With the Shell App, you can make payments for fuel from the comfort of your car.
With the app, you can pay for fuel with 3D Secure verification and collect BonusLink points
Let me begin with a confession: I absolutely despise refuelling my car. Like many urban dwellers, my area is densely populated and has only a handful of petrol stations.
As a journalist, I spend a significant amount of time on the road, constantly moving between assignments, the office, and back, enduring the fuel-draining chaos of traffic. This means I find myself at the Shell station more often than the average driver.
And when I do, I know exactly how it will go: park my car, lock it, walk to the counter, line-up to pay, and present my BonusLink card in order to top points.
Most of the time however, I walk to the counter and line-up, only to realise I left my BonusLink card in the car – so most times, to avoid shuffling back, I usually skip collecting my BonusLink Points altogether.
Recently however, I heard that Shell had finally debuted the Shell App – the newly released app that might just turn my seemingly long, banal trips to the petrol station into a less time-consuming, fuss-free experience.
At my fingertips
The Shell App comes with a slew of features, although the one I truly appreciate was the ability to pay for fuel from the comfort of my car – no more having to queue up in front of multiple people (some who take their sweet time to whip out their wallets to pay).
This feature comes in particularly handy when its raining cats and dogs and you still need to fuel up, or in my experience – when I need to make a pit stop for petrol late at night in quieter areas. I find some solace that I don’t have to step out of my car longer than necessary just to pay.
All I have to do is open the Shell app, key in the pump number, select my fuel amount and click the payment button, before refuelling.
I recently told a cousin with an incorrigible toddler about it, because i’ve seen her struggle having to first unbuckle him from his baby car seat, get her handbag and walk to the counter with the wailing child in tow.
Having the ability to pay at a click of the button without getting out of the car for longer periods – especially for a parent travelling alone with young children, is God sent.
Safe and secure
The Shell App’s innovative features make it easy to fuel up and redeem rewards safely and securely.
It’s just as easy when I had to pay – I could easily link either my debit or credit card to the Shell App, although one of my initial gripes about the app was having to enter an OTP for my card before I could pay.
However, I quickly realised – even as a tech noob, that this extra security step was necessary to confirm my authorisation for the payment, reducing the risk of phishing and data theft.
I have also come to learn that the Shell App is also the first fuel payment app in the country with a 3-D Secure verification feature.
In a time when online scammers are going full-throttle, I really don’t mind taking that extra step in the payment process. Knowing that the Shell app incorporated this extra layer of security provided a great deal of comfort.
The Bonus, in BonusLink
As I’ve mentioned, I may have the memory of a goldfish – often forgetting to take my BonusLink card with me to collect points when I pay to refuel.
The advantage for people like myself, is the fact that my existing BonusLink card can be linked to this new app, so every time I make payment for fuel with the Shell App, my BonusLink Points are awarded automatically.
At Shell SELECT stores – I just had to scan the QR code on the app to earn points for anything I purchased be it beverages, snacks, bread, canned food or milk.
The Shell App makes redeeming rewards and BonusLink Points, a breeze.
My absolute favourite part of Shell SELECT stores are, of course, the little coffee outlets inside, where I usually grab a coffee and pastries on the go for my weekly road-trips.
As someone who heads to Shell SELECT stores quite regularly, I could easily refer to the app for the Power Up feature – to check how much BonusLink points I’ve accumulated to redeem exclusive rewards, that range from limited-time offers and discounts to promotions.
In this economy, rewards are not something I’d give up.
The more points I collected from refuelling, buying something at Shell SELECT or treating my car with Shell lubricants – the more rewards I redeemed.
Much to my surprise, the redemption feature allowed me to redeem free items or Shell cash vouchers. And the best part? I could stack up my rewards to get a few items at one go.
By simply scanning the QR code at the counter, I could redeem everything from free upsizes of coffee to mineral water and pastries.
Being the scatterbrain I am, I was reminded by the friendly cashier at the station to pre-select the items I wanted before scanning the QR code.
Finding made easy
The Shell App has features that allow users to find the nearest Shell stations, and deli2go outlets.
An added feature in the Shell App I found very practical, was the Shell Station Locator.
Travelling along Malaysian highways on my road-trips or making my way up north to see my family means having to make pit stops to refuel, buy snacks – and more often than not, toilet breaks.
With the app, I can now estimate where the closest Shell station might be, without having to frustratingly search the web to look for the nearest petrol station.
Get it
After using it for some time, it has become clear that the Shell App isn’t just made for people like me who hit the road often – I can see how it will make trips to any destination a breeze for parents with small kids and even older folks.
Download the Shell App now from Google Play or the Apple App Store.
