Flying J bought out by Pilot

[GaryKD]

Gary - K7GLD,
I spent my career being part of international acquisitions. I've been a "fly on the wall" more times than I can count. I've been part of the business case team many times. Based on my reading about this acquisition, Pilot did it for positive reasons. I'll bet you a Coca-Cola that a year from know, RVers will have the same or better benefits with the J (or Pilot) than they do now.

You can continue to look at the glass being half empty. On this matter I'll take the side of the glass being half full, for the customer (us). For me, that is all that counts.

[robodoc]

Thaks for the input sounds like I need a "j"card to get thepumps to turn on. Is that right?

[chasfm11]

One of the reasons that we started using Flying J was the price. We stopped a lot at the station just South of Waco. This morning, the price there is $2.659 for diesel. In our experience, Love's was the next best alternative (for lower price) and today's price for Love's in Ft. Worth is $2.539. When we traveled, especially in the Southeast, we found that Pilot was a few cents higher than Love's. Today's price for Pilot in Dallas is $2.649 I like Flying J but am not going to pay the highest price to visit them.

There is no question that Flying J offers more services to RVers. With a propane generator, we are sometimes looking for propane while traveling and Flying J makes that a lot easier (when their propane setup doesn't require that you drive backwards through the RV pumps like the one in Texarkana). We occasionally have a very tight turn to exit the Flying J RV pumps like the ones in Knoxville or Albuquerque. With all of the other truck stops besides Flying J, we use the truck lanes. Occasionally, that isn't the most pleasant experience as there are always those few truckers who verbally express their hatred for RVs, especially if the truck pumps are busy (and, yes, I do pull out after fueling, before paying). Some of the Love's pumps that say "RV" are open enough for us to pull into but I've never seen a Pilot where that was true.

I have no idea what Pilot will ultimately do with Flying J but I view it as a personal loss with the new Flying J pricing. It used to be easy - look for the nearest Flying J when I planned to buy fuel. Now, it is more complicated.

[GaryKD]

Hi Robodoc,
Yes, you are correct. Go to Flying J

Apply for the RV Real Value Card

[Route 66]

I have a J card and use there required Mastercard but I can never get the pumps in the truck lanes to turn on. What are we doing wrong? Do they still require a Mastercard in the truck lanes?

Any MC or Visa will work at the truck pumps, but.............

You need a payment history before you can pay at the pump,

I started using a new credit card and lost the ability to pay at the pump.

I contacted Flying J and they looked at my history with my RV card and reinstated my ability to pay at the pump.

Their reply;

It looks like you have changed your MasterCard number in the last few
months (we cannot see all your card number, but what we can see shows us
the number has changed). We have a system that helps us to mitigate
fraudulent credit card transactions. It allows us to build a transaction
history before we give open access to our card readers. Since you have been
a loyal customer (according to your RV Card) for years, we went ahead and
approved your credit card for card reader transactions. Next time you fuel
with us go ahead and use the card reader. You should be able to start the
pump from there.

Sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks for your patience and mostly your loyal
business.

Mark Adamson
Director of Training
Flying J Inc

[GaryKD]

One addition to Dirk's post is that AMEX cards also work, at the truck and RV pumps.