i’ve been thinking about getting AAA but wasn’t sure if it would be worth it. i do drive pretty far for work, about 40 mins to an hour depending on traffic, and just fear my car will start to have issues. i remember a month or two ago the only issue my car had was the battery constant dying but since getting a new one it hasn’t been an issue (but it was pretty annoying not having someone come out to help i had to ask my manager every time for a start) i drive a 2015 honda accord EX with about 60k miles on it. i always want to be safe for the future but wanted to hear other peoples options on it. was also thinking of paying for it yearly which others have said it saves you more in the end. thanks!
is AAA still something people consider?
byu/VampireCreeper inpersonalfinance
Posted by VampireCreeper
18 Comments
You pay for the peace of mind not for the monetary benefit
I’ll never not have it
I don’t even notice the $150 every April
my mom has AAA, it’s been helpful whenever there’s been a problem on the road
I’ve been a AAA member for 43 years. It pays for itself every year, especially with young drivers in my family. Battery jumps, flat tires, locked keys, tows, discounts at various businesses, etc. Great ROI.
My car insurance company includes road side assistance.
Like a lot of things you pay for just in case, you wont really know how glad you are to have it until you need it. Come one Sunday afternoon, about an hour from home, I was sure glad to have it. Plus you can get some good benefits and discounts with your membership.
I think it’s worth it because if something goes wrong I don’t have to figure out who to call for help.
It at least partially depends on where you live. I live in a very rural area and AAA is basically useless here. If you call for roadside assistance you likely will have to wait until the next day. They pay tow trucks next to nothing and as a result most companies simply prefer not to deal with them rather than to take a job with such a small profit. It could be 12 hours before AAA finds a tow company two hours away who is desperate enough to take the job.
Yup, have it for a long time. Usually get my money “back” through various AAA discounts too: hotels often have a AAA discount as well as some musuems/attractions….
Unless you expect frequent breakdowns, I don’t understand the appeal of calling AAA so that they can call a local tow truck and send them to you, rather than just self-insuring and calling a local tow truck yourself should the need arise. And this may be regional, but most of the time I hear about AAA, it’s in the context of a terrible wait time.
If there is a nonzero chance you’ll need a locksmith, AAA is worth it.
It’s somewhat outdated and unnecessary for a lot of people, but some people will benefit from it. I stopped renewing my AAA when I realized I already pay something like $18/year for roadside assistance through my car insurance, which offers basically the same coverage as AAA. Membership used to come with a lot of ancillary perks that were useful for travelers but many of these are less relevant now than they were 30+ years ago. They were a travel agency that could help plan and book vacations, you could buy foreign currency and traveler’s checks from them, their paper maps and regional travel guides used to be the gold standard for navigating and planning trips, and their discounts used to be meaningful. Obviously there isn’t as much value in these benefits so now virtually all the value is in the roadside assistance.
Their roadside assistance coverage is very good and covers you, not your vehicle, but it’s 5-10X more expensive than similar coverage for your own car through insurance. Having said that it’s nice for people who often find themselves driving cars they don’t own. Also, using roadside assistance through your car insurance more than 1-2 times a year will likely result in higher premiums, so some people prefer AAA so they don’t have to worry about a claim causing their insurance to spike. This is nice for bad drivers/people with bad luck, households with lots of young drivers, etc. My friend’s tires used to basically collect nails when she lived in a city, so it was probably worth it for her.
I have AAA Plus and once had a no-injury, relatively mild (but later deemed a total) car accident in Vancouver BC. The call agent was hedging when I said I needed to get this car over the border to the US. When she realized I was Plus she says, “oh – 160 free kilometers any direction and just need to find a driver with a passport.” And I’ve needed key-ins, battery jumps, tire fixes, tows, etc etc. The answer is *yes*.
It’s almost always way cheaper to add Roadside Assistance on your car insurance than it is to pay for a AAA membership.
My critique of AAA is the length of time it takes someone to come. My car broke down 40 miles from home, but thankfully less than a mile from the auto dealership. Called AAA for a tow and it took over 2 hours for someone to come.
Another time I had a problem with the vehicle not starting. 90 minutes. If I had called a tow company myself they likely would have come in 30 minutes or less.
Honestly, I would pay for it over paying for road side assistance through my insurer. Why? Because anytime you call for roadside assistance through your insurer, it counts as a claim. The more claims you rack up, the higher they’ll raise your insurance. I found that out when going to renew the next year. Had a few flat tire claims.
After that, AAA. AAA also has massive discounts on all sorts of things, tickets, restaurants, etc. They do travel planning (never used that service), passport photos, international driving licenses, maps (love some good maps) and state by state guide books. The maps and guide books are free!
To me it is well worth the money.
I stopped paying for it. I would rather pay the locksmith or tow company a couple hundred bucks when I need them than pay AAA a hundred bucks a year just in case. They left me stranded one time – just never called back, thankfully we had assistance from the rental car company – and another time I got hosed on an on-site battery replacement (my husband’s first day back to work after we had a baby, his car wouldn’t start, he took my car, and I wasn’t going to try to figure out how to get a newborn out of the house to get the battery replaced), although I suppose any kind of mobile battery replacement like that will always come at a premium.
It’s such a pain how they have all the various state clubs too. Like you can’t just call them up, you have to go to the right website or contact the right club. They also send way too much junk mail.
There are alternatives – Better World Club and Good Sam are two I’ve seen in the past – and I would try them before AAA again.
AAA is amazing! I will always renew. Over the years its saved my bacon from tows, flats, dead batteries, lockouts, and even a dead fuse for my gear shifter. I live in the PNW and do a fair amount of driving. Plus, I usually get about $10 off my oil change at Valvoline when I show them my card. I need to look at their site to see if there are other discounts.
One lock out or flat tire and it will pay for itself.