Chime Spot Me offers free overdraft facility for transactions on your Chime Debit Card up to your Spot Me Limit. Yes, Chime Spot Me can work for most expenses on your Chime Debit Card including purchases of gas at gas station. But there are few things you should be aware when using Chime Spot Me at gas station, which we will talk about in this post.
With Chime Spot Me, you can overdraw your Chime Card for any transaction on your Chime debit card. Provided, the transaction amount is within your Spot Me limit. Your Spot Me limit can range from $20 to $200 and is determined by Chime based on your usage and activity.
Chime Spot Me not only covers your daily purchases on your debit card like grocery, gas, uber etc, but you can also use it at ATM to withdraw cash and get cash back at Walmart and supported retail stores.
One important point to note is that Chime Spot Me lets you overdraft only on your Chime debit Card and is not available on the Chime Credit Builder Card.
Can you use Chime Spot Me for Gas
Yes, you can use Chime Spot Me while paying for gas with your Chime Debit Card. Do note that the amount of gas you intend to buy is covered by your Spot Me limit. Also, pay for gas at the register by going inside at gas station, rather than swiping your card at the gas pump to avoid hold charges which may exhaust your Spot Me limit and cause transaction decline issues.
So before you attempt to use Chime Spotme for gas purchase:
- Make sure you are using your Chime Debit Card and Spot me is activated on the Chime app
- Make sure the amount of gas you intend to pump is within your available Spot me limit
- Make sure to pay inside at the register rather than swiping your Chime Card at the gas pump to avoid hold charges which may also cause transaction decline or temporarily exhaust your Chime Spot Me limit
The third point on hold charges is an important intricacy which you need to be aware of and will run into especially at gas pumps. Because when you are swiping a debit card (this applies even to non-chime debit card) to pay at gas pump, the actual amount of gas is not known before hand.
Gas pumps thereby charge a temporary hold on your debit card as a way of checking the availability of funds on your card. These hold charges are later reversed as a separate transaction.
However, the amount of hold charge varies widely across gas pump and can be as high as $125. And the time to reverse the hold charge can range from 2 hours and even go up to 4 days.
In effect, the hold charges can turn out to be much higher than the cost of gas you are looking to fill. For example, a gas pump may place a $50 hold even when you want to purchase just $10 worth of gas. The $50 hold will be released after some time once the transaction clears. This can happen on the same day or even take 2-3 more days.
So this can cause transaction decline issues when you are attempting to pay and run you out of your Spot Me limit, till the time the reversal is done.
If you want to save yourself from this pain, it is better you pre-pay for the amount of gas at the register.
For this, you do need to take the trouble of estimating for the amount of gas you want to get and walk inside. But it is worth the effort if you want to avoid the hassles of getting hit with the hold charges and waiting for a refund.
Especially, when your Spot Me limit is on lower end and you have further purchases planned, it always make sense to go inside and prepay at the register for the exact amount of gas you want to pump. For may users, Spot Me is a life saver and you should use your limit wisely.
Many users get confused due to the hold charges and get the impression of being over-charged by banks, as they are not aware on the hold charges that a gas pump levies. This can be a tricky issue to resolve later.
In fact, Chime itself has also mentioned on their website to prefer paying at the register rather than paying at the pump.
With the cost of gas also increasing, it makes even more sense to budget and estimate your gas expenses beforehand. This way you can also keep a better track of your fuel expenses. If you are interested, you can also check this CNBC article on tips to save cost and avoid overpaying for the gas.
Wrap Up
Hope this post has helped you get a complete understanding of the right way to use Chime Spot me for your gas. Apart from Chime, you can also use other payment methods like using your Cash app card for gas or use Apple Pay for the payments at gas station.
