American Automobile Association [AAA] review: Absolutely avoid AAA For Travel

I have to preface the following review by pointing out that I had been a member of AAA for approximately 27 years prior to the following events. During that period I made very little use of their services. I had one vehicle towed a distance of about 8-10 miles a few years after joining AAA and then many years later I had them order me airfare to Rio de Janeiro. The main purpose of keeping my membership active was in the unlikely event that I had to rely on their towing services; however, with the cost of the membership running around $100/year I recently decided that I would start to make more use of their travel services. My youngest sister warned me to not do this but I brushed her warnings aside since I had purchased airline tickets a few years prior without instance. Not heeding her warning was a major mistake on my part.

In the AAA office a plaque indicated that the woman who I was dealing with was the employee of the year. I already knew her as she was the same person who several years prior had ordered my tickets to Brazil and furthermore I knew one of her children. She also was a local real estate agent and ran her own business. This time I needed two tickets to Valencia, Spain and I wanted them to be first class. This latter request seemed to evoke a small but noticeable change in her demeanor and my thoughts were maybe there was some jealousy for some odd reason. She was able to obtain my ticket at a good price and so all we had to do was secure the second ticket for the other traveler my girlfriend.

This was where we ran into serious problems. During the entire process the agent was very difficult to reach. Although I had called her myself no less than 3-4 times I was never once able to get her on the phone and had to leave voice messages. I also had to send emails and probably no less than 40% did not generate a response on her part. Meanwhile my girlfriend experienced the same issues. When the second ticket was settled on both myself and my girlfriend verified to this agent that we wanted it purchased. The weekend soon passed by and there was still no email from the airlines. The next week I found out that the agent had never purchased this ticket and instead the only viable options left to us would incur and an additional $1,500 over the original price of the ticket we had requested. Instead of letting AAA purchase the second ticket we went online and bought one at the same inflated price.

I decided that was it for me and AAA so once my membership came up I decided to not renew. Unbeknownst to me AAA had different plans and somehow auto-renewed my membership without my approval. I had to then cancel that purchase and soon after AAA membership retention services started calling the house and the typical mass mailings for renewal started to appear in the snail mailbox. This is when I decided I needed to speak with the CEO. This might sound odd to the reader but I have conversed with numerous CEOs and other influential people by regular mail, email, and phone. I thought that a CEO of a company as simple as AAA would read my letter and respond in kind. I was very wrong. The first letter was returned a little over a month after posting it with an indication that the address was incorrect (AAA has numerous businesses apparrently). Through calling various numbers listed for AAA I finally found one person who gave me the CEO’s name and the correct corporate office.

About three weeks after posting that letter a “Jennifer” called the house phone and I gave her a rundown of what had transpired. After asking me what they could do to make up for their screw-up I said five years free membership would be find. This person told me that they had been with AAA for a long time and although she couldn’t promise it that most likely this would not be a problem. Then nothing occurred for about two months, except more junk mail from AAA arrived (life insurance and renewal requests). This is when I wrote a second letter to the CEO of AAA.

After waiting about 2.5-3 weeks Jennifer called the house yet again and left a message to call her. I returned the call within a few days and no one answered so I left a message to inform her that she could return my call next week. Since I typically was not around during normal hours of the day I decided to make it a point to schedule my work so that I could remain in the house from M-F during normal hours. During that week no return phone call came in, nor did one ever come in. No return correspondence by mail came in either. This is when I finally submitted a BBB complaint.

After submitting this complaint another person from AAA asked for some information. I was able to supply most of this but not all given the fact that BBB only allows the complainant to upload so many documents. I then waited for yet another two months and still AAA will not put me in touch with their CEO. As of the current time of writing this review I have waited over one year total for this company to let their CEO read my correspondence to him. I have also not had any explanation for all of their behavior nor have they ever made a single meaningful gesture to correct these wrongs. To add further insult to injury they still continue to send me junk mail to this day. I am now into my second BBB complaint attempting to reach the CEO of this clown show and within the past 3 weeks or so I have had no less than another four letters for life insurance and renewal be delivered to the house.

Bottom line is this. AAA is a complete joke. Absolutely do not risk letting them arrange anything for you. There is zero accountability at this company and there is a very a high likelihood you will regret having used them.

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