FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) -- Around Tuesday and Wednesday, gas stations around Fort Wayne and other parts of Indiana raised prices -- some being as high as $3.29 -- in line with a routine price cycle. However, Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis with GasBuddy, was shocked when he saw it happen. "My calculations pointed to a potential increase this coming Monday or even next week Thursday, so it was a little bit premature to see this hike happening into a little bit higher price than last time," De Haan said. De Haan also said the price hike was especially surprising considering Christmas is approaching and that the wholesale price of gasoline is the lowest it has been since 2021. "They wanted to simply raise their profit margin ahead of the holiday," De Haan said. "Most of the time, I'm one that says that doesn't really happen. Stations do not often respond to holidays." As the price hike started to take shape, De Haan took to social media platform X and noted the "record margins" that exceeded 60 cents per gallon for some gas stations. Typically, gas stations see low profit margins for gasoline as they work to compete with other businesses; however, the recent growth in margins is a trend De Haan has seen in recent years. "Ever since COVID, stations have done pretty well. Now keep in mind, during COVID, they kind of lost half of their volume, and that was the difficulty. Stations basically had to increase their margin because they were selling half as much gasoline," De Haan said. "But, when demand started to come back, those margins stayed elevated as stations have continued to do well in 2022, 2023 and 2024." Family Express set to enter convenience store market after county approval Another factor he believes played into the price hike is a lack of gas station diversity in Fort Wayne, which gives those businesses more influence to raise prices on a whim. By comparison, Chicago -- which typically keeps prices 50 cents to 80 cents higher than Indiana -- only has prices about 20 cents higher as of Friday. De Haan said the tightening gap is partly due to the Windy City having a more broad selection of gas stations. "Whenever an area like Indiana or Michigan or Ohio is within 15 or 20 cents of what I'm paying here in Chicago, that should kind of tell you something is not quite right here, and that's also why it was really frustrating," De Haan said. Despite the recent price hike, De Haan does expect prices in Fort Wayne to drop over the next few days and said drivers should wait until then to fill up their vehicles if they can. As of Friday afternoon, the average price of gas in Fort Wayne sits at roughly $3.25 per gallon compared to the national average of $3.04. The national average has also dipped below $3 per gallon a few times in recent weeks.