Apps

How far do you have to drive for GetUpside’s advertised $200-$300 savings?

I’ve mentioned before I listen to several news outlets in the car as gathered for me by choices I made for Google Assistant. Recently I’ve been hearing an advertisement on several of my channels for GetUpside. The premise of the advertisements is a person is paying for lunch because now that everyone’s driving again she’s making “between $200 and $300 extra a month.” This is from January of 2022, they have changed the advertising now evidently.

TL;DR – Numbers below, it’s a lot. Math is hard. No comment on the service, just the advertising claims.

This smelled, so I decided to do the math. If I did it wrong, feel free to correct. I’ve got no dog in this fight.

This is only on the gas side advertised for GetUpside, and not their other restaurants or grocery stores cash back they list on the website. That’s not what the ad I am subjected to every day mentioned.

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Now, there are some mentions in the ad about an intro that gains bonuses on the first fill up, but the ad implies that the $200-300 savings is a regular or ongoing thing, and that this person isn’t basing this off of an intro offer. This means 25 cents is the maximum base.

I’m not even going to go all that pedantic on the “up to 25 cents per gallon” and we’ll say that for purposes of the math below they do that at every single gas station they work with.

$200-300 in savings per month at 25 cents per gallon (maximum possible listed,) means the person purchased 800-1200 gallons of gas per month using the GetUpside app and making the maximum possible per fill up. At $3.35 per gallon average, this means their fuel expenditure a month was $2,680.00-$4,020.00.

Guy claiming to have gotten $900 back from GetUpside
(3,600 gallons)

For a car, at an average of 24.9mpg highway, on the low end she would have driven 19,920 miles, and on the $300 savings end 29,880 miles (about 1.2x around the earth.)

The average vehicle having a 19 gallon tank this means she filled up (from empty,) 42-63 times.

For a single person to use this much gas per day they would need to drive 664-996 miles a day, or 10ish hours. Less if it’s a bunch of stop and go.

If she’s in the US which limits gas pumping speed to 10 gallons per minute, she spent 1:20 – 2 hours a month just holding a gas pump.

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For a class 7/8 truck loaded to the gills averaging the low end of 4.51mpg, (let’s assume she’s a fleet owner here,) between 3608 and 5,412 miles monthly. Somehow I don’t think this commercial was aimed at semi drivers however.

At current average price per gallon ($3.35 as of writing,) a 25 cent savings is about a 7.5% savings. Just googling “cash back credit card” I found a 5% card right off the bat that works at any fuel station. I’m not going to push or link credit cards or compare apples to apples here, just saying there’s that. Looks like the average credit card has a 2-3% savings.

I can’t find any notes on whether you can stack your GetUpside with your card points but it appears you can. GU seems to be a loyalty / direct customers to specific locations app. Purchases have to be made with a credit card and it appears you also have to get a receipt.

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You are limited to what locations you can use GetUpside at, and these… hrmm, they appear to be pretty decent. No Costco or Sam’s Club though. Looks like GasBuddy is also doing the same up to 25 cents off thing.

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You would think they’d list one of those at 25 cents a gallon on their website photos.

That’s it – you want $200-300 a month you’re going to be spending somewhere between $2500 and $4020 monthly / $30,000-48,240 yearly and be using an app that is implying (without explicitly stating,) the average person does.

My usage would save me, top end $9.50 a month.

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Paul E King

Paul King started with GoodAndEVO in 2011, which merged with Pocketables, and as of 2018 he's evidently the owner. He lives in Nashville, works at a film production company, is married with two kids. Facebook | Twitter | Donate | More posts by Paul | Subscribe to Paul's posts

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