MyGallons.com, Gas Prices And North Dakota
Published by gwen July 1st, 2008 in Energy.According to this article, there’s a new way to lock in gas prices: pre-pay for your gasoline. MyGallons.com allows people to pre-purchase gallons of gasoline and receive a gas card that, as near as I can tell, works like a phone card. Once you buy a card, the prices are locked in for the gallons you have purchased.
I looked on the site’s locator map to see whether or not this would be available in the Bismarck area. There are more than fifty participating gas stations in Bismarck and the surrounding 20 miles…a much higher number than I thought would be available here. There are more than fifty located in the Fargo area, as well.
The program seems to be available across much of the state, and the small towns are included. The locator map shows two participating stations in Stanley, ND. There is one in Elgin, one in Pembina, and three in Bowman. I was tempted to spend my morning trying out all the little towns I know across the state.
Even though there’s a membership fee, the idea makes sense. Some North Dakotans are becoming millionares because of the oil boom, especially in the Bakken area in the northwest portion of the state, but the increasing oil production isn’t showing up in our gas prices yet. For those of us non-millionares (and for the millionares, too), pre-paying for gasoline means the prices won’t swing higher–at least while there are gallons left on the card.
I may have to give it a try.
Sounds interesting to me, I think I would buy my entire years worth of gas up front and then lock that price in for the entire year. This is a way to get the same consistent price all year
It’s a SCAM! Think about it. If they only take in income at the lowest $ per gal in your area and you paid them $1000, the purchase spread price goes up to .50 more per gal than you bought it at they are losing money. The money market fund they supposedly invest in will not keep enough returns to offset their losses. If 50% of the people bought in at today’s prices and gas goes up to $7 a gal they will go bankrupt!
Here’s where I’m confused… The website now says that ANY gas station that takes visa/mc can take their card, so in theory it’s an ATM/Cash card. Here’s my question though. Say you prepay 10 galons @ 4.00/gal so pay $40 for the card (let’s assume the street price is $4.15/gal). OK, so you receive the $40 card a few days later and now the street price is…say…$4.50/gal. If you pump $40 worth of gas (the card’s value) you ARE NOT pumping 10 galons, you would be pumping something like 8 galons… And there is no way to sell “galons” electronically and be deducted later off a card… What am I missing?
This is a scam. you are actually buying gallons, not a pre paid dolar amount, Priceline did this about 10 years ago and nearly went out of business for it. the $40 yearly mebership fee is where they make the money and they charge a fee every time you refill. Once 60 days goes by, you can no longer get a refund from your credit card.