Mercedes-Benz Credit Card – $15,000 Cap on Gas Stations Category, Effective May 1

The Mercedes-Benz Credit Card earns 3x Membership Rewards points on gasoline purchases at gas stations located in the United States, but only if the transaction is $400 or less.

Apparently, the restriction to transactions of $400 or less wasn’t sufficient for rapacious Mercedes-Benz Credit Card holders because American Express has added a new parenthetical to the terms & conditions of the card:

Effective May 1, 2017, you will get 3X points on the first $15,000 of purchases at US gas stations per calendar year year [sic]; purchases made before May 1, 2017 will not be counted toward the 2017 calendar year maximum.

This is sad news for owners of the V8 AMG C63 – with 15 MPG average, they’ll only earn 3x Membership Rewards on fillups for at most the first 100,000 miles they drive per calendar year. (Though the definition of “calendar year year” is up for debate.)

Fortunately, American Express has not instituted a limit on the gas category for the EveryDay Preferred credit card, so you can still earn 3x Membership Rewards points, uncapped, as long as you use the card 30 or more times in a billing period.