It isn't new. And it isn't unique to ARCO. Generally, if you don't want the hold you can avoid it by providing your credit card inside the store instead of at the pump.
The reason for the hold is a byproduct of gas stations requiring payment (or at least proof of payment) up front instead of after the gas is pumped. Inside the store they just hold onto your credit card and then charge the exact amount afterwards.
But at the pump they need to validate that the card is valid and since the whole transaction could happen without any human interaction at all they want some assurances that the card could fund the transaction. The only way to do that is with an authorization request for a certain amount (this is what car rental companies used to do). Otherwise, you could stick in a credit card with only $1 of available credit, pump $60 in gas and be gone before anybody knows otherwise (and it will cost the gas station much more than $59 to track you down).
The actual duration of the hold will vary from credit card company to credit card company. I believe by law all unrealized authorization requests expire after five days, and because that is the simplest least development solutions some companies will actually just let that happen as the means of clearing it (it should be noted that a hold is not a charge, there are no interest or fees or charges on that balance). Other companies will have been much more proactive and clear the hold as soon as a real charge for a real amount goes through, others will have programmed a much shorter window (a couple hours, 24 hours, etc.).
ARCO is famous for having one of the high authorization holds at $75 which makes it much more noticable than other companies (if the authorization request was just for $25 almost every ends up pumping more gas than that and never even notices) and the reason for it was that, at the time it was implemented, that was viewed as more money than 99.9% of people would ever spend on a single gas transaction. Of course, with $3.50 gas and modern SUVs that isn't true any more and there was actually some kerfuffle a year or so ago about people being unable to fill up because ARCO and some other companies used the authorization request as a hard cap (while others took it as a good faith indicator that you'd be able to pay) requiring some people to pump $75, stop, and then start a new transaction.
But again, avoiding all of this should be possible by simply using your card in side the store.
How's that for way too much detail? Can you tell that I had a project at work a few months ago that required me learning way too much about authorization requests and trying to decide how to handle their expiration?
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