Exxon Doubles Gas Discounts for Walmart+ Members

Walmart has teamed with Exxon-Mobil to give Labor Day travelers some relief at the pump.

The retailer announced Tuesday that Walmart+ members can receive double the discount they normally receive at Exxon and Mobil stations — from 10 cents off every gallon to 20 cents off — between now and Sept. 15.

“We know that fuel savings is a huge benefit for our Walmart+ members, one that really adds up,” Venessa Yates, SVP and general manager of Walmart+, said in a news release.

“As gas prices have fluctuated over the last few months, we wanted to do something special to give our members a break, whether they’re hitting the road for the holiday, or just getting back into the busy back-to-school shuttling season.”

And as PYMNTS has noted throughout this summer, consumers are feeling the urge to travel. In some cases, that’s happening via airplane, as recent earnings reports have shown.

But others are still fans of the old-fashioned, gas-powered road trip, as Jennifer Young, co-founder of digital RV marketplace Outdoorsy, said in a July interview.

“When we look at summer 2023 against 2022, which was a record summer for us, we’re currently outpacing it,” Young told PYMNTS.

“Overall, revenue is up, and bookings are up. The growth is fueled by our first-time bookings, as 76% of all Outdoorsy bookings are now first-time bookers.”

She also pointed out that her company has seen the benefits of the rise of “bleisure travel,” in which some people combine business with leisure vacations when they can’t fully get away from it all even when getting away.

“We’re starting to see a lot of people that are booking trips in non-weekend periods of time,” she said. “They’re booking a trip on Thursday, Friday, and the inference is for work, and then enjoying that weekend in a new location and getting a little bit of leisure and vacation time in the same week.”

This is Walmart+’s second travel-related offering in the past few weeks. In late July, the company joined forces with Expedia to offer members deals on travel, such as discounts on hotels, car rentals and vacation rentals.

The company began offering gas discounts last year in a bid to boost Walmart+ membership numbers as it competes with Amazon.

Recent PYMNTS data indicates that twice as many Amazon Prime members made purchases during Prime Day than Walmart shoppers did during Walmart+ Week, “showing the digital blind spot still haunting Walmart+ three years after launch,” as noted here last month.