BP Gas gift cards no longer work at Arco gas stations.
At some point within the past month or two, SVM Gift Cards on eBay added a note to their BP Gas gift card listing: “BP gift cards are no longer cross-accepted at ARCO locations.“
We weren’t sure if this is already enforced or not, but a reader reports that it stopped working, system rejection.
Oddly, a friend told me that she was able to use a BP gift card a couple of days ago at Arco. She speculates that older BP gift cards can still be used since they were issued before they changed the rule.
Most Arco gas stations don’t accept credit cards, only cash or debit, to keep down their prices. This made using a gift card the sweet spot: you can purchase the gift card with a credit card, and hopefully even with an occasional discount on eBay. Unfortunately, BP gifts won’t work any longer to buy Arco gas.
You can still buy Arco gift cards at full price on svmgiftcards.com, but SVM charges a 3.95% processing fee.
Help !,I cant fjnd a Bp station or any station who accepts my bp gift card.
BP gas cards no longer work at Arcos in the Bay Area. I tried many stations.
Mine were working up until May in the Bay Area. Now nothing as well. End of an era, at least we got almost two more years out of these.
I just used a BP gift card at Arco in San Francisco yesterday (7/22/2018). Maybe it still works because it was purchased sometime last year?
Used it in San Mateo on July 28 without any issue.
However same station requires .35 fee on Aug 2nd.
I used it in July at the Arco station in Gilroy with no problems. However today Aug 3 it asked for pin code which of course isn’t provided with the gift card. I also used it at the Mountain View and Palo Alto Arco gas stations in July and both worked. I will go check again tomorrow and report back. I have so many of this GC I bought on ebay and will hate to be stuck with over $600 worth of GC.
Hi Davina
Were you able to use the BP GCs at Arco Gas stations ?
If you bought these from the svm seller on ebay, you can email them and ask for refund. They’ll zero out the cards and paypal back the amount you paid.
Just wanted to thank you so much for suggesting to contact SVM for a refund of unused BP gift cards. They responded within minutes, and about an hour later Paypal shows the refund pending on the website.
I’m in Sacramento and BP gas cards worked until a few days ago. The gas station I have been going to had a change over in their outside payment system and it no longer works at that location (Gerber Rd). I have not tried any other locations. It’s just odd.
With respect to exchanging BP cards to Arco, I was able to get $300 changed over. You have to email the following address: sservices at alorica dot com
With the email you include pictures of the front and back of the cards along with the receipt. They told me that any ebay purchases after 4/9/16 are not eligible to be exchanged.
Interesting, thanks
Here in Norcal it seems to be somewhat random. Since July 1st I’ve hit the following stations. Some work, some don’t and it’s irregardless of whether it’s the common terminal or one on the pump. It seems to me that the change occurred sometime in June because that’s when two of the stations that did work, stopped working.
Still Works:
Pleasant Hill, CA
Concord, CA (Monument and Detroit)
Dublin, CA
Oakland, CA (Market & 22nd)
Doesn’t Work
San Jose, CA (Almaden Expressway)
Danville, CA
Moraga, CA
Santa Rosa, CA (136 College Ave)
I recently won a $50.00 BP gas gift card on an online instant win game through Choice Hotels. I was kinda confused as to why they would have this has a prize when the game was open to all states, considering I live in SoCal and there are no BP gas stations in my area. After looking on the BP website, it had stated that BP gift cards could be used at ARCO stations, which there are plenty in my area. After trying several, none would accept. Also it kept going through where I had to enter a pin #, which there is no pin # that came with it. I finally contacted ARCO and inquired about it, and they said they did not accept BP gift cards at ARCO stations any longer. I tried to contact the prize fullfilment company that sent me the card, and explained to them as well that ARCO doesn’t even accept these. They basically told me “sorry for the inconvenience”, and substitution was in the hands of the sponsor (Choice Hotels), and they couldn’t assist me any further. Really??? Why in the world would you have a prize that anyone in the U.S. could win, yet anyone could not use??? The other gift card prizes were Walmart and Lowes. Those are everywhere. But why waste money on gift cards to send as prizes, when they can’t even be used??? I would have rather gotten the Lowes cards. ha ha. But it’s extremely frustrating because I have this card now, and can’t do anything with it. Would BP possibly replace it if it contacted them??
You could try selling it, check out this post https://www.doctorofcredit.com/the-complete-guide-to-selling-your-unwanted-gift-cards-for-cash/
Oh cool! I contributed to the community 🙂
Thanks, southbayer!
The issue has to do with that BP sold all of the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) stations in southern California, southern Nevada and Arizona to Tesoro – who continues to use and now also owns outright the Atlantic Richfield Company and ARCO brand names
Tesoro licenses the ARCO-brand name back to BP for their use at ARCO-branded stations in northern California, Oregon and Washington.
It is known that BP has the remaining BP-owned ARCO stations and the Cherry Point, WA refinery for sale. It could be that Tesoro elects to purchase the remaining stations.
At least at Tesoro – all but a few ARCO stations are franchise operated.
I’m surprised that a BP gift card could have been used in southern California at an ACRO station so long since Tesoro acquired the stations from BP.
One other tidbit of information – Tesoro licenses the AM/PM brand name from BP. A few years ago, before BP sold some the ARCO stations to Tesoro – BP was on a tear expanding use of the AM/PM brand name in midwest and some eastern markets. I specifically remember seeing it used at an Amoco/BP station in the Chicagoland area. Up until Atlantic Richfield’s market withdrawal from the east and midwest in the early to mid-1980’S, Arco had close to 100 AM/PM-branded locations in the Chicagoland area – so when BP re-introduced the AM/PM brand back into the midwest and other eastern markets – some consumers may have had some previous familiarity with it.
SO_CAL_RETAIL_SLUT
Does SVM for the arco card code as gas category?
I don’t know, probably not
They stopped working for me this past year on newer Arco stations where the card reader was built into the pump itself. The last times the BP cards worked where on those common terminals where you select your pump number.
I actually sold the balance of my BP gift card before I used it all up at those old terminals (it just wasn’t worth the hassle, since almost all in LA were the new kinds), but I ran into one up in the Bay area this past weekend. Not sure if it would’ve worked or not.
I’ve otherwise been buying arco GC at my Vons using the CF 5x
Ah, so that must be why my friend got it to work – she was at the old terminal I’d guess.
I don’t think this is truly accurate. My BP gift cards have always worked at ARCO gas stations here in NorCal, whether it is the old standalone terminals, the old built-in swipe terminals (without the green lock indicator), and the new swipe terminals that have the bigger LCD screen with the green padlock light. None of the stations I went had troubles accepting either the ARCO or BP branded cards, and the balance shows up after you swipe them (both the SVM and CardCash BP cards, and of course the ARCO cards themselves). The only station I had trouble with had a broken standalone terminal, and would not accept any card whatsoever (however another terminal in the same station works just fine)…
I also wanted to add that I have tried one of my BP cards from Cardcash today at an old built-in swipe terminal and it works without any issues. The terminal itself does not list the BP card being accepted on the payment type sticker, but the standalone terminals have a different sticker that includes the BP gift cards as a payment type (although the payment went through even though I didn’t go through those terminals). Pretty much all of the BP gas stations I have gone to here still has the BP gift card logo in the center of the sticker.
Oops – typo – that should have been read as all of the “ARCO” gas stations I have gone to… Too late at night… 🙂