Comment by Spooky23

It’s a loss leader that is usually capped. They are marketing against other cards in your wallet. Most consumers use a card or two so the habit of buying gas drives more spend.

Discover does the same thing with quarterly promos. They are paying 5% for the first $1500 of Apple Pay/Google Pay transactions… an incentive to add Discover to your wallet.

Gas is also unique. Our local supermarket chain gives you gas discounts for spend. People are always annoyed about gas so they fixate on saving $1/gallon, forgetting that they spent $1000 at the most expensive grocery chain so they can save $12-20 for a fillup. That $12 probably cost them $50.