There are cards that offer different ways of getting a discount. TA has a cash plus program at some locations through Comdata. You usually need to lease to one of the major carriers or have one of the fuel cards that are tied to one of the major brokers. The cash plus is what that location pays for the fuel from their distributor plus the mark up rate. Some can get as much as $0.50/gallon discount. Brokers usually don't give that much of a discount to carriers who broker freight with them and use their fuel card. Most of them keep part of the discount as their profit. Most of the fuel cards that offer a discount is off the cash price. But, you will usually have a transaction fee every time you use their card. For the small carrier I like TCH. If you get one of the PDCA cards from Transportation Alliance Bank, it is treated like a TCH card when you buy fuel but there is no transaction fee. As I think I stated in an earlier post, Flying J and Pilot will give you the cash price plus a discount on fuel purchases if you use the PDCA card. It is a debit card tied to Master Card so you can use it for any purchases. It helps to track road expenses. I think they also offer a regular Mastercard.
www.tabbank.com is their website.
The way the fuel cards work is that they want you to pay them weekly. You can either get a credit line with the issuer or put cash into the account and when it gets below a certain level you will need to transfer additional funds into the account.
Most of the fuel card companies are owned by major banks. Most will charge you a set up fee when you first open your account. The main thing that I like about using a fuel card is the reporting. Most of them will allow you to break down fuel purchases by the state which helps do your IFTA quarterly returns.
Most carriers will use one of the following fuel cards: Comdata, EFS, T-Check, TCH or Fleetone.