I think, for GA, and outside France, the AIR BP card is becoming increasingly irrelevant.
A few weeks ago I used mine at EDNY but could have used a normal CC. This was the first AIR BP use in 3 years.
Historically the main use was in the 3rd World, where half the people tried to rip you off, and the card protected you from that because the billing was done by AIR BP.
Today, there are still quite a lot of fuellers, especially in France and especially self-service, which take only AIR BP (we had this issue at a number of fly-ins in years past, resulting in a lot of people dropping out) but their numbers are declining in general. Air BP only airports.
Uptimist wrote:
Good luck trying to find out what you pay at an airport before you get the invoice. No one will tell you. After many emails with my “account manager” I received a spreadsheet with prices, it it makes no sense at all no matter which way I look at it. I can try posting a copy here if anyone wants to try decoding it!
I used Rocket Route for that. No need to register. Visit mp.rocketroute.com and enter airport code. For example:
Having flown commercial charter for a while, we had about 4-5 fuel cards onboard but rarely used them. Most of the time we had a fuel release printed together with the flight docs.
Peter wrote:
I think, for GA, and outside France, the AIR BP card is becoming increasingly irrelevant.
Not only France (36 airports with some kind of AVGAS, according to their web site), but also in Spain (36, excluding the Canaries), Germany (29), the UK (19), Sweden (15) and Norway (14). Then 10 more European countries have a handful of Air BP fuelling locations.
I wonder how many of these have no CC option / have nobody around to help so you are forced to self serve.
I don’t think there are 19 in the UK which are like that; self service is not big here at all. In France and Spain, it is probably most frequent.
As posts here show, there are sometimes options but you need a human around to help, who one can speak to.
I used Rocket Route for that. No need to register. Visit mp.rocketroute.com and enter airport code.
Thanks a lot for this !
The problem is I don’t think Rocket Route is accurate. For example I’m pretty sure the Biggin Hill actual price is higher than shown. We were charged 4.60/L at LGSO three weeks ago (almost certainly higher now). Rocket Route shows current price as 4.05. I asked the BL representative at the Friedrichschafen stand how to get the prices and got a shrug, she said RocketRoute could not be relied on, but could offer no other source. Very poor service.
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Hey guys, has anyone a contact from Air BP to which I could reach out? They do not respond to emails to sterling at bp.com or airbpgasales at bp.com for more than a week now. That connection seems dead.
They charged me two times for the last time I refuelled. It was like this: I entered my card and the reader said “card unknown”. Thereafter we used the card from the local airfield and I paid the invoice with the aeroclub. Two weeks later I got an invoice from air BP and got charged a second time for the same refuelling. The aeroclub is not to blame, they told me all is fine, I paid well. I phoned the contact they gave me from BP, but he is absolutely unwilling to solve it nor to pass me over to someone who might solve that, and he said the only way resolving that was to refuse the debit note.
But that doesn’t sound like the way it’s meant to be resolved. I mean, this is an automated system. After refusing the debit note I will receive some form of reminder and finally they will kick me out of the system. I don’t want that either – and it’s just hassle. I don’t mean to invest that time. That’s just crazy. I mean, that level of customer support is hard to underperform.
I recommend going into their invoicing system, and disputing the invoice there. That will kick the right process. In your shoes I would also refuse the debit note, IMHO they will not be that quick to kick you out.
lionel wrote:
I recommend going into their invoicing system, and disputing the invoice there
Thanks. I was not aware that it is possible to file a dispute in the invoice system. It’s not 100% hassle free, but I did also this now and – you know what? Got an instant automatic reply that my dispute was received. The first sign of life that I got from BP trying to reaching out electronically. So sad.
