Lock fuel in at a good price. I have saved $20 in one fill up and I have small car. - ‎7-Eleven Fuel App

Now, this one is surprisingly a bit of fun but that might just be me and the joy I get from a good deal. It is fuel price hedging without the cost. This is the 7-eleven fuel app. Essentially, you sign up and lock in a price for 7 days whenever you want. My best case was  I had locked in ~$1.20/L and the price I filled up at was ~$1.75/L. I saved about $20 (or $0.55/L) and I have a 50L tank (small car)!!! 

Example: I have taken a screenshot example of what the lock-in looks like (picture to the left). Note it says 6 days until expiry if I go to fill up and the petrol is $1.20/L I can show my voucher, scan it and get the fuel at $0.879/L. The discount will show up and I then pay with my bank card. If the price was $0.85/L at 7-eleven or elsewhere, I would fill up using that price and not show my voucher. 

My process before petrol prices dropped so much (how crazy are prices now?) was when I saw it between 1.20-1.40 I would lock it in. I would also lock it in as soon as I saw one petrol station with a much higher prices than the rest because you know the others will follow suit. 

Now you understand the value let me give you the specs.

• Free to use.
• You can lock in a price for up to 7 days.
• If you use a voucher it will immediately expire.
• You must wait until it is expired before locking in a different price.
• You have no obligation to use the locked-in price.
• Recently 7-Eleven updated their policy and removed the requirement to have funds in the 7-Eleven account to lock in a price (see picture).

Now let’s give you the things to watch out for/note.

• Now this is a marketing application and although savings are good you can find yourself spending money on their in-store goodies. They send push notifications through the app telling you banana bread is $1 or here is a free coffee. You can turn these off like any mobile app.
• If you lock in a price at say $1.30 and it goes to $1.20 a couple of days later you have to wait for the 7-day expiry to lock it in again. You can just use the price on the day if it is better as well, just don’t scan the app.
• Don't put money in the 7-eleven account as it is not earning interest.
• If you don’t use the price in 7 days it will expire and you will lose that locked-in rate.

Tricks for the players.

• Get a couple of friends or your partner onto it and lock in the prices at different times. Then in a sneaky chat, you can send screenshots of the voucher…I have tested this 😉
• Don’t always use 7-eleven, do your normal Woolworths, Coles, RACQ, etc (4c/L saving) if that is cheaper at the time.
• Download the fuelmap app to see all fuel prices in your area at once.

All the details direct from the source can be found here.

Shout out to Eden for this original tip!