Go Motorhoming Posted April 20, 2007 Share Posted April 20, 2007 Cards are now accepted at French fuel stations We just came back from 2 weeks research trip in France, having driven about 3000 miles down to the south coast and back, the very scenic route, stopping at about 150 aires. My point being we fueled up every day randomly but mostly at supermarkets as they tend to be the cheapest. We found that many of the fuel pumps now accepted our cards. This was not the case a month ago except ESSO Express 24/24 unmanned garages that all accept UK cards and tend to be the cheapest price around. My guess is that one card processors has started accepting UK cards so it is just a case of trying. Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Way2Go Posted April 20, 2007 Share Posted April 20, 2007 Hi Chris,By 'our cards' I presume you mean Switch/Maestro/Cirrus, Visa and Mastercard?That must have been an interesting trip for you. Were there any surprises regarding the Aires?Way2Go Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Go Motorhoming Posted April 20, 2007 Author Share Posted April 20, 2007 Good point about the cards used we only tried Visa cards as that's all we have. Surprises about the aires? Yes, we found that most had someone on, some were packed, all French or all German, some were better but had no one on. We have actually visited 500 this year. The funniest thing is that there are a growing number of motorhome campsites in the popular areas, mostly by the coasts. These are described as aires in the french guides but in reality are often low budget motorhome exclusive campsites on large open gravel areas. The point is these were packed mostly with non French vans who were paying for the privilege. I can honestly say that there are so many better places to stay on lake and riverside locations but that was the point of the research. You would think that having visited so many aires a day we would have only stopped overnight on them. In reality we ended up free-parking at least evey 3rd-4th day mainly because we had a punishing schedule and the last one we were due to visit was full, closed or just unpleasant . Still that's the beauty of France as long as you respect other people you can stay pretty much where you like, which is why so many of the Bornes are simply filling up and emptying points. Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Way2Go Posted April 20, 2007 Share Posted April 20, 2007 Many thanks for that report Chris it was very useful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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