No cashbacks on fuel purchases on credit cards from October 1

• American Express, Standard Chartered and State Bank of India told customers that cashbacks they earn on fuel transactions will be discontinued.
• The card companies said that this move was as per the advice of public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs).
• Until now, credit card users were earning a 0.75% cashback on these purchases, which was capped at ₹45 per transaction.

Come October, your fuel purchases on credit cards will not earn any cashbacks. Three credit card companies including American Express, Standard Chartered and State Bank of India sent messages to their customers saying that cashbacks that they earn on fuel transactions will be discontinued.

The text messages sent to credit card users are also said that this was done as per the advice of public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs). These companies include Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL). These text messages were accessed by Business Insider India.

Until now, credit card users were earning a 0.75% cashback on these purchases, which was capped at ₹45 per transaction. This is however not the only recent change that was made by the oil marketing majors who own more than 70% of the petrol pumps across India. In July this year, the government-owned OMCs introduced a cap of ₹45 per transaction.

A BPCL company spokesperson refused to comment on the issue, while responses from Indian Oil and American Express are awaited. HPCL, SBI and other banks could not be contacted immediately.

Only last year, SBI and BPCL announced the launch of a co-branded credit card on the Visa platform. They had then called it the ‘most rewarding’ of such cards which could give out 70 litres of free fuel every year. IOC too had launched a card along with Citibank and HPCL too launched a co-branded credit card with ICICI.