Use your fuel rewards and cut travel costs

The recent reprieve in the petrol price hikes is expected to end in November and data from the Central Energy Fund on Friday, 21 October, projects the following price adjustments: Petrol 93 & 95: R0.48 per litre increase; diesel 0.05%: R1.61 per litre increase and paraffin: R0.78 per litre increase. MyBroadband looked at all the fuel rewards programmes offered by major banks in South Africa to see which customers stood to gain the most from filling up at their bank’s partner fuel stations. – Sandra Laurence

Big petrol price hike coming — These banks have the best fuel rewards

By Hanno Labuschagne

Several of South Africa’s major banks offer rewards schemes that enable their customers to earn back some of their spending on fuel every month.

These initiatives can provide some relief for motorists who have been hammered by rising petrol and diesel costs in 2022.

Diesel, in particular, has continued to be hit with significant hikes in the past few months.

The recent reprieve in the petrol price hikes is also expected to end in November.

Data from the Central Energy Fund dated Friday, 21 October, projects the following price adjustments:

Petrol 93 & 95: R0.48 per litre increase
Diesel 0.05%: R1.61 per litre increase
Diesel 0.005%: R1.64 per litre increase
Paraffin: R0.78 per litre increase

Unless major changes to the price of oil or the rand-dollar exchange rate occur, these price hikes will kick in on Wednesday, 2 November 2022. A final announcement is expected this week.

MyBroadband looked at all the fuel rewards programmes offered by major banks in South Africa to see which customers stood to gain the most from filling up at their bank’s partner fuel stations.

Below we have provided a summary of how each bank’s programme works and compared the minimum and maximum earns of the programmes.

Absa

Absa Rewards gives members cash back when they fill up at Sasol stations using their debit or credit card.

The cash backs are percentage-based and get higher as the customer moves up Absa Rewards Tier levels.

Debit card purchases earn between 0.5% and 4.5% of the purchase value back, while credit card users get back between 1% and 30%.

In addition, Absa customers can double their rewards by filling up at Sasol on Thursdays.

The table below outlines the percentages in cash back that Absa Rewards Tier 1 to 5 members get when using their debit or credit card for refills at Sasol garages.

Capitec

Capitec gives all its customers 20 cents back for every litre of fuel they purchase from Shell garages, provided they also swipe a linked Shell V+ Card.

On Capitec’s Live Better Day, which falls on every 10th day of the month, customers can get double the cash back, meaning they will earn 40 cents for every litre of fuel purchased.

Customers can also get 0.5% cash back on items bought at Shell Select forecourts.

The earnings can only be spent at Shell garages and forecourts.

Non-Capitec customers can also get a V+ card and earn 15 cents back per litre of fuel, only 5 cents less than Capitec’s rate.

Discovery Bank

Discovery Bank gives its members up to 2 Discovery Miles for every R1 of fuel spend on purchases worth R75 or more. That works out to an earn rate of 20%.

To qualify for this, customers must be members of Vitality Health, which requires a long-term medical insurance product, and Vitality Drive, which requires short-term car insurance.

In addition, they must have Vitality Money activated on their banking suite.

Discovery Insure members can earn an additional 50% of their spend back per Vitality Drive point, which they get for good driving behaviour, meticulously monitored with Discovery’s car-telematics systems.

The bank says the combination of the two programmes could see customers earning back a maximum of R420 per month due to the capped qualifying spend of R1,000.

FNB

FNB customers get eBucks points when they pay with their bank card at Engen garages.

The reward rate varies greatly depending on the eBucks level you are on.

FNB rewards fuel spending on a per-litre basis at the prevailing inland price of a litre of 95 unleaded petrol.

Normally, this earn rate would be 60 cents per litre for Aspire customers and vary between 10 cents and R4 per litre for Premier and Private account holders.

However, FNB has added a further potential R2.00 per litre for all these customers until at least December 2022.

That requires them to use a virtual card for their fuel purchase and at least one online purchase during the month.

FNB Premier and Private customers can also earn double their quarterly eBucks on fuel if they meet three criteria:

Have a vehicle financed through Wesbank
Load this vehicle onto the Nav> section of the FNB app.
Have 100% of fuel spend during the quarter at Engen

The table below summarises the basic eBucks earnings FNB customers get based on their rewards level.

Nedbank

Nedbank customers who have signed up for the Card Swiper facility will get a guaranteed 50 cents back in Greenbacks rewards for every litre of fuel bought at BP service stations.

While this is among the worst earnings rates, Nedbank does not complicate its offering by linking the rewards to any other qualifying conditions.

Card Swiper is free to customers with Optimum, Savvy Plus Gold, Savvy Bundle and Private Clients accounts, while other Nedbank customers pay a monthly fee of R25.

Standard Bank — Astron Energy or Caltex

Standard Bank’s uCount Rewards members can earn points when fuelling up at Caltex or its rebranded Astron Energy outlets using their debit card or credit card.

Similar to Absa and FNB, these earnings will vary greatly depending on the reward tier of the customer.

Normally, debit card customers can earn between 20 cents and R2.00 per litre back in uCount points, while credit card users can earn between 30 cents and R5.00.

However, a set of qualifying behaviours can double the earnings for each of these customers, similar to FNB. They are:

100% fuel spend at participating Astron Energy or Caltex per fixed cycle.
Be an mRewards member and purchase a minimum of R500 or more at Makro per fixed cycle.
Have a transactional current account and two other Standard Bank products, like a home or personal loan, insurance, wills, online share trading, or the Standard Bank Mobile banking app.

The table below summarises the value in uCount Rewards Standard Bank customers can get back when filling up at Astron or Caltex stations.

Highest potential earn

To see which of the banks offered the best rewards for fuel purchases, we calculated how much money customers could earn back per tank of fuel.

Filling a 45-litre tank with 95 unleaded petrol inland would cost R1,006.20 based on a per-litre price of R22.36 for October 2022.

The bank with the best earnings based on minimal effort was Nedbank, which would give a customer back R22.50 in Greenbacks per 45-litre tank fill.

But customers willing to go the extra mile to meet qualifying thresholds can earn much more from most of the competing banks.

Absa Rewards Tier 5 customers can get up to 60% back on their fuel purchase at Sasol when using their credit card on a Thursday, working out to R603.72 back on a 45-litre tank.

The catch is that Absa Rewards Tier 5 has very tough requirements.

To reach this tier, customers must have two different types of loans or more, in addition to savings, insurance, and wills products from Absa, among other items.

This is aside from the basic requirements of a current account with an overdraft, linked credit card with debit order, and having your salary paid into your Absa account.

On Tier 4, Absa’s maximum cash rewards per 45 litres of 95-octane petrol is R130.80, and on the full R3,000 spending cap the maximum cash rewards you can earn is R360.

FNB and Standard Bank customers stand to gain the second-most from their rewards programmes, if they can meet all the requirements of their highest reward levels.

With an effective return of R450 on a R1,006.20 purchase, these customers could earn back around 45% of their spend in ideal scenarios.

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