NASTC Membership - What's The Story?

Please don't join NASTC's Fleet One fuel program. I would hate for something so simple to be a PITA for you.

The TA and Petros have the cleanest and best showers in the NASTC system or anybody else's as far as I am concerned with my loyalty card points with showers are honored at all of them for every penny of fuel purchased through the NASTC Fleet One that is also true with the fuel stops in the Ambest and Roady loyalty system too.

Maybe you did not know this with the NASTC fuel card system?

 

Think you are mis-understanding me.

First, Fleet One is a Pita for a multi-truck carrier to establish with. We can ask the same question 4 times and get different answers. Then you get those fun little emails "you are in step 4 of the process" and NO ONE KNOWS WHAT ANY OF THE STEPS ARE. Doesn't inspire a lot of confidence to go and deposit $20k into an account with them.

Now I haven't used it while driving just looking at fuel stops along driver routes and seeing what type of savings they could get. There are plenty of places the TA was more expensive than the mom and pop a stop before or after. Or more than the TA 50 miles before or after. My point was that if a company driver doesn't care about the rate, they may fill-up at the TA because they are stopping and want a shower (rather than the one they passed 50-miles ago). Or they need fuel and don't use the mom and pop because they want a shower for that night. An O/O can do the math and say "At the Mom and Pop I will save enough to pay for a shower and still be ahead". Company driver won't do that (in most cases).

 

Most Company Drivers don't care about nothing but how much their check will be and when the next time you can get them by the house. Better to have and work with leased on O/Os any day. Been there done that.

 

I had zero problems establishing my multi truck fleet with Fleet One. They were actually much better than the runaround I received with TCH when I used them. I also didn't have a deposit either and had a pretty large credit limit. There's no way I'd let them hold 20k.

 

I didn't have to deposit any money with Fleet One either. Most be credit rating issue weather you need to deposit money with them or not?

 

Bill, I had the same questions when they were telling me $0.15/g average savings and I was seeing discounts. David Owen explains that for drivers, it's best to just give them the fuel guide and let them fuel where they want than to micromanage them. Yes, TA/Petro is the biggest in their network, but my two best prices on the runs I make are at an AMBEST and the Sapp Bros. in PA (usually, although the TA in Bloomsburg can beat them out sometimes).

The problem is like in Ohio. If you run I-70 to I-71 to I-76 to I-80 and into Pennsylvania and let a driver fuel where they want, they can screw you on price. Youngstown is a horrible price, but Eaton, London and Lodi/Seville are good (especially Seville this past week).

That is explained as why their average is what it is. The problem is you can't tell a driver where to fuel as a blanket statement, because one week that stop might be more than the other TA 100 miles down the road. And that means managing their every fuel stop for them.

Might be good to copy/paste the NASTC price list for the areas of the country they run every day and let them see on their own the best IFTA prices and encourage them to fuel there.

 

Nothing from nothing but our guy gives us our 5 best every day. It is not a mandate but a request you try and use them if at all possible. Most of our guys will adjust to use them to strengthen the company.

Granted may not work for everyone but we tend to the same lanes with our customer base and that way they can give us a heads up if there is gonna be a huge price difference.

 

Glad to see I wasn't the only person that looked at the published average savings and said "Hmmm". On the one side I give NASTC credit in that they are just giving an average and not doing the hard sell on "but if you pay attention you can save twice that". And when they would call to see why we hadn't turned in our application they would not give me the price at Joe's Gumbo & Fuel but the TA in my area (not the best savings).

Will say they are serious about keeping people fueling in network. I asked several carriers when we started looking at this why they aren't doing it (wondering if it was too good to be true) and all had been part of it and got booted for being out of network too often. Telling my drivers if staying in network is going to be an issue they will go back to TCH and the crappy discounts.

 

Dice,

How accurate are the alerts they send out on movement of fuel prices?

 

And I was told about fuel:

That the majors are buying up to 14% bio diesel blend AND the government gives them a rebate or something ( perhaps a tax break? ) and it's not passed on to us.......( that much is true )

Can anybody substantiate that? ( please? )