In one sentence: maximum you can save is about 2.27%. Much less then what the promotion hype suggests, isn’t it?
Here’s how it works. You spend $100 at Safeway. Then, boom! September 30th strikes! End of quarter, your 10c per gallon discount is lost. Sorry.
Ok, next time you are smarter. You spend another $100 at Safeway. You keep in mind that you will loose your discount 12/31 if not used. You go to the pump. Oops, no discount… Why? A-ha, you spent your $100 on liquor, tobacco, postage stamps, services, gift certificates, lottery tickets, fluid dairy products (did they mean MILK?), sales tax, Medicare prescriptions. All of the above does not qualify.
All right, now with all your experience you go and spend your $100 on plain groceries. You know you have your 10c per gallon discount. You know it’s valid only on one fill-up. Now, how do you get most of it? Of course, you buy as much gas as you can. How you do that? Well, you drive your car until it runs out of gas and then get it towed to your local Safeway gas station with an empty 18 gallon tank. Just kidding. If you are like most people, you will drive in with some gas left, and you will get on average 14 gallons of gas. Congratulations, you just saved $1.40! Wow, that’s 0.88% off $160 that you spent on groceries and gas! Cool!
What? You have a 100-gallon tank and want to fill it up at Safeway gas station to save more? Sorry, you can purchase only up to $100 per transaction. And if you want to use your Visa card, you have to play by Visa rules, which is $75 per transaction maximum.
You have an idea? You can get free gas with this promotion? Well, let’s see how you get it. Let’s say gas is $4.30 per gallon. This means you have to acumulate 43 times 10c discount, which means you have to spend $4300 at Safeway. Yes, all in one calendar quarter. Now you fill up your HUGE 23-gallon tank and get your $100 worth of free gas. What percentage savings is it? 2.27%. And that’s the absolute maximum you can save from this PR BS. I say we need a law requiring to disclose maximum achievable savings, as well as typical savings IN PERCENT with any discount or promotion. That would save us lots of time ’cause you would not have to read this 
