Ok, I did some reading. Looks like both the NPR Car Talk guys and CBC’s Marketplace have called bullshit on it, but it may be worth it if you have an expensive performance car like some of those on Top Gear. Otherwise it doesn’t seem to make a difference. But I guess it would make a difference in marketing.
Both Marketplace and Car Talk say that even some stations that don’t claim to be “top tier” exceed the “top tier” standards.
Like both of you have said, it’s more likely these people want the points and they’re paying with a company credit card, so they don’t care about price.
Are you sure the posted price was for regular gasoline at both locations? I find more often than not the difference in the BIG SIGN prices is diesel vs gasoline, at least where I live. When I first moved up here I religiously filled up at Safeway because of the $0.10/L discount, but now I honestly just fill up wherever. I typically use Shell for my personal vehicles because it’s only a couple blocks from my house. Their squeegees are usually missing or frozen in watered down washer fluid, which would be a deal breaker if they didn’t give airmiles. And 10X airmiles for premium on occasion.
I don’t mean to sound snobish in saying so, but perhaps my Albertan attitude might explain what you’ve been seeing
What I didn’t notice growing up is how thrifty my parents are with groceries, fuel, etc. It wasn’t until years after living in Alberta and then visiting Rupert that I noticed the coupons and religious rewards cards / airmiles strategies that have probably been being used since before I was born. I on the other hand receive the big pink bag full of flyers on the driveway every week and I leave it there hoping whoever drops it off gets the point. I don’t want your junk mail and coupon stuff. I probably don’t speak for the majority of the population, but I’m willing to bet that there isn’t anyone I work with that cuts out coupons or plans their grocery list based on them. The price of gas couldn’t be more off my radar. Maybe it has to do with the average income here, or the fact that most of us leave our vehicles running while we’re inside shopping, and the AVG L/100km on even the Honda Fit in the driveway is over 10, but really $5 bucks a tank isn’t worth my time to look for another station with a lower price, or wait in line for even a minute at the next place. I probably burn on average, 70L a day in my company truck, 70L a month in my personal. Maybe a lot of us here do the same, I don’t know.
I used to only go to Safeway because it was 5c/litre cheaper there if i buy my food there and they don’t sell rancid chicken/beef like save on /wholesale but my work gas card is Petro and I keep the points so that will be changing… or not.
I stopped looking at gas prices long ago when I had a car that required premium and my price per litre was over 1.50. I pretty much only burn a tank a month in my car now so its even more irrelevant and coupons? They still make those, I don’t get any junk mail so far at our new place. Probably something to do with not opening our mailbox for 4 months
Woman I was with a few years back had a Saab Turbo and when they closed the Chevron here we had to go to Vanderhoof to fill up.
Great savings when it’s 100km round trip to get to a gas station, eh?
No, the policy was they were converting to those Town Pantry - Bread Garden - TripleO places and the owner didn’t want to kick in for all that, plus they closed theor bulk plant here.
When the mills went for shit around 2004, half the cardlocks closed too.
I woulda kicked in for the Triple0 - would’ve locked up 90% of the burger sales here. We still don’t have a burger franchise.
Price for regular gas 107.9 to 108.9 in Duncan, Cobble hill, Ladysmith for months, In Nanaimo it jumps around, right now 122.9 to 129.9 .Can you say what ever the market will bear?
Just cae back from Family Day with the family in Prince George - its on its way back down now. $116.9 - $117.9 only 3c more than it was a couple weeks ago.
Dammit Costco was closed, as its a real holiday now.
I would pay $0.10/L more just so Shell would remove that BS $100 cap on their pumps. It’s an outrage! A tank in my personal truck is usually ~$150 bucks, and the machines are SOOO slow in printing and resetting, all to just ask you the same questions all over again.
I once came across a machine that wouldn’t allow a 2nd purchase on the same card, I had to use a different card! $100 max in X amount of time… What kind of foolishness is that? Shell won’t even allow our fleet cards to take more than $100 at a time, we’ve called and asked. It also asks for a odometer, when the Cardlock does not… Petro wised up, and it’ll give you whatever now. Between the no washer fluid / squeegees and double fuel ups, I don’t know why I still go to Shell. Sure, I get the airmiles, but they haven’t had a 10X deal for premium in ages… Maybe even a year!
Points-wise, it would be nice if Petro-Points being PetroCANADA, actually gave you points you can use towards Canadian airline operators, instead of Alaskan Air… What is that all about anyway? And Sears.com… Whatever, I’m sure you can transfer the sears points, but come on!!! Maybe some aeroplan, or something we can use.
I have some ridiculous amount of petro points, raking up all the fuel costs going to flight school and stuff all on the card. I stopped giving it to the guy in town and he was all confused, and bewildered, asking why on earth I wouldn’t collect free points. When I mentioned I probably had something like enough for 5 vacations to Alaska he laughed, but kind of agreed that it was ridiculous.
Also, working in the oil & gas sector of Alberta, I still don’t understand how it’s so expensive for us to get this stuff. Kind of like the way seafood is so expensive in Prince Rupert… It’s the source, WTF! For example, a couple of days ago I was out for a frac, and long story short we only pumped ~40% of 5% of the well, if that makes any sense… Things were not going well at that point. Long story short and to keep things simple you, we cracked that thing open for a couple of hours to purge it. It was producing over 3million standard cubic feet of gas within an hour, which over 30% of which was oil. Now, in a fireball the size of most of your houses, that excess gas is being burned off as fast it’s coming out and I thought to myself… I bet that would have heated my house for 5 years… The fluid I saturated my coveralls in that day smelled exactly like delicious ESSO gasoline from the 7-11, you guys are getting your speakout cards or whatever from. Weird right?
That’s 1 well of about ~40 I could count withing sight, if I had. Imagine the amount of gas this province has, and BC too, yet so expensive!
As I’m typing this, this small bluewave energy tanker pulls up in front of my window and and it reminds me about MiG’s question about the fuel additives and whether its the same fuel being delivered to stations… Well I asked a friend of mine about this who worked at gas station, and no they never added any additives. The drivers also wouldn’t unload unless their storage tank would take ALL of it. That leads me to believe that this stuff is mixed/blended at the supplier, and no it isn’t the same.
So to settle this, I just stepped outside and had a chat with this guy who does deliver fuel to different stations and he says, it’s different fuel in different sections/tanks, and it’s blended at the supplier. It’s regular business for him to load up from multiple suppliers and deliver it to multiple gas stations and it IS different. So that answers your question MiG. Perhaps some places use the same stuff, I imagine Safeway/Superstore/Costco etc might get whatever is cheapest at the time, while your Techron buddies are getting something else.
And yes, for those who might wonder, that is a drilling rig on the right. Currently tickling what will be heating your homes, from 4km away.
Meanwhile, I have this coupon for 25 cents off a litre at Superstore. Going to pull a Kramer and wait until my car is way past empty and enjoy the $0.85/litre gas! hahah. You probably wasted that much this morning, right?
I hear you on the credit card thing. Won’t let you use the same card twice because it might be fraud. I wonder if it is the gas station or credit card company that does that? I had no problem gassing up 2 cars at Esso. And one was a U-Haul truck that took 100 litres.
Meanwhile don’t get me started on the electricity situation in Alberta. Wait, you need to charge me for delivering the electricity? Huh? You put it in a truck and drove it here?
Yeah, that’s another story… Enermax vs Direct and so on. I like to think that the no PST balances this stuff out. When I first moved to AB I was under 25, so my insurance was over $430 a month… That’s another peeve, but now I have 3 vehicles for something like $250 a month including the house, so it works out… I really don’t know the numbers there, but it’s really cheap compared to previous ICBC rates. No fuel wasting today, it’s balmy out. Also, I ran to town last night to grab some iron I would have otherwise had sent out on a big diesel flatbed at $500/hour or something stupid.
I’ve been sitting in this office for too long, because I just ordered a laptop, and $160 of what I didn’t pay would have gone to BC HST, if I was in BC… The savings!
I don’t understand and I’m not going to complain about the price difference in gas between Rupert and Terrace. Rupert is 117.9 and Terrace is mostly 125.9, they have had more price flucuation than Rupert. Usually Terrace has been cheaper over the years.
Here is a pretty good explanation of the recent spike in prices. The fact that Alberta oil is cheap for the refineries is another matter, but does reveal how much profit they make at the refiner level. The high retail prices are gravy for refiner owned gas stations.
“The rapid and unusual rise in gas prices at this time of year is the direct result of hedge funds from Wall Street to London amassing positions on literally millions of barrels of oil and gasoline. Any quick read of fundamentals shows the global economy is well supplied and demand stable. Yet concerns about a shortage of cheap blending components, needed for summer grade fuel, has commodity hedgers betting massively, without position limits, that prices will head up. The sheer size of their over-leveraged bets and positions based on rumour rather than fact, makes higher prices a sure bet. Its a nauseating and reckless repeat of the 2008 energy superbubble which threatens to disrupt the global economy, not to mention a swift kick in the pants to consumers who pay for these price distortions.”
