When Does Gas-Price Shopping Pay?

With the cost of gas as high as it is, lots of drivers are trying to find the cheapest prices when they fill up. But is it worth the extra effort?

Correspondent Trish Regan says, worth it or not, the bargain-hunting is hitting many small business owners right in the pocketbook.

"People are feeling the pinch. They're not filling up. They're getting $10 (worth)," complains Judy Moretti, who co-owns a Greenwich, Conn. Shell station with her husband, Carmen Moretti.

"I've lost 30 percent of my business," Carmen says.

When Regan visited their station, regular gas was going for $2.89.

"Our customers think we're the ones setting the prices, and we're the ones making all this money," Carmen says.

But they're not. It's Shell, Regan says, that sets the price sending the Morettis e-mails telling them what to charge.

And when it comes to price, you can bet their customers are noticing.

"I try to keep an eye on where I get my gas," Jayne Stubing says, "and if I can save a few cents a fill-up — I usually fill up a couple times a week — so it adds up."

And that, Regan says, spells trouble for the Morettis.

"We're competing with other towns that are nearby, same product," Judy says.

Five miles away, in neighboring Stamford, Conn., another Shell station was selling regular gas for $2.69 — 20 cents per gallon cheaper.

This happens because of something called "zone pricing."

That's when "you have the same oil company charging different amounts for the same product delivered to two different customers on the exact same day out of the exact same terminal," says Michael Fox, executive director of the Gasoline and Automotive Service Dealers of America, also known as GASDA.

Oil companies look at things such as the affluence of a town and local competition before setting a price at the pump, which explains the discrepancy between the two stations, Regan says.

Having noticed such differences, many motorists go out of their way to get to the least expensive gas.

But does it pay? Every extra mile you drive is costing you both time and money.

To find out, Regan asked middle school math teacher Richard Eyster, of Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn, to do some calculations for her.

The scenario: two gas stations, one close to home selling gas at $2.60 a gallon, the other, five miles away. The question: If you get 20 miles per gallon, how cheap would the gas at that second station have to be to make it worth the 10-mile round-trip?
The answer is 13 cents per gallon less if you're buying 10 gallons. If you're getting 20 gallons, it would need to be 6½ cents cheaper.

The bottom line is that it just doesn't add up for the Morettis. The less costly gas in Stamford would be well worth the trip for most of their customers, and Carmen wonders if he can remain part of the equation.

"If you call me three months from now," he says, "I don't know if I'll be here."

Hawaii is trying to prevent oil companies from overcharging by setting price caps on what they can charge gas stations, Regan says. And, she says, that's something this country hasn't seen since the energy crisis of the 1970s.