Aviathor wrote:
I have seen new TOTAL payment terminals start to pop up, that supposedly also accept Visa/Mastercard, and where you can choose language.
This is true, at Reims Prunay for example, although it did make me, and the French standing pilot behind me, laugh when the machine carried on in French anyway. Not complaining though, it let me pay with Visa.
The fuel pump here is under contract between Total and the town hall and it is managed/administered by the Aeroclub. Recently the proposal came up from other airfield users that the pump should be changed to take the Total card. To do this Total wanted 60000 euros. This did not make financial sense to the town council or the club so we are looking at alternative ways to solve the fuel problem for non club member users of the field or those who turn up when there is no club member at the field. It is not proving easy.
I registered for only 250 liters and the requested deposit was 200 Euro, so I guess that’s the minimum deposit possible.
Two TOTAL CARD threads merged.
I would have thought that the TOTAL card is of little use nowadays unless you want to fly around the French “small aeroclub field” scene (much of which is FR-only) but for example someone told me that the new fixed pump at Le Touquet is TOTAL only, and the fuel is significantly cheaper than from the airport bowser. I wonder how many more of these situations exist.
I have certainly never encountered an airport which is TOTAL only, but then I never fly to FR-only airports, avoid grass unless absolutely necessary, and the first stop out of the UK has to have Immigration which further narrows down the options.
TOTAL should accept the other cards too. At their level of business, and with CC fraud being miniscule compared to other retail sectors, they can get them processed for 1% or less, I am sure. The margins are OK too; a typical GA airport makes 10-15% on avgas.
I have had the AIR BP card for about 15 years but it gets very little use. Normally I use a UK Halifax CC (Mastercard) which has a very good exchange rate and that is usually worth much more than any other factor. That (the exchange rate margin) is probably another reason for a vendor running their own card, but TOTAL’s customer base is probably very few foreign pilots.
Please keep the AIR BP posts to the AIR BP thread.
Peter wrote
fixed pump at Le Touquet
Who charged €0.45 per litre extra plus €8.00 admin charge when wasn’t working
It would become Total-only out of hours I suppose.
More importantly it provides easy access to fuel, but then I’m one of the small aéroclub scene. Gone the days of walking around a deserted field trying to find someone who is actually on lunch break and doesn’t have the keys anyway etc…
The card is linked to your details and on direct debit so this saving in Total’s admin time explains the discount I assume.
Sending money via online banking is easy nowadays, so I don’t take cards (saving x%, a considerable amount if multiplied by annual sales) but this is business to business not retail. I assume it’s the same for Total: it might only be one or two percent, but multiplied by the amount of fuel they sell it must add up to a very large sum.
Quiberon has normal payment at increased prices during tower times and Total card payments anytime.
Beaune and Chambley are Total card only. No landing fee, no tower, “fill’n go in 15min”-places.
At the reasonable Total prices.
Just received my Air Total card in the mail and am wondering whether they got my name right.
If you have a card as a private person, does yours say:
<Title> <FIRSTNAME> <LASTNAME>
or
<Title> <LASTNAME> <FIRSTNAME>?
Mine shows the latter. Not that it changes anything, just being curious.
<Title> <LASTNAME> <FIRSTNAME>
I am in the process of filling out the application for the card. They ask for the aircraft registration number. Is the card meant for aircraft owners only?
In theory, yes. In practice, since it is a card which you will use mostly on deserted airfields (that’s the main clue about it, to get fuel where you would otherwise not get any), it does not matter if the reg printed on the card matches the aircraft being refuelled. So just give them the reg of the aircraft that would use the most often.
But you should make sure (as far you can) that no TOTAL card exists previously for this AC reg, since I don’t knopw what will happen with your application in that case.