This is a great world war program. I stopped at a marathon halfway on my commute that I do twice a week for an hour. I pulled up enough or words to get my first $.25 off per gallon. It took five dollars out of my reward account. I only get 10 gallons so I only use 250 of it. I assume that I lost the other 250 but actually returned the unused reward money back into my account. I was shockingly surprised. It’s very easy to use. The only thing to watch out for is when you claim the reward it takes a little bit of time for it to get processed. I claim the award right at the pump, but it didn’t make it into the app until a little bit later so when you claim your award, you’ve got a month to use it. Just do it a bit before you’re going to use it in order to use it at the pump.

So the in app point system uses “$”. Right now, after spending about $300 on about 63 gallons of fuel, i only earned “$5.50” and “$2” extra from sign up bonuses. And even though “$7” sounds like a good deal, i can redeem “$5” to get only a mere ¢25 off per gallon. If i had “$10”, i could redeem it for ¢50 off per gallon. It costs “$20” to redeem the $1 off discount. Which as of right now, without any promotions or bonuses, would cost me about $1,200 to achieve that discount. Insane!When i saw a sign at an Arco gas station saying that if i sign up for the rewards program, i could earn up to “$7” in rewards just for signing up, i didn’t realize that “$7” in rewards was worthless and that the point system uses “$” to trick you into thinking you’re going to get an amazing deal. Really though, using a “$” as the point system just makes it seem sketchy and absolutely misleading. Just use regular points instead of “$” points. All that being said, the app isn’t very good on the rewarding part and if you can i would suggest trying to go other gas stations instead and trying out their rewards system. If you don’t have the option, then at least this is better than nothing.

Generally speaking, the ARCO rewards program is pretty good. The app itself provides the relevant information but is not immediately timely with transactions. In other words, I’ll receive a text about my transaction as soon as it’s over. But the app is not updated for some uncounted period of time. It is also nice that the program allows you to build up your incentives and use two dollars and up.That said, every other gas station rewards program provides incentives consistently. For example, they’ll give five or $.10 off a gallon simply for being a member. Some of the programs also provide incentives for regular customers whereby they increase the customers standing with the amount of discount provided gallon. Personally, I tend to like this and feel like it’s honestly more rewarding for being a loyal customer.

I don’t have any trouble with the app, but I do have problem with the promotion. I can never get the rewards they promise. In May, there was a promotion that once you bought 30 gallons, you would get a discount of $.20 per gallon on your next fill up. I completed the promotion and went to fill up my tank today. I did not get $.20 per gallon. I only got $.10 per gallon. Stations that participate in this program are already more expensive than the other stations so after my discount I got about $.04 a gallon savings. It’s not worth it to try to find a station that participates. I don’t plan on wasting my time anymore.I forgot to mention, because participating stations are $.05 to $.10 higher than non-participating stations, by the time you filled up a couple of times to get the rewards at a participating station, you’ve already spent more there than you would have at the non-participating station. ARCO got back to me about my first review and said, “they would look into it.”