Thursday, May 14, 2020

Fixes and Fails - Diesel fuel discount

As you can imagine with getting around 10 mpg, we can go through a lot of diesel, but the bigger issue is trying to navigate a 35' RV towing a car around the gas pumps at your average filling station.  So, we try to use the trucker pumps, which will not take a standard credit card.

The first few times, we pulled into the pump, tried my credit card.  No go!  Went inside, where they require you to pay in advance, so you have to estimate how much you will need, have them charge your card, and when you are finished, go back in and get a credit.

It is an even bigger issue when you also need DEF as you have to do it twice.  Once for Diesel and once for DEF.  We did find a few off brand stations that would take our credit card at the pump, but they usually stopped after $100. Yes, 90 gallons of diesel is expensive!

We heard about the Good Sam RV Plus card and signed up for one.  It allows you to fill up at the trucker pumps and will take the money directly out of your checking account, but it only works at Pilot/Flying J truck stops.  So, for awhile, we tried to fill up at Pilot stations.  That worked pretty well, except there are not a lot of them in parts of the Northeast.


That was at least a workable situation, but then we heard about a program from TSD Logistics.
https://www.tsdlogistics.com/services/fuel-program/  They are a trucking company that negotiates discounts with several major truck stops, so the more fuel in their program, the bigger the discounts and why they have opened it up to independent truckers and RVers.


They have Loves ,TA/Petrol and several others, which gives us options in most of the US.  They did have Pilot for a while, but then Pilot decided that their agreement with Good Sam, would not allow them to accept RVers through TSD.  Not a big problem, since my primary issue was using the trucker pumps and I can still do that with the Good Sam RV Plus card at Pilot/Flying J.

In addition to the trucker pumps, TSD also has great discounts on the diesel you are getting.  It does not show at the pump when you are filling as they deduct it when they charge your checking account (minus 10% of what you saved as their fee and sometimes a less than $1 fee charged by the truck stop).

Technically anyone with a diesel vehicle with a filler big enough to accept the trucker nozzles can get and use the TSD card whether they are driving/pulling an RV or not, but it only works at the trucker diesel pumps.  No discount at the car pumps.

Tell them that I referred you and I will get a kick-back!

Pat


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