Credit card giant Visa is raising your limit at the gas pump. The company said Friday it would boost the cap on gasoline transactions for most customers amid a nationwide spike in gas prices.
Prices hit a record $4.33 per gallon in early March in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Oil prices have since fallen and may fall further with a White House announcement that it plans to release 1 million gallons of oil per day from the nation’s strategic stockpile to help lower high prices.
But the price at the pump comes down slower than it goes up. Prices remain over $4.20 in many parts of the nation this morning.
There are two caps that matter to gas buyers. One affects small businesses and commercial credit cards. Until now, those cards have paid one transaction fee for purchases of $125 or less and a larger fee for more expensive purchases.
The other is a fraud claim limit – sellers have additional liability for purchases over $125.
Those two figures together led many gas stations to set a per-purchase limit of $125. With gas prices approaching $7 in the most expensive parts of the country, some work and tow vehicles now routinely exceed that limit at the pump.
So Visa will quadruple the rate at which businesses pay reduced fees and raise the fraud limit to $175.
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