fees of up to 3.5%, and don’t forget the high interest rate that will be applied to your purchase balance if you fail to pay it off on or before the monthly due date.

Some cards waive their annual fee for the first year, or in any year that you spend a target amount, such as $12,500.

You can save money when you fill up at Shell, Esso, Caltex, and SPC and paying with a petrol credit card in Singapore. Some cards will offer savings on petrol spend outside Singapore too.

If you drive one of Singapore’s more than half a million cars, each covering an average of around 18,000 kilometres per year, you’ll no doubt be looking for a way to save money on high fuel prices. You can do this with a credit card designed to give you a combination of fuel discounts and cash rebates, and possibly rewards points which can effectively be converted into spendable cash.

An unfortunate downside of petrol cards is that the layers of discount and rebate can be extremely complicated, and you need to be alert to all the potential savings in order to maximise the benefit. A single card could combine an onsite discount on at a selected petrol station brand (say, 4%), plus a discount that comes with the credit card brand (perhaps 4%), plus a further discount for belonging to the petrol brand loyalty program (maybe 5%), an 8% credit card cashback on petrol purchases plus an additional cashback (say 3%) for reaching a monthly minimum spend. Who knew buying petrol could be so complicated?

Because petrol credit cards are so potentially confusing, you may prefer to go for a flat rate rebate card (perhaps 5% on all spending) which still has significant onsite discounts on petrol.