Pilot Flying J -vs- T/A

I like Loves the best. They have a new program where showers never fall off. More variety of restaurants...like Subway but can get old after awhile.

 

Ok well we will just have to agree to disagree about this one. And as far as being a mortal sin to charge hard working professional drivers to park, have you ever seen the mess those hard working professional drivers leave behind where they park? the folks that have to clean up after them don't work for free and if you have been following the news lately they now want minimum wage to be 10.00 + dollars. For whatever they get paid, they get the pleasure of picking up bottles full of urine, cigarette butts dumped all over the parking spaces and whatever truck paraphernalia gets left behind from them working on trucks in the lot such as odd parts, oil bottles, grease tubes etc. I don't appreciate rolling into a parking lot and having to look at all this trash but some ( not all) of our so called professional trucker buddies seem to think it is ok to be slovenly pigs in public and someone has to clean up after them. They don't work for free and with the amount of truck traffic rolling in and out of these places the problem is growing exponentially.You drive a truck and you expect to get paid for that service, why do you think you should have a service provided to you for free?

 

Love's also has Hardee's, Carl Jr's and well heck theirs a list of about 15 different fastfood restaurants on their "locate" page. I have every Love's with a Hardee's, we passed, *stared in my pocket guide, my husband loves their biscuits and sausage for breakfast.

I usually write down what TS has what kinda restaurant as we go by for the next time, in that pocket guide, using my own abreveations.

 

Me too. Unlimited showers and drink refills!

 

so company drivers have to fuel where they are told.
But never spend your own money there. Support the independent truck stops. Cause if we lose them, we lose more parking.
But I guess sheep will never understand that.

 

Chester's Chicken. Mostly @ Love's but occasionally at Pilot or Mom & Pops. My wife says my white hair is gonna turn into white feathers. lol.

 

TA/petro have bigger parking lots so I like that and fewer fleets use them so quicker. I don't know if its just me. They also don't just assume everyone is a nasty truck driver that is too stupid to know to park the truck first and telling them to take showers over the intercom lol.

 

I agree. Have to fuel at the big ones but everything else I try to deal with independents. Drivers get too automatic spending their money at TA/PFJ/loves. $1.59 to 1.79 for coffee and so on. I just won't pay their prices anymore.
Also the last couple of accessories I've bought have been from independents. Same price as the big boys.

 

I prefer the independent Mom and Pop truck stops followed by TA's. The TA's seem to have better restaurants overall and look better.

 

Are the Big 3 really all that much different? When they aren't stupidly overpriced on fuel, I'll favor PFJ for the ease of use loyalty points, fuel invoice at kiosk, and I like Denny's food a little better than Country Pride/Iron Skillet for my one cooked meal a day or so. TA/Petro showers are a little nicer as a rule, but not always. I do like their reserve-it parking. I don't use it much, maybe once every month or two. Sure is nice when I know I'm gonna reach it at the end of a long driving day when the lot is already filled up. Same with the ones that have the secured parking where you have to spend $20 inside or buy 50 gal of fuel. I'll spend $20 to use the T/A in SE Dallas before I'll even consider entering the Charlie Foxtrot parking at the J. There's always something I can use in the store, even if I don't need it right now. Last time I bought a bottle of Power Service. Another time a mudflap. Things I would have bought somewhere else anyway. Still made out better than buying fuel there LOL.

I'm more a slave to fuel prices than points programs. On a big fill I come out ahead buying my fuel somewhere cheap, then just paying $10-13 for a shower if I want one. If the PFJ store is within 5¢/gal with the rest in an area, I'll go there if I want to grab a shower point. Oak Grove, MO last month was an excellent example of this for me. Overnight at the TA to get some Popeyes for dinner. In the morning, ride across I-70 to the QT 200 gal of fuel for 20¢/gal cheaper than the other three places at that exit, saving $40. That left me $30 to the good, even after paying for dinner.

Oh yeah.. +1 on the post about Love's shower points - I'll have to look into that. I never go there because 9 times out of 10 they have jacked up parking lot designs and fuel lines out to the street.