My best deal of this week, last week, and continuing until I either run out of the money to do it or until the promotion ends is getting my gas for about $1.25/gal (today was $1.13.) I've done this 4 times in the past few weeks... I do this by buying gift cards at a grocery store that is doing double gas rewards, and the gift cards I am buying are to Home Depot, which I am then using to pay for my kitchen remodel/repair (Total cost $20k, but paid a big chunk before the promotion started.) I charge $1100 of cards onto my Discover, which gives me 2200 points (because of the current "double" promotion.) Then I go to the gas station to fill up with a $2.20/gal discount (also on my Discover.) Meanwhile, whenever I get $50 in Discover rewards (my anniversary year just rolled over, so working up to 1% again, but maxxed the 5% rewards for 4th quarter by buying $1500 in HD cards at Kohl's...), I can apply that as a statement credit, which means less to pay when the bill comes. (We took a loan for the kitchen, and the money is just sitting in savings until the project is completed, so I get cheap gas, a kickback from Discover, and meanwhile the money is drawing (very miniscule) interest between credit card statements.) Oh, important to note, we're not running a balance on the CC, so no interest. Since I'm spending about 1/3 what I normally would per fill-up, I'm applying the extra money toward the loan, as well as the money saved from the statement credit... it will only be a tiny bit (like 1%) of the principal, but every little bit, right? The goal is to pay off the loan by the end of 2013.
It's been a great deal, but I only have a few fill-ups left before I've used up all the kitchen funds. I'm really gonna miss it when it's gone and I have to go back to "real" gas prices...
