Credit card surcharges hurt motorists

With a daily commute to Red Bank, Middletown resident Tom Sullivan keeps a keen eye on which gasoline stations charge a different price for cash or credit when he needs a fill-up.

"I don't often carry enough cash so I'm using a debit card to fill up my gas tank," said Sullivan, a Web developer. "I've become very aware of what gas stations do charge surcharges."

Separate cash and credit prices are nothing new. They became widespread after prices in New Jersey spiked in 2008. But with gas prices in overdrive yet again — and headed to more than $3.90 per gallon for regular grade by early next week, according to oil analyst Tom Kloza — the dual prices are on drivers' minds.

"People may be noticing it more now that prices are elevated and they no longer have $50 to $100 in their wallet to fill up their tank of gas," said Tracy Noble, spokeswoman for AAA Mid-Atlantic. "Where they would have gone to put it on the credit card, they would wind up paying the extra fee."

But gasoline station owners say the higher charge for using a credit card enables the station to recoup the costs for credit fees that rise as gas prices skyrocket, cutting deep in an already slim profit margin.

"It costs us over 2 percent for the credit card," said John Paolantonio Jr., owner of Branch Spirit, a service station in West Long Branch. "We're making less now on a gallon of gas then I did in 1976 when it sold for 60 cents a gallon. Ridiculous."

In Monmouth and Ocean counties, the average price for regular grade gasoline was just less than $3.80 a gallon, up 42.5 cents in the past month, according to AAA's Fuel Gauge Report. And there are no signs of a halt in the rise anytime soon.

"In N.J., we'll be in the $3.90s by early next week," said Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, in an email. "It promises to be a wild week because of a cluster of refining issues."

Gasoline retailers can't afford to absorb the cost of accepting a credit card, said Sal Risalvato, executive director of the New Jersey Gasoline C-Store Automotive Association, a trade group of gasoline stations, repair shops and convenience stores.