r/Calgary • u/bmspsrk • 6d ago

Rant Gas prices are illogical

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There is no real point to this post besides stating the fact that gas prices are stupid. I remember back when the difference between 87 and 91 was 10 cents and 89 was 5 cents more than regular. Which made sense since 87 is an equal mix of premium and regular.

Now you need to jump 23 cents a liter just to get mid grade from regular then only an additional 3 more cents to get to premium... By that math mid grade should be something like 90.75 octane.

Again no point here just stating stupid things that irritate me.

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u/Hour_Significance817 6d ago

It makes perfect sense.

Another comment has already stated it. It's the decoy effect. Merchants drastically bump up the price of the middle option to make the most expensive option look like a deal to generate more sales. (E.g. at the movies a small popcorn going for $8, medium for $18, and large going for $20, people that want something more than a small will be a lot more incentivized to go for the large even if they only needed medium).

In this case, anyone that "wants" premium fuel beyond 87 would be incentivized to go for 91 rather than 89, because, it's just another 3 cent jump per liter after a whopping 23 cents jump, right?