hi,
Sorry i know this question will have being asked before but i need to ask you lovely people on here, so i can get in clear in my head [:errr: for next years trip]. We have just come back from spain in july 2012 and had a lovely trip back. Going down was another thing. Right here where it starts.
Got in Calais at 11.00pm and our plan was to drive as far down as we could, doing toilet breaks and petrol stops. (2 of us driving).So we drove down using non toll roads, as far as we could until we had a quarter of a tank of petrol and then pulled onto a 24 hour petrol station. Which wasnt manned. So we looked on the card payments that you could use and our card, visa natwest, first direct, you couldnt use, only card apart from french cards was american express, which we dont have . I thought next step, i will ask somone, French, if they could use their card and we would pay them in euros, that didnt work, either couldnt understand what i was saying, broken french come english accent . So we had to stay on this parking place overnight until 7am when the pumps was manned and lost all that time, when we could have being driving.
So are all petrol stations like that, are the auto route ones open 24 that take english cards. We are going to the same place again next year and we are trying to work the times out so we dont hit paris during the day. We will be using toll roads this time and doing a overnight stop going down and coming back.
Thank you
Bettyboop
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Motorway services open 24/7 and accept UK cards. To be honest there are very few automated pumps these days that don't accept UK cards. Did you try your cards to see if they worked?
I would never expect to find a petrol station manned at night - and rarely at lunch time too - but in recent years I have never had a problem using a British Visa or Mastercard credit card in an automatic machine. Pre paid cards might be different but I have no experience of them.
We've never had a problem in about the last four or five years. Both our debit cards are accepted, and both credit cards, all Visa. Did you actually try the card, rather than just look at the symbols? I honestly don't think we've every checked which cards are pictured, we just put our card in and follow the instructions. Often these now come in a choice of languages, including English, once they recognise that your card is not French.
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I am not sure from your post if you actually tried your cards? Usually the pumps have the Visa and Mastercard logos. Been travelling for years in France; we have only had one instance of a machine not accepting our card and that was in Gex last year. We were surprised!
Our local SuperU used to reject our French card on a regular basis, (a glitch in it) but always took my Barclaycard Connect.
I have bought petrol for someone before now on my card, as theirs wouldn't work. If the lady is on here I am sorry I made you work for it by making you speak to me in French . Small village not too much entertainment is my only excuse.
Thanks for the replies. I did try my card at the first stop and it didnt work. on the way back home, we travelled during the day and we paid with euros. Thanks for answering my question. I will now let the hubby know that we are safe to go again next year.
Thanks so much
bettyboop xx
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I've only had one filling station that refused my Halifax, Nationwide and Natwest debit cards that was one of the major fuel company's forecourt on the way back from the Vendee in May this year at an unmanned filling station not far after the cow roundabout in Rouen. All the others i've used have always worked. I did wonder afterwards if it wasn't my cards, but that there was no diesel in the pump?
I've had exactly the same during a lunchtime at the SuperU in Derval, where my Nationwide and Co-op cards were rejected, but my wife's Yorkshire BS card was accepted.
I just put it down to the machine being French!
And why I also never let the tank go below half full when the 'vans on the back.
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Topic: petrol pumps that are manned at night
. I thought next step, i will ask somone, French, if they could use their card and we would pay them in euros, that didnt work, either couldnt understand what i was saying, broken french come english accent 
. So we had to stay on this parking place overnight until 7am when the pumps was manned and lost all that time, when we could have being driving.
