How much available credit do you need to buy gas?

I was buying gas the other day and I only had about $50 of available credit left on my credit card and it got declined when I tried to put it in the machine. I was just wondering how much credit you need to buy enough gas to top off your tank rather than going to the cashier and asking them to put a certain amount of money on your pump?|||Depends on the gas station. Some will only pre auth your card for $1 and others are as high as $80.





You are better off going into the gas station and paying anyways. Paying at the pump will place a hold on your card, and you cannot use those funds until the gas station runs the actual amount of gas you pumped and releases the auth hold.|||Nice name :)





It depends. There are two phases to a credit card purchase, the first involves putting a hold for a certain amount of money, and the second is the actual purchase (which can be a different amount). When you do a purchase where the amount is known, the two steps happen consecutively. In this case it sounds like the first step was probably for the maximum amount they'll let you pump ($80? $100?), so you might have to prepay the next time at the cashier so that only the required amount is held.|||Why on earth would you run your credit card that close to the limit? Start charging only what you can pay IN FULL when the bill arrives. You are paying a premium on everything you buy. Isn't gas expensive enough? You really need to pay interest on it too?? I can't imagine making payments on a tank of gas I used months ago, or a meal I ate months ago (and paying extra for it at that).