Ask Lemmy

$150 is about normal these days. The pumps will usually have a little sticker somewhere that list the authorization hold amounts.

Fun fact: The auth holds used to be $1 way back in the day. But when prepaid debit cards came around, people could have a balance of $1 on them, get $50 worth of gas, and the station wouldn't be able to charge the actual amount (it would decline for NSF with no way to recover it as with a regular debit/credit card). That's why the hold amounts are between $75 and $150.

If you want to avoid the authorization hold, you can either pay cash or pre-pay with a cashier; the latter case will charge only what you pay.

Story on this one. As a young adult I needed gas to drive to my second job a town over, maybe 12 miles. I had $75 in my account which was plenty to fill up.

When I started the process, my card was declined. I tried and failed a few times, then went inside the store and had them try there to no success. The cashier mentioned that the hold amount was set by the bank.

Hearing this I went down the road too my bank and asked them what the fuck was going on, to which they said it was normal and that my funds were locked until the transaction went through. The 0$ transaction.

I managed to scrounge up enough change and a single $5 bill I had in my wallet to buy like 2 gallons of gas which was just enough to get to work and back. Shortly thereafter I closed my account at that bank and transferred everything to a credit union I have been much happier with.

They need to make it big enough to cover folks driving F-350's or something. Idk how much they take. It was generally $75 about 5 years ago. They don't do that with credit cards. Hotels are really awful about that, too.

$150 is the most they can, I believe. It’s normal and it fucking sucks. That being said, I have debit cards that will only authorize for the amount you use (like, I have $30 in my account, it clears, pump for $15 of gas, no residual hold). I know there’s good reasons to use a credit card on a trip, but they’re a pain for the pre-auth. It’s supposed go away in a few hours normally — maybe by the end of the day?

Heres me living in Aus reading these comments saying this is normal, thinking its insane. We just pull up to the bowser, wave to the cashier and start pumping petrol. People would be livid if they saw a $150 auth charge. The petrol station would be getting dragged in the news.

If you're in the states just use a credit card. Hold is out there but as long as you aren't going towards your limit then it's fine and ignorable. Just pay it off every month and it'll build your credit too. I don't even carry a debit card with me anymore.

It's got something to do with max fund preallocation / preauthorization. This is normal for gas stations, supposedly it keeps card thieves from armada fueling and leaving the station holding a grand of irrecoverable debt. Some banks won't show these background transactions, some only show one dollar, some show the full amount. The exact specifics you're shown vary between banks and stations, but it is normal and happens all the time.

My understanding about this and if I remember correctly they charged the maximum amount that the pump will let you pump so if the pump will let you pump 50 gallons they authorize the dollar amount for that amount of gas.

After that they charge the amount of gas that you actually get and delete the first charge. Normally this happens fast enough that you don't ever see it on your account. If you were in the middle of nowhere though, they might have been using tile up for their credit card system and that could delay things.

Gas station or truck stop? If the latter, it isn't that shocking that they might lazily use the same authorization charge amount for cars as they do for 18-wheelers.

The best selling vehicle model in America is the Ford F-150, with gas tank sizes mostly above 30 gallons (exact size depends on model/options). The second best selling vehicle is the Chevy Silverado, whose gas tank is between 24-28 gallons.

At $3/gallon, that's between $75 and $90 for the typical fill up.

For some vehicles (really large SUVs, premium SUVs that take premium grade gas), I can see $200+ tanks at certain gas prices we've seen in our recent past.

So it makes sense for a gas station to do a pre authorization for $100, maybe $150.

The other thing, too, though, is that the hold/pre-auth doesn't matter if it's a credit card that you just pay at the end of the month. It gets sorted out before your statement balance gets billed to you. It can get annoying if you're using a debit card and your balance is low, but this is just another way that credit cards tend to be better than debit cards if you can handle the responsibility.

I'll usually see $100, but $150 isn't insane, especially at a truck stop. It's just pending, because they don't actualy process the charge until they close the books later, at which time the actual amount is cross-referenced with the pending amount, the pending amount is canceled, and the actual amount is charged.

tl;dr: Don't worry about it.

$150 sounds about normal. I put gas into a motor home with an 85 gallon tank. Generally the pumps will cut off once or even twice before the tank is full — sometimes at $100, sometimes at $125, sometimes at $150

They don’t actually charge the extra, so once get over the initial shock of thinking you got stolen from, this is not a real problem (unless you’re running your card right up to the ragged edge of your credit limit.)

Prepay inside and you'll never have this issue. You get to chat with a bored cashier as well.

$100-150 is typical for a gas station holding charge. In my experience, they only do this for credit cards, but not debit cards and also doesn't get overcharged like that if you pay inside, but it also depends on the station.

150 dollars is a crazy amount for an authorization charge and makes little sense to me

You obviously don't drive a V8 pickup. Some have tanks as big as 48 gallons.

Pretty normal, seems nuts for a normal vehicle but they're likely using a number for if someone pulls up in a motorhome with a 50 gallon tank. Cards have a max they can do in one shot at the pump around that level as well.

it's a pre-auth charge. I've seen $175. It comes off after a bit. Sometimes in a few minutes, sometimes in a few hours. These gas stations will put up signs saying it's your bank, but that's BS. It's the station's acceptance or whatever.

It's just a thing, some will have a posted notice they do it, some just do it.

You can try to keep track of which ones do it, but if the hold is a concern the easiest way is to pay before pumping.

normally I still see $75 but in some areas around me known for gas guzzlers I do see $150 for the pre-auth. It almost always clears by the next morning but I've seen it take up to 3 days before during road trips (I suspect because I almost never travel it gets flagged for internal manual review but no real idea)

As explained to me, the hold is there to make sure you have enough in the account. Once the charge goes through with the actual amount the hold should go away so you don't have both at the same time.

I see people saying this is normal but I have never seen both the hold and the charge at the same time.

I'll just mention pilot, flying J, loves, the bigger interstate travel center stations tend to hold larger amounts because their systems cover for semi trucks filling up. I never had a hold that large from a neighborhood gas station.

I’ve seen $250 preauth, I’ve seen $500+ fills too.

But there’s different ways to pre auth. The normal way I see it is that you authorize up to $XX and the CC company approves/denies it, and then you pump what you need up to that amount. That it’s got a hold on the card afterwards is I think an older way back from when they’d have signatures on everything and it’s anachronistic with tap. I remember that would show up back in the ‘00s sometimes in the USA.

It's €250 where I live. Never thought anything of it actually. I guess I don't really mind

The race track I take my car to on occasion puts a $600 hold whenever you buy gas on site. And there is a sticker I didn't see until after my bank called me asking if I was crazy buying $600 worth of gas.

Bananas!