Why We Care
Discover and Chase Freedom both offer 5% cashback at gas stations for three months of the year. You can view our full list of 5% cashback cards here.
We previously mentioned that some people have reported success cashing out the 5% Freedom category by purchasing OneVanilla gift cards at 7-Eleven; 7-Eleven is using coded by Visa as a gas station even when it’s not attached to a gas station at all. See here for the full list of Visa Merchant Category Codes.
We were naturally curious about the possibility of cashing out Discover 5% the same way.
Does Discover also count 7-Eleven as a gas station?
I went to 7-Eleven on July 1 to cash out my Freedom card. While I was there I bought a couple packs of peanuts for a dollar and charged it on my Discover card. The charge showed up in my Discover account as “Gasoline” and the 5% cashback posted the following month.Â
Caveats
- Â Not all cashiers will allow purchasing Vanilla gift cards with a credit card.
- Vanilla Reload cards used to be able to be purchased at 7-11 with a credit card, but now the POS system doesn’t allow it.
- They also have Green Dot Money Paks. Probably won’t work with a credit card. Can anyone chime in on this?
- 7-Eleven POS system seems to have a security feature which blocks multiple high-dollar transactions in the same dollar amount. Since most cashiers only do one gift card at a time, you may need to go to 7-Eleven more than once.
Amex and Mastercard
There are some AmEx cards and Mastercards which have gas stations as a category bonus.
Do Amex and Mastercard count 7-Eleven as a gas station?
- AmEx – no
- Mastercard- yes
It has been reported on DansDeals Forums that the INK Mastercard successfully get 2x on 7-Eleven purchases. It’s also reported there that AmEx records regular 7-Eleven’s as “store only” “Category: Merchandise & Supplies – Groceries”. (Is it possible that in a 7-Eleven which sells gas, all purchases will get coded by AmEx as gas? Possibly.)
My Thoughts
When I stopped in 7-Eleven on July 1 to cash out my Freedom card, I bought two Paypal Cash cards for 503.95, and one Vanilla Visa for $504.95. The 7-Eleven POS didn’t give me any problems.
A couple weeks later I stopped in again to cash out my Discover card; this time, the 7-Eleven system allowed my first Paypal Cash card but stopped the second. I verified that this was a 7-Eleven block, not a Discover block. My guess is that this is a security block that doesn’t allow high dollar purchases on the same credit card, but I have no idea why I didn’t have this problem with my Freedom card just two weeks earlier in the same store. Maybe 7-Eleven updated their POS.
Now I’m left with another $996 to cash out on my Discover card. I can’t go to the 7-Eleven’s in my area because the cashiers don’t allow credit cards for gift card purchases, so I’ve been doing my “7-Eleven business” at the 7-Eleven across the street from  my doctor’s office. Next week I have a follow-up scheduled, so I’ll stop in and try to buy another two gift cards. Based on past experience, some POS security blocks only block the exact-dollar amount, so I’ll try buying two gift cards with slightly different denominations, like $490 and $495. We’ll see what happens…
[See an update on this in the post: 7-Eleven POS Limits Gift Card Purchases – My Experiences]
this is dated 10 years ago. With Level 3 credit card data now standard, I doubt this is still accurate with or without GCs
Which part of the post do you feel is no longer accurate?
Were you able to buy those 2 gc in 7-Eleven in the same transaction 10 years ago? I’ve never tried to buy more than 1 at a time.
Don’t remember. I think it was one at a time.
Is anyone else amazed that 7-Eleven still charges the same fee ($4.95) on their Visa gc that they charged 10 years ago when
Chuck 1st wrote this article?
Anyone know what they code as now? I’m using the Max Rewards app and they’re recommending my discover because they apparently code as dining. Any tips for cashing out here? Having no luck in SoCal, I keep being directed to the ATM in the back.
Each 7-11 may code differently.
Some code as gas, some code as grocery, some code as something else (dining as you discovered).
The coding seems to done by the owner, so co-owned 7-11s are likely to be all coded the same. So possibly if just ONE of the 7-11s in that owned group is really a gas station, they all may code as gas, but if none of the 7-11s in the owned group are gas stations (and that owned group has never had a gas station in the past either), it’s perhaps more likely to code as something else.
Possibly the owner of the 7-11 you tried also owns a restaurant, and that’s why the dining coding.
People who own multiple businesses often find it easier to code ALL of their businesses the same (even when they’re actually very different), not realizing the problem that is causes for some people (because of earning categories).
So you basically have to do a test with a small purchase at EACH SEPARATE 7-11 to figure out how THAT SPECIFIC 7-11 codes, and also realize that it may code differently for different card networks (Discover vs Amex vs MC/Visa).
I tend to often buy a newspaper at 7-11s with my Citi Rewards+ MC card (which earns 10 points even on a $1 or $2 purchase), and so I’ve watched how they code on those purchases, and I’ve seen a mix of gas and grocery coding across SoCal areas like West LA / Santa Monica / Culver City / etc and Costa Mesa / Santa Ana / Irvine / Fountain Valley / etc.
I don’t have experience with Discover at 7-11s, but I suspect the thing with owners coding co-owned businesses the same (even when that makes the coding wrong) may have affected Discover also, the way it certainly has affected both Amex and Visa/MC.
I was able to buy a $500 Vanilla GC from 7/11 today with my Freedom. We’ll see if it codes as a gas station.
I can confirm 7-elevens with gas pumps code as gas for amex and will receive bonus.
Interesting, though it may vary
I’m looking at this way way later, but it’s still one of the top google results for “711 code as gas”, and the first from a website I like. 711 has consistently coded as Gas for me with Amex cards, attached gas station or not, to my pleasant surprise.
I bought a PPMCC the other day at my local 7-Eleven, one that does not have gas pumps. The transaction just posted and is coded as “Service Stations.” Any idea if this still means I qualify for 5%? No indication of that yet.
Not sure, but if it’s showing on the Visa Supplier Locator as gas, you’re probably okay. Hopefully, even if you paid with Discover.
Update: The transaction coded as “Service Station,” but that still fell into the more broad category of “Gasoline” according to my transaction report. So I believe it was a success! Crisis averted.
Awesome!
Almost all cards in 7-11 are hard coded for cash only. The exceptions are One Vanilla and Vanilla GC and Paypal my cash. So moneypaks won’t work (i’ve tried). 7-11 must have made some change recently on or before 7/1 that the STORE can’t sell more than 1 paypal my cash card in a certain time frame. it doesn’t matter if you use different CCS or even if a completely different person would try it would approve than immediately reverse. It’s not clear what is the exact time frame. Maybe buy before your appointment and attempt to buy another afterward. You can buy more than 1 OV or VGC however (at least in 2 transactions)> Whether your CC would flag is YMV. You can always call in advance ans ask them to notate account that you’ll be making repeat purchases for same amount.