[Slartie]

The "40 on three" thing is something I got very used to during US road trips, because most US pumps didn't accept foreign credit cards in order to pay at the pump. I tried it a few times, it basically only worked on one or two out of ten. The other eight or so asked for a Zip code to be entered, and regardless of what I entered - my real German zip code, a US zip code from the vicinity of the pump, all zeroes - the pump refused it. I could use my credit cards to fill up by going to the shop, handing it to the clerk asking her/him to authorize a certain pump, which they would usually do as long as they were allowed to keep the card in their possession until I filled up. Then after filling I would have to retrieve my credit card, which would then be billed with the exact amount I bought.

All in all a very inconvenient process, and I had to explain it to some clerks because they weren't used to it due to the locals all being able to just pay at the pump if they wanted to use a credit card. I quickly switched to just getting a stash of $10 and $20 bills from an ATM, estimating whether I could fit $20 or $30 worth of gas into the vehicle and pre-paying that amount, leaving a bit of space in the tank for the convenience of not having to walk into the store a second time.