Ease of Travel

Until recently, the only way for you to find cheap gas was to rely on luck and try to remember where the cheapest gas was. Then came a great little site called Gas Buddy that I talked about at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. Then someone coupled that site with Google Maps, quite possibly the coolest online mapping site with their use of AJAX technology, to create Cheap Gas. Now it seems, AAA has joined the mix and I discovered, through a CNN Money article, that AAA members will have access to “AAA Fuel Price Finder.” AAA Fuel Price Finder’s data comes from credit card transactions (collected by OPISnet.com) - not volunteered information like at Gas Buddy! This means accurate updates and more frequent updates - another perk for AAA members.

Also, here are some good driving tips to help you save precious gas!

How To Get Access: Simply visit the AAA website, enter your zip code, and look for the Member Specials panel (should have a yellowish-orange heading, located near the lower left of the screen). Click on the “Fuel Price Finder” link, login, and you should have access to the tool.

The tool is pretty simplistic to use. Enter in City/State or Zip Code and the search radius (options are 3, 5, and 10 miles) and click on Search. The data it uses comes from OPISnet.com (if you look in the info bar at the bottom of the screen, the site is requesting data from http://aaa.opisnet.com) and that site provides “Downstream Petroleum News & Pricing.”

Ultimately, the benefit of this tool for your Memorial Day weekend is that you can check out the map of your trip and plan on visiting cheap gas stations along the way.

As of this writing, AAA’s site is probably getting hammered with requests from people reading the CNN Money article. I’ll give it a try later and write about how the reports from the tool look.

I also found this list of state gasoline taxes via Lets Make Cents. It’s an interesting chart.