No more free AAA battery replacement service
Back in 2016, I signed up for AAA’s Premier plan which includes a free battery replacement once a year. Recently, we tried to use this service, as my wife, who took a free battery from AAA about 3 1/4 years ago was in need of a battery replacement. And, were told that free battery replacement was no longer available, by two different AAA representatives, on different days and was offered a jump start alternative.
Every year the price has gone up, this year, it was $245 for myself, and an additional member, my wife, for the Premier plan, which represents decent value, given the cost of a replacement battery. But, without the complimentary battery replacement, that is not good value as we often go the whole year without using the service other than a free battery replacement every 1.5 – 2 years between our two cars.
I’m annoyed as the free battery service was discontinued without notice, by postal mail or email, I get lots of mail from AAA pushing their add-on services, but nothing about the removal of this key benefit. It might have been in the small print of the terms and conditions, but I feel when the service fundamentally changes, it should be in prominent print on the renewal notice, anything else is misleading, these companies know that people either don’t want to or don’t have time to read the small print.
We choose to go to Samsclub and get a replacement battery, for about $30 less, installed in the car, than what the quoted AAA battery replacement price with the member discount, would have been.
The bottom line is I have canceled AAA, as the jump and towing service can be included in my car insurance for much less than the cost of AAA, and should my wife run out of gas, I can go get some and bring it to her. Thankfully, we found this out before renewal time, which was October 30, 2022.
Side rant: what’s with the crazy disparity between the introductory for new members and the renewal price for existing members? New customers pay less than $80 plus whatever the discounted 2nd member cost would be, compared to $245 for our renewal, that’s a massive disparity. This is not specifically AAA, this is commonplace in the US, always chasing new members, effectively punishing loyal customers.