Originally Posted by
747_not_777
It's such a pain otherwise... Some gas stations will just let you leave your card behind the till while you fill up, others insist you authorise it for a set amount first. And when you are driving a car you are unfamiliar with, I tend to have zero idea how much the tank will take. Got 4,000 miles ahead of us over 2 weeks, so would love a solution to this one.
My Australian Amex works in US pumps by adding an extra zero to the Australian post code (3000 -> 30000); my Singaporean card with a six digit post code worked by entering 00000. NZ card with a four digit code worked with all zeros as well.
Also I found a couple of stores would do the same "auth $100, charge for the final transaction value" sort of thing if you went to the cashier. Slightly annoying but it works.
Maybe you could get a prepaid Visa/MC gift-card and put a random US address (hotel, etc) on it that you could use for refueling?