Flying J frustrations - Alternatives?

RRinNFla wrote:
It’s not just a matter of the convenience of using the RV lane for fueling it’s also a matter of having a place to park after fueling. (One of my pet peeves is motorists who disappear after fueling while others are waiting in line)

I like the convenience of Flying J, and I am willing to pay a little extra for the convenience. I admit I was venting a little about bad service, but my main reason for posting was to see if other travelers might be aware of an equivalent setup to Flying J. So far I haven’t heard any.

Park, as in free "overnighting"?

If that is the case, truckstops are the last place to be as they tend to be busy (noisy) 24/7. We opt for gassing up at fuel places then move to other parking lots like WM..

This yr we used a Interstate rest stop which offered no services and instead of heading into the truck area we parked in the car section (while towing our TT)which was away from the big rigs, was a bit calmer and quieter than overnighting in WM..

Going inside to pay?

We don't any more, we used to pay with cash but finding fuel stations that do not require prepaying has gotten difficult.. So, we started to buy prepaid giftcards we bough at home at a discount. The downside to gift cards was they only work at the fuel brand you bought them for.

To get around that, we started buying throw away VISA or Mastercard prepaid debit cards and use those in the pump reader. Downside to those cards is the upfront $2-$4 dollar fee when you buy and load them but keeps us from sticking our credit card into pump readers that may have been hacked.

Park, as in going inside to browse the store?

We don't go to gas stations to browse around their store offerings, they provide a "convenience" to the customer by offering food and trinkets but at a higher cost than if you went to a grocery store..

We buy and carry all of our snacks and drinks we need before leaving on our trips and buy additional snacks and drinks as needed at grocery stores.

As far as space goes, we pull a 26ft bumper pull TT, your 32ft 5th isn't that much longer than what our bumper pull is and we really have not had much trouble finding fuel stations large enough to allow use easy access.. It does take some thought before committing to pull in.

We also added a 15 gallon "landscaper tank" rated for gasoline a few yrs back that I can pump into the truck tank at any rest stop we make. Adds an additional 150 miles to our 34 gallon truck tank which gets about 340 miles. Basically gives us 49 gallons with 490 miles worth of range. Cut down on the amount of fuel stops we need to make.