📋 What's in this article:
- Budget season is when fuel card and payment platforms get renewed by default. This article shows fuel retailers how to use their 2027 planning cycle to ask a growth question instead of a maintenance question.
- Why competing on price alone leaves the most valuable part of the customer relationship unclaimed
- How wallet share, customer data ownership and launch speed decide whether a platform supports growth or just keeps the lights on
- A five-question review to run before you sign off on next year's platform budget
Reading time: ~8 minutes
This summer, US drivers saved $82.8 million at the pump through fuel rewards programs, according to Verifone payment data covering more than 590 million fuel purchases between late May and mid-September 2026. That sounds like a market where rewards are working. Look closer, and it is a market where most of the value is still unclaimed.
In a separate Verifone study of 45.8 million outdoor fuel transactions in June 2026, only 24% presented a rewards or loyalty card at the pump, and only a third of those redeemed a discount. That means roughly 8% of fuel transactions were tied to a redeemed reward. The relationship between a fuel brand and its customer is, for most fill-ups, still anonymous.
Most fuel retailers enter 2027 planning asking what it will cost to keep their card and payment programs running. The better question is whether those programs will help them grow in every territory they operate today, and in the next one they enter. Operational control is not the end goal. It is the starting point. And budget season is the one moment each year when that distinction turns into a line item.
Why is budget season the riskiest time for a fuel card program?
Budget season is when operations lines get renewed by default. Platform, processing and card management costs are treated as fixed infrastructure, carried forward with an inflation adjustment and very little discussion. The system works, nothing is visibly broken, so the line is approved.
The risk is not in what the renewal costs. It is in what the renewal commits you to for another twelve months: the same limits on what you can launch, the same dependency on whoever holds your transaction data, and the same number of systems to coordinate every time the commercial team wants to try something new.
The renewal question: "Does the platform still work?"
The growth question: "Does the platform help us grow in every market we run today, and the next one we enter?"
If everything is compliant but nothing is growing, something is broken. Budget season is the right time to say so.
How can fuel retailers compete on more than price?
Fuel is the same product at every pump. When the product is identical, price becomes the default lever, and price competition only ever moves margin in one direction.
What is not identical is the customer relationship. A fleet account that runs on your branded card, sees your offers, and settles through your billing is a relationship you own. A fill-up paid with a generic card at your site is a transaction you processed for someone else's customer.
What competing on more than price looks like in practice:
- Your brand on the card and in the app: Branded fleet and prepaid cards, issued under your name, keep the relationship with you across every site in your network.
- Commercial terms you control: Step discounts, account-level pricing and dynamic offers configured by your team, updated instantly across locations, without waiting on an IT release.
- Service that matches the account: A ten-vehicle SME and a national corporate fleet need different controls, different billing cycles and different portals. Serving both well is a differentiator price cannot copy.
How do fuel retailers grow wallet share, not just fuel volume?
For most fuel retailers, B2B performance is still measured in liters. As fleets add hybrid and electric vehicles, liters per vehicle decline, and a growth plan built only on volume starts shrinking on its own.
Wallet share asks a different question: of everything this fleet spends on mobility, how much flows through your program? Fuel, EV charging, car wash, maintenance, tolls, parking and in-store purchases are all part of the same wallet.
Three mechanisms that move wallet share:
- Branded offers you launch yourself: Campaigns tied to real purchase data, triggered by actual behavior (a fleet that stopped using a site, an account that never buys in-store), launched by your commercial team without developer support.
- Billing-integrated promotions: When an offer is applied at the point of authorization and reflected directly on the invoice, the fleet manager sees the value in the place they actually look.
- A marketplace beyond the pump: Connecting fleet accounts with additional services and partners turns a single fill-up into revenue beyond the pump.
This is the capability area Reins calls Wallet Growth. It only works when the platform underneath it can see every transaction in real time.
Who should own the customer data in a fuel card program?
If the network holds your transaction data, you are renting your customers.
Every fill-up generates data: who bought, where, when, which product, at what price, against which policy. When that data sits with a third-party network or is locked inside a legacy system that exports it once a month, you can report on your customers but you cannot act on them.
What owning your customer data enables:
- Real-time decisions: Pricing, credit and offer decisions made on today's transactions, not last month's batch.
- Account-level insight: Seeing which fleets are growing, which are drifting to other networks, and which have untapped spend categories.
- Portability: When you enter a new market or launch a new product, your data and your customer history come with you.
You already have mountains of data. If it is stuck in legacy systems, you are leaving revenue on the table.
How do you launch a new product or market without rebuilding your stack?
Most fuel retailers did not choose to run five or six separate systems. They accumulated them: one for card issuing, one for authorization, one for billing, one for CRM, one for campaigns, and another every time a new product or territory came along. Each addition made sense at the time. Together, they make every new launch a project.
The test for 2027 is simple. A new product, a new market, closed-loop or open-loop: can you add it to one platform, or does it become a sixth system?
A unified platform covers three capability areas that legacy stacks usually split across vendors:
- Technological Infrastructure: cloud-native, multi-region, API-connected to your existing POS, ERP and CRM, with compliance built in.
- Operational Control: automated onboarding, billing, invoicing, credit control and settlement, with real-time visibility across sites and accounts.
- Wallet Growth: branded offers, campaigns, flexible pricing and marketplace capabilities that turn transactions into revenue.
When these work as one system, launching an open-loop card alongside an existing closed-loop program, adding EV charging to a fuel account, or entering a new country becomes a configuration decision rather than a procurement cycle. Reins replaces four to five legacy systems on average per project, with implementation in under six months.
The numbers behind the 2027 opportunity
Key numbers: fuel rewards at the US pump, 2026
- 24% of outdoor fuel transactions presented a rewards or loyalty card (June 18 to 25, 2026)
- About 1 in 3 of those transactions redeemed a per-gallon discount, roughly 8% of all fuel transactions
- 38.5 million rewards-eligible transactions in one week captured no savings
- $82.8 million saved by drivers through fuel rewards over summer 2026, across 590M+ purchases
Sources: Verifone fuel transaction loyalty study, July 2026 (opens in new tab); Verifone summer 2026 fuel data, as reported by C-Store Dive, September 2026 (opens in new tab)
These figures describe consumer fuel purchases, but the pattern carries over to B2B programs: most of the relationship value at the pump is still unclaimed, and the retailers who claim it will be the ones whose platforms let them act on every transaction.
The 2027 platform review: five questions before you renew
Use this before signing off on next year's platform and card program budget.
| Question to ask | If the answer is yes | If the answer is no |
|---|---|---|
| Is the customer relationship under our brand, on our card, in our app? | You can compete on more than price | You are processing someone else's customer |
| Can our commercial team launch an offer or campaign without IT? | Wallet share can grow on your timeline | Every campaign waits in a development queue |
| Do we own our transaction data in real time? | Pricing, credit and offers run on today's data | You report on customers but cannot act on them |
| Can we add a new product or market on the same platform? | Launches are configuration, not projects | Every new line of business adds another system |
| Can we run closed-loop and open-loop in parallel? | You can grow both models and the transition between them | You are locked into one model, or two systems |
Three or more "no" answers mean the renewal is not a neutral decision. It is a decision to hold growth at this year's level.
What can fuel retail learn from hotels and direct booking?
Fifteen years ago, many hotel groups made a reasonable operational decision. Online booking platforms brought volume, handled distribution and filled rooms. The cost was a commission per booking, which looked like a fair price for reach.
What took longer to see was what the hotels had given away. The guest's email, booking history, preferences and repeat behavior sat with the platform, not the hotel. Every time a satisfied guest came back, the hotel paid again to reach a customer it had already served. The hotels that recovered margin were the ones that invested in direct relationships: their own booking channels, their own member offers, their own guest data.
Fuel retail is at a similar point. A fill-up on a third-party network card still uses your forecourt, your fuel and your staff. But the relationship, the data and the next purchase decision belong to the network. Every year that continues, the retailer pays to serve a customer it does not own.
The lesson from hospitality is not to reject networks. It is to make sure the relationship that matters most runs through your brand, on infrastructure you control.
Frequently Asked Questions: Fuel Retail Growth Planning for 2027
What should fuel retailers prioritize in their 2027 budget?
Prioritize capabilities that grow revenue per account, not only those that keep operations running. That means branded card programs, real-time data access, self-serve commercial tools and the ability to add new products and markets on one platform. Operational reliability remains essential, but it should be the baseline of a platform decision, not the whole decision.
How can fuel retailers grow revenue as fuel volumes decline?
By shifting the growth metric from liters to wallet share. Fleets still spend on mobility as they electrify, across EV charging, maintenance, tolls, parking and in-store purchases. Retailers that capture more of that spend through a single branded account can grow even as fuel volume per vehicle falls.
What is the difference between closed-loop and open-loop fuel cards?
A closed-loop card is accepted only within the issuer's own network of sites. An open-loop card runs on a payment scheme such as Visa or Mastercard and is accepted wherever that scheme is, while still carrying fleet-grade spending controls. Many retailers now run both, using closed-loop to reward use of their own sites and open-loop to keep the account relationship when drivers travel beyond the network.
Why does customer data ownership matter for fuel retailers?
Because data is what makes pricing, offers and credit decisions possible. If transaction data sits with a third-party network or arrives in monthly batches, the retailer can report on its customers but cannot act on them in time. Owning real-time data turns every transaction into an input for the next commercial decision.
How long does it take to replace a legacy fuel card platform?
Industry implementations have historically taken 18 months or more. Reins implementations take under six months, with phased migration so existing card programs keep running while new capabilities are added.
The Line Item That Decides 2027
Budget season will ask what it costs to keep your platform running. That question has an easy answer, and it is the wrong one to stop at.
The question that shapes the next twelve months is the one most renewals skip: does your platform help you grow in every territory you run today, and the next one you enter?
Before you sign off, ask: if we renew exactly what we have, what will we be able to launch in 2027 that we cannot launch today?
If the answer is "nothing new," the budget is not funding growth. It is funding another year of standing still.
Reins builds fuel card and payment infrastructure for fuel retailers and fleet card issuers, from branded card issuance and closed-loop and open-loop programs to real-time customer data and self-serve wallet growth campaigns.
Contact us to learn more.
