AAA Fuel Cost Calculator Review

With the unprecedented cost of filling up your car's gas tank, many families have to decide if that annual vacation trip is in the family budget.  Many families have clear budgets for food and lodging, theme park tickets, and souvenirs, but tend to wing it when it comes to guessing how much money to allocate for fuel.  To help vacationers estimate fuel costs, the American Automobile Association has an online AAA Fuel Cost Calculator at aaafuelcostcalculator.com

The first step in the calculator is to select your criteria:  Starting City, Destination, Vehicle Make, and Vehicle Model.  I soon discovered that the starting city and destination fields are limited to larger U.S. cities and major metro areas.  For example, if you are taking a trip from Sugar Grove IL to Maumee OH, the closest you can approximate is Chicago IL to Detroit MI.  That's a big limitation, in my opinion. 

Still, if you are planning a road trip between two major U.S. cities, the calculator provides some helpful information.  The results will indicate total miles, number of gallons of gas used, and total fuel cost on both one-way and round-trip vacations.  The site combines current gas prices from AAA's daily report, with the most recent highway fuel economy ratings.  The combination of these two data sources provides the estimate of gas you'll need to complete your vacation trip.

Overall, I think it's an online tool that's worth checking out.  There are definite limitations to the AAA Fuel Cost Calculator; it's not going to give a precise indicator of your actual gas costs.  On the upside, it's a good way to estimate if you'd be better off flying, or at the very least, taking a different car.