jfe

I got this on the mail today

This takes you to this link

https://gexaenergy.com/promotions/

Which shows both OnePass and AA miles

According to the promotion you get the following

• 2,000 OnePass bonus miles for signing up
• 1,000 OnePass bonus miles for using Auto Bill Pay
• Two OnePass miles for every $1
• 15% Savings on high summer electricity bills

If you pay this with your Amex card, do you also get the MR points?

Anyone using their service?

Sounds like a good deal, at least on paper

Lovolt

I saw this in regards to living in Texas. I know damn well Id be doing it. I work for the Electric Co. Those .......s bust my chops during the day , then bust my chops again at the end of the month. Id sign up.

jsm

Also check where they get the power they use from: Solar, Wind, Oil, Gas, Coal, Nuclear - Hopefully they have a good mix of renewable energy.

crazyrunner

My energy company (Peco) tries to charge a 2.8% "service fee" when you sign-up to pay with a credit card!!

gutt22

Reliant in Texas (based in Houston) also lets you pay your bill online with a CC at no additional fee. It's worked great the past 18 months I've been doing it. It almost makes me feel not so bad about those summer electricity bills! Almost ...

ILUVCITIBANK

I know something about GEXA myself; in Jan, 2003, the very first day of DE-REGULATION of Texas electrical power and the day when all these 2nd tier energy companies could start reselling energy statewide in Texas, I decided to try to find an energy company that not only took credit cards (for 'da points, of course), BUT took them for COMMERCIAL as well as RESIDENTIAL accounts. I started by calling TXU to see how aggressive they would be - that's like calling AT&T and asking for their best ld rate, or calling pfizer and asking for a discount on Lipitor...was not to be. BTW - of note, and to their detriment, TXU stopped taking credit cards that very day as a shift of policy (guess they smelled their margins eroding with the advent of true competition and "freedom to choose"), and I found a couple after a lot of phone calls that would take credit card payments for residential BUT NOT COMMERCIAL. Yes, Reliant was one of them, but they took only v and mc, and did not (at that time) take AMEX (I had just become a huge fan of the starwood/amex card). Moreover, Reliant was about as large and inefficient as TXU, so there was no genuine cost savings, which was and should be one primary reason to move.

Moving forward a couple of months into the DE-REG period, I came across GEXA as a 1) very competitively-priced energy reseller out of the HOU, TX area, something like 15% below TXU (the benchmark "price to beat for Texas) across the boards and without even having to negotiate for the price break, and to my great surprise, they 2) ALSO took credit card payments, incl AMEX, and to my very nice surprise, they also took 3) credit cards, incl AMEX, for COMMERCIAL accounts, with no surcharge.

I had reached the end of the rainbow and found the pot of gold. I immediately moved both my residential and commercial accounts to Gexa, and they have been flawless in billing (about the only thing a reseller does in TX anymore is back-office and billing and CSupport)...TXU still produces and distributes the power itself, so no risk of going with these 2nd tier companies IMO.

OF NOTE ALSO - I studied the Continental Nonepass angle only a week or so ago, by calling my GEXA rep....BE AWARE that you will pay as much as 10% more for your power with GEXA just to be on their Continental Airlines rate. Yes, as the prior poster deduced, one can get on the Continental program AND ALSO pay via AMEX (which yields MR points of Starood or HHoinors, etc, depending on the AMEX card), but IMO anything above 2-3% higher energy rates is a baad deal just to chase miles or points.

Conversely, to get 10-15% true rate reduction, and then channel both residential and commercial payments through GEXA using my starwood/AMEX...well, lets call it lucrative and nice leverage for over $1000 monthly in total billing. For a high, recurring charge like my residential and commercial energy bills...this is the combination TXU just can't seem to "get". And, oh, did I mention GEXA comes out on top of all surveys for Texas energy resellers that I've seen in terms of CS satisfaction, etc. So, not to be a cheerleader, and I do not own their stock, but they offer one of the few WIN/WIN/WIN relationships I can think of in the affinity world.

MY VOTE: Blow off the Continental/Nonepass rate program (who wants 'em anyway - most worthless affinity point out there, AA's aadvantage milesaver program is catching up fast) ...and take Gexa's standard aggressive rates...saving 10-15% off TXU rates immediately...and pay by credit card. < https://gexaenergy.com/promotions/ >

Last tip - call them, especially if you have a commercial account, and ask for their 2-yr contract rate...they'll drop it a bit more over their initial 1yr contract rate. They also have a month to month...but its not competitive.

http://www.gexaenergy.com/English/default.htm

arshemir

Anyone aware of similar offerings for other states' residents? I checked Gexa's website for coverage and gave them my email to notify when they started covering Iowa. I'd LOVE to get rid of, or at least have an alternative to, my big energy (now part of good ol' Bershire Hathaway's port) company.

phoenixitc

This might actually work well for me. I'm in central Texas and use TXU. I could go with these guys for AA points and do fairly well for home service. My TXU bill hits a high of $400 per month during the summer. If I charge my bill to my AA Citi card, I'd get triple points. ^

This would leave only my mortgage and daycare as non-cc's.

Thanks for the info!

swag

ILUV, couple of questions about Gexa:

I've been with Reliant ($50 sign up bonus a ways back) for my residential, but just got a notice of a rate increase, up to 10.4 cents @ 1000 kwh usage. So I was thinking it was time to comparison shop again.

Gexa shows 8.4 cent base rate (zip 75248), which comes to about 9.6 including fees, about $8/month better than I'm paying now, plus I get AA miles. So that certainly sounds good. But you suggest cheaper rates for non-mileage accts - I couldn't find any rates for non-mileage accounts on their website - is there a link you can point me to?

Also, the Partner Promotions page has a field to enter a Promotion Code. Anyone got one of these they can pass along?

JimLeo

I found 64AANEW at

http://www.aa.com/content/images/AAd...6/june2004.pdf

looks like the same offer.

ontheroad

In Houston, I compared their price vs. Reliant Energy. Gexa's OnePass rate was ~10% lower. I signed up. I received the bonus miles on the last day of the period they quoted. (I think it was somehting like "8 weeks after payment of the 2nd bill.") I have been receiving 2 miles / $1 about 3 weeks of every month after I pay.

I checked the site today, and now their rates are higher than Reliant. Maybe they changed up the offer since then, because I confirmed I'm paying the low rate.

ILUVCITIBANK

swag, and posters below that....you may well need to CALL THEM, and ask for their best discounted rate, *different* from their Nonepass affinity rate, and if you get quoted what I did, you will likely pass on the Continental rate...it was clearly 15% or more higher than the non-affinity rate...I am satisfied just getting to pay via [affinity]credit card, for being able to pay for both commercial and residential energy bills, and for getting an appreciable discount under TXU's benchmark "rate to beat".

For a commercial/small business rate, they are quoting me in the vicinity of 6.6˘ per kWh (1yr contract), or 6.4˘ per kWh for 2yr contract. My residential rate is approx 6.9˘ per kWh, I know its tough to get a true apples to apples comparison between energy companies, not unlike comparing your cell bill between carriers, so YMMV. I have not compared Gexa w/ Reliant and TXU since my initial comparison last year...do I need to review this again out of concern for "slippage" ?

Still - I would be highly-surprised to confirm Reliant is competitive, as I consider them to be quasi-TXU in terms of being one of the "old" monopolies.

phoenixitc

I plan on calling Monday to ask what my non-affinity rate versus affinity rate would be. I too like the idea of at least paying with a credit card. I'll post the rate differences for reference purposes.

SteveHOU

I just got off the phone with Gexa and here is what they are quoting today for 77469 Zip:

Standard residential program:

• Cost/kWh = .0874
• Billing fee = $4.79
• Meter reading fee = $4.30
• Tax = 8.25%
• Cancellation fee = $15

CO Onepass program:

• Cost/kWh = .9450
• Billing fee = $4.79
• Tax = 8.25%
• No meter reading fee or cancellation fee

I am currently a TXU customer. My most recent bill, meter reading 8/10/04, was for 3246 kWh used with a net billing of $337.83. I ran the numbers against Gexa for both programs and came up with the following:

• Standard residential program = $316.95
• CO Onepass program = $337.24

Net results:

• Using the Gexa CO program rate would be a breakeven.
• Using the Gexa standard residential program would save $20.29 or 6.0%

My 2003 expense with TXU was $2,228.37. If I switched to the Gexa Residential program at a 6% savings then my savings would have been:

• $2,228.37 x 6% = $133.70

Cost of OPM's would be:

• $2,228.37 x 2 = 4456 opm's
• $133.70 / 4456 opm = $.03/opm

INMHO $.03 is too high a price for OPM so I will be switching to the Gexa Residential account for the convenience of using my credit card to pay and receive miles or points depending on which card I decide to use.

BTW, the "up to 15% savings" are calculated against the local "Affiliated Retail Electricity Provider" which in my case is CenterPoint (Reliant), not TXU as others have posted.

YellowRose

Everything I read on their website shows you have to put a $200 deposit? Did your conversation cover any of this?

I did a rough calculation of my savings and they were in the 18% range for TXU - Fort Worth.