I needed gas and forgot to stop in at Safeway on the way to work. If you have a Safeway Club card, you always get at least 3 cents/gallon off of the listed price of gas. Well...if I don't make it to Safeway in the morning, I can either hope to find an open pump after work (not likely), or I can just pull up and wait for a pump to open up. I hate waiting, so I figured I would get gas at lunch around work.
I had some other errands to run anyway, so I drove to a Circle K close to work. To digress, I used to live in Houston where you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a gas station, but they are fewer and farther between in Phoenix. Anyway, the Circle K had a posted price of 3.189 for regular which is about as good as the cheaper stations in my neighborhood. The problem with Circle K--of which I am now painfully aware--is that they only list the price of regular. I extrapolated that 3.189 for regular would mean 3.389 for premium. I pulled up to the pump and got out of the car to find that while regular was 3.189, mid-grade was 3.319 (13 cents more/gallon) and premium was 3.619 (or a whopping 43 cents more per gallon than regular). There is no rhyme or reason for premium to cost that much more, but it's obvious why they don't post the price, which is just Circle K just being fu*ksticks to lazy a$$es like me who figure "yeah, that price sucks, but I'm already here so I'm not driving to one or two other places to find the best price".
I'm doing fine; no one needs to hold a benefit for me. I paid the extra price, but I also resolved not to go back to Circle K. I told a few friends whose cars also run on premium about the lack of posted price and they won't be patronizing Circle K anytime soon either. It just doesn't make sense to me that if over 90% of a company's profit comes from repeat business, Circle K wouldn't be more concerned about the impact of messing with unlisted gas prices the way they do.
There's a lady who works in my office who used to be an exec with Circle K before she came to work for us. She wasn't in the office much this week, but I am going to ask her if this is a corporate "strategy" or if it's just something some franchisees do.
Just beware. If not all three gas prices are posted, that could be because the station charges a lot more for mid-grade and premium than past experience would have you assume.
"I'm your basic bad-postured, guilt-ridden ball of confusion with a trace of paranoia, self-loathing, and a little faith thrown in for some good taste." -Richard Lewis