French petrol stations...the plain facts please

Simple answer - yes. Sunday evening in the middle of Northern France, about an hour and a half from Le Mans. Pulled in to an unmanned petrol station, registered card, filled up, rode away.

One point to note is that the card is "virtually" charged for €130 before you start filling (similar to pay at the pump machines here). If you don't have a credit balance of €130 it won't work.

I used my Caxton card in the Carrefour petrol station in Laon in May and then found that I could not draw enough cash out the cash machine and had to use my debit card for it. It still worked at the other petrol stations though.
 
a bit off topic really

but I got this email through from CAXTONfx, seems they are dropping ATM fees for overseas withdrawals

email said:
CAXTONfx


Caxton FX remove ATM fees on all Currency cards

Did you know that from 10th July, Caxton FX is abolishing ATM fees on its Euro and Dollar currency cards?

Thanks to your feedback, cash withdrawals overseas are now free on all Caxton currency cards. Caxton FX is the only travel money provider to offer this service, making the Euro, Dollar and Global Traveller cards even better value.

So make sure you take full advantage of your Caxton card this summer!

- Free cash withdrawals overseas on the Euro, Dollar and Global Traveller cards

- 0% Commission

- Bank-beating exchange rates

Happy holidays!

Caxton FX Card Team

sorry to copy paste, just thought it might be useful to those of you trying to control a budget while on hols...
 
back from my trip no petrol issues at all
the Caxton FX Card worked a treat even the middle of nowhere automatic places

plus u could find out balance and move money by text msg

well worth taking with u
 
I have noticed that many of the unmanned stations, even those at cheap supermarkets and Esso 'Express' (which are unmanned 24/7) now have pumps that have simple TV screens, running little films telling you how to use the automatic system.....and they take British cards. Gets over the language problem, too.

Having pumps that do not work is now the exception, not the rule IMHO......but don't leave yourself down to vapours.....
 
It's probably been mentioned previously, but you need to be careful in that not all petrol stations in France have card machines out of hours, and quite a few petrol stations have closed in recent years that are still marked on GPS. I had a very worrying search in Provence in the summer where I trundled in on fumes to a town to find the local station derelict, and after somehow eking another 20 miles out of the tank, pulling in to find the next station closed and the pumps locked.

Nowadays, unless I'm on the autoroutes, I never leave myself absolutely needing the next station to be open if it's a Sunday, a holiday, a lunchtime (which can be noon to 4pm in soe parts), or an evening. In fact, with the amount of time I spend in France nowadays, I am starting to see the benefit of the bigger tank of the GSA. On this last trip, I was starting every day looking for a petrol station despite having 20-30 miles range showing, just in case the itinerary got screwed through coasting in on empty to another ghost station and having to wait for hours for it to reopen.
 


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