Earlier this year, Amazon announced a feature arriving for Alexa users that would let them use voice commands to pay for gas and activate the gas pump. Now the feature is finally activated so those who have Amazon’s digital assistant on their car system or on their smartphone will be able to say “Alexa, pay for gas”. It will not speed up the process and it will not be able to pump the gas for you but it is something more convenient since you don’t have to bring out a card or get out of your car before you need to start putting gas in your car.
Amazon actually partnered with Fiserv to be able to power the transactions and also activate the pump at the gas station. The payment will still be processed through Amazon Pay so you will need to have a connected card to be able to use this payment shortcut. You will need to have an Alexa-enabled device like Echo Auto, other Alexa-enabled vehicles, and a smartphone with an installed Alexa app. There are over 11,000 Exxon and Mobil gas stations in the U.S where you will be able to use this Alexa skill.
How it works is pretty simple. When you get to a gas station that supports this, you just have to say “Alexa, pay for gas.” It will then confirm your location and the pump number where you are, then the pump will be activated. The payment is charged to the card that is your default card for your Amazon account. You will of course have to go out of your car and pump the gas into your car, but at least you don’t have to bring out your card or deal with other people as you start and finish your transaction.
While the pay for gas feature will work with several credit and debit cards, it apparently will not work with the Amazon Store Card, Amazon Prime Store Card, or Amazon Gift Cards. And even if you’ll be using this at an Exxon gas station, you also can’t use your Exxon credit cards since you cannot link that to your Amazon account. You also won’t be able to use this skill with your Echo, Echo Show, and Echo Dot even if you have them in your car for some reason since you will need location services which these devices don’t have.
Since this is processed through Amazon Pay, you will have a record of the transactions in the Your Orders section on your Amazon account. You can now go to any of the Exxon and Mobil gas stations as long as you have a working credit or debit card as your default payment and you have a valid Alexa-enabled device.
