The Best Day to Buy Gas; Maryland Labor Day Travel Forecast

When should you fill up your gas tank? There's a day for that. In Maryland, the cheapest day to buy gas is Thursday.

And if someone told you how to get a tank or two of free gasoline every year, you'd listen, right? Well, here's the "trick," based on hard data.

Federal researchers have found gas prices follow a cyclical pattern in the Mid-Atlantic region, with Thursday being the best to fill the tank in Maryland and Delaware for the last three years.

Maryland drivers should expect to pay $2.20 a gallon for regular, unleaded gasoline this Labor Day weekend on average in Baltimore County, according to Gas Buddy, to $2.15 a gallon in Bel Air and $2.30 a gallon in Bethesda.

Despite the recent increase in prices, travelers are on track to pay the lowest Labor Day gas prices since 2004, says AAA Mid-Atlantic.

Marylanders are paying lower prices for the last holiday weekend of summer compared to Memorial Day ($2.33 a gallon on average) and July 4 ($2.26). Last year, Maryland drivers paid $2.37 per gallon for the Labor Day holiday, says AAA public affairs specialist Christine Delise.

Travel volume for the Labor Day holiday weekend, historically, is the lowest of the three summer holidays, primarily because nearly all Maryland students head back to school before the holiday weekend with the exception of Worcester County (where Ocean City is located).

Over the last two Labor Day holidays, travel by Marylanders averaged 732,000, which was about 17 percent fewer travelers on average compared to the Fourth of July holiday and 9 percent fewer travelers compared to July 4. With gas prices around 20 cents per gallon lower than last year and a favorable economy, AAA anticipates yet again another strong Labor Day holiday travel weekend, particularly since strong travel growth was forecasted for Memorial Day and the Fourth of July holidays.

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Petroleum analyst Patrick DeHaan told NBC News that prices were lowest on Friday, Saturday or Sunday in about two-thirds of states. GasBuddy’s analysis found that Maryland’s cheapest day to buy gas is Thursday.

Recent research by YiLi Chien and Paul Morris of the Federal Reserve Bank, in a report called When Should You Buy Gas?, analyzed gas prices from October 2015 to March 2016 using Gas Buddy data.

They say gas prices follow a "cyclical saw-tooth pattern," and knowing this pattern could save you enough money to pay for one or two tanks of gas every year.

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