AA membership renewal

Pondy

Pondy

Muppet
 At the summit of the picturesque fens
Last year paid £335. Which was a lot! It auto renews and I forgot about it.
This year £452. Absolute rip off. No call-outs in two years!

So I phoned them. Instantly gave me a 'discount' of £160 down to £292 for the year.

It pisses me off that unless you chase these things, they just rip you off. I asked the lad on the phone how come they could reduce the premium by so much just from a phone call. He dodged the question and just kept stating that he had given me a huge 'discount'. My argument is that it wasn't a 'discount', just less than the rip-off figure they tried to charge in the first place.

Why do we keep being ripped off for everything in the UK and put up with it?
 
Would be worth checking with your bank if they do any 'special' accounts, I upgraded to the platinum current account with Lloyds which costs £22.50 per month (£270 per year), but includes mobile phone cover, at home family AA breakdown cover and worldwide travel cover.

Totally agree though, E.ON were going to increase my gas and electric direct debit due to my account being in a £30 deficit post winter, which would have rectified itself over the summer months? Crazy.
 
I'm in the same position as @James35i - mine comes with a £22/month Platinum Rewards bank account and covers any car I own (along with worldwide travel insurance, gadget insurance).

I do have to pay a little extra if I want winter sports cover for the US/Canada and for my medical conditions, but I'd have to pay that additional premium elsewhere too.
 
James35i said:
Would be worth checking with your bank if they do any 'special' accounts,
Click to expand...
TBH the post wasn't about getting breakdown cover elsewhere, or for cheaper.
It was about the absolute rip off companies are free to charge for the public's so called laziness. The 'systems' are put in place to make it easy to be lazy, but they are not required to specify that they will royally pull your pants down if you are.

The original quote I received from the AA is 35% higher than last year. When the UK Gov's primary objective is to get inflation down, do they not see that things like this are increasing inflation generally?

Oh no, hang on......the UK Gov cherry pick what items are included in their overall inflation figures.

I bought something from Halfords yesterday. In December 2025 it cost £10. Yesterday it was £12. A 20% increase in four months.
 
Love the angry rant Pondrew, but I'm with the others, get it included in your bank account fir a few quid with travel insurance and other benefits and make peace with the reality that half of the world would happily drain every penny you have if they could get away with it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: B21
Pondy said:
TBH the post wasn't about getting breakdown cover elsewhere, or for cheaper.
It was about the absolute rip off companies are free to charge for the public's so called laziness. The 'systems' are put in place to make it easy to be lazy, but they are not required to specify that they will royally pull your pants down if you are.
Click to expand...
Totally agree regarding the rip-off section, it's very frustrating watching it all happen in real time, especially if you are hot on it with your renewals and monitoring them.

Not much the UK Gov could do about it though with us living in a largely free-market, capitalist economy. Private companies are free to charge what they like providing no breach in competition law etc. AA have done a calculation and are happy to whack people with these massive increases as they've determined that enough customers won't switch or bother to contest their renewel like you have.

If the vast majority didn't roll over and were savvy with switching these companies would have to put more effort into being competitive and providing worthwhile benefits that help with retention.

It's an interesting subject I could chat about this for hours. :ROFLMAO:
 
We had a work offer for £140 for new accounts. I let my membership lapse for a week then took out the new deal. I've done that twice now.
 
I agree with you @Pondy ...loyal customer translates to mug/idiot for these companies...but there are enough 'loyal customers' to make it worthwhile!

I always assume that anything that auto-renews (especially insurance products) is always a rip-off - and will always punish loyalty...so I'm always looking for a better (but not necessarily cheaper) deal.

If that meant that in years gone by I had to change insurer, breakdown provider, broadband provider, phone network, energy provider every year, then so be it. It also meant I could take advantage of Quidco/TopCashBack bonuses to make it sweeter.

None of the government's grand ideas of making things fairer for the consumer have ever had the intended consequences. Take the banking overdraft charges that were supposed to make it fairer by having a single rate, so that unauthorised overdrafts weren't charged 40% interest. The government naïvely assumed that all overdrafts would come down to a lower interest rate, but the banks simply made all overdrafts 40% as that's 'fair' after all.

Even with the car insurance renewals where they're supposed to offer you the new customer rate every time, but you still find cheaper deals for the same insurer on comparison sites...and those sites are taking a commission off that premium too. They're also supposed to CLEARLY detail any changes between your current policy and the renewal...but they often fail to mention sly excess increases, or removal of commuting, etc.

Cnuts, the lot of them!
 
I've been with the RAC for decades, and get a silly price every time renewal comes around. I always get a much cheaper quote for the same cover with the AA then phone the RAC and they magically manage to match, or even better it. :banghead:

Greedy barstewards!
 
Just renewed mine with GEM Motoring Assist for 106 quid for full cover, it hasn't gone up the past few years. I would give the likes of the AA and RAC a wide birth. I had to call the RAC out once to replace a battery and the premium literally doubled so cancelled.

Amazingly my monthly water bill has just come down by 7 quid a month which surprised me as nationally I thought all water companies were hiking their charges.

Tim.
 
While charging what they can get away with isn't the worst thing in the world, it's the fact that the driving force behind almost all companies seems to be to get out of doing anything at all if possible. And charge for the privilege.

I drowned my 320d in the 2014 flooding (came round a country corner to find a lake). I've never bothered with breakdown cover and dragged a friend out because they had a thousand years of highly expensive RAC membership and it covered the policy holder, not their car. Phoned up the RAC and it turned out they would tow us about 5000 yards for free and then change £48 a mile thereafter. Because reasons.

A local garage from a few miles up the road happy picked up the car and took me 20-odd miles home for £50. Bargain.

Similarly, a friend up the road broke down in her camper van about 50 miles from home. Whatever recovery policy thing she had took 24 hours to get her home.

I suspect all these recovery companies are telemarketing scams and just sell the jobs on to third parties!
 
TBF I only had positive experiences with the RAC when I used them back in 2018.

About 10 miles from home my 325i lit up the amber temperature warning light followed very soon by the red one. As it had an N52 engine I assumed it was a dead water pump so I called them and waited about an hour, which wasn't a problem as I had found a layby and it was a nice sunny day in May. Patrol called me to give an ETA and suggested I fit the towing eye to speed things up. He checked the OBD and agreed it was water pump so towed me to my local BMW Indy arriving before he closed.

Then the same car wouldn't turn over on a cold December day. I had Home Start so just waited for them to arrive and sure enough it was the 12 year old battery. He had a suitable one in his van so I just had to pay for it. I only waited about an hour that time too, but as I was at home that was fine!

Thankfully I haven't needed to use them since. 🤞
 
Having been with the AA for many years, both cars and my van with them on the same policy, the AA decided a couple of years ago to not include vans anymore. As I needed cover and wasn’t prepared to pay even more to the AA for van cover I decided to try Green Flag as they were cheaper. Unfortunately I needed to call them out twice in the first year so on renewal they charged double. So if you want cheaper cover don’t call them out. Pointless.
 
My AA membership is due. It's a joint one that covers us all irrespective of the car were in.
I happened upon a AA van whilst at a delivery and asked if I could renew and jokingly said for a massive discount.
His advice, let it lapse and join again, scanning the QR code that's on his phone.

I photographed the QR code.

1000040962.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom