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AA: I have always been one to switch my car and house insurance on an annual basis depending on the lowest price I can get. When the recession is at a high and disposable income is at an all-time low, loyalty to a brand goes out the window.
That said, I’ve never considered doing this for my car breakdown cover. Until today. That is when I tried to ring up the AA to renew, keeping in the Home Start and Roadside cover, but also to leave out the ‘Relay’ side of the cover, which will transport myself, my vehicle and seven passengers to any single UK destination.
Well, I don’t even know 7 people who I would speak to on a regular basis, let alone ferry them about in my car, and even if I did then I would be hard pushed to do so given that it’s a 5-seater Peugeot 206.
What caused me to change is that I rang up, I had to listen to an automated woman drone on and on about things I wasn’t interested in before I got to the menu. Once I had selected the right options, she continued to prattle on even further before… telling me there was no-one available to speak to me “due to high call volumes”. And cut me off. I tried this twice more. Same result each time.
I then tried to ring as if I was reporting a breakdown. After clearly getting through to India, I asked to be put through to the renewal line. The lady duly did so. And the same result of me getting cut off by the automated woman occured.
I would’ve spent around £120 to renew for another year – for Home Start and Roadside – and a search online showed that the RAC not only could do all three parts of the cover for £104.99, but it would also include a £50 fuel voucher, albeit one which comes in the form of a Visa debit card which only releases money once a quarter over the coming year in a redemption scheme. Yes, these are a bit of a pain, but if you set reminders on your phone or in Outlook to remind you when to redeem the next part of the deal, then you’re quids in.
And for the record, if I had just gone with Home Start and Roadside, with the RAC, it would’ve cost me £78.99 and I wouldn’t have been entitled to the free fuel.
Surprisingly, I was able to get through to the AA cancellation line rather quickly. The man I concurred that most people just use the AA service for the occasional breakdown, but went on to point out all the ‘Gold Membership’ benefits I’m not on as a result of being with them for so long.
Their letter had already told me that after 11 years they would’ve given me for free this year: 48 hrs of Europe breakdown cover (which I won’t use), Key insurance (I think I’ve got that on my home insurance anyway), Legal advice (only for car related stuff I presume) and “Technical advice” (surely I can ring up for that?)
Oh, and there’s “Accident Management” where the man on the phone said, “Well, you never know when you might have an accident.”
What – is that some kind of threat?! What’s he going to do? Send round those two nutters from Utopia with their gas canister and demands for the whereabouts of a certain Jessica Hyde?!
He also told me that the price I’m paying the RAC now is just a one-off deal and will go up again next year. I told him: “I’ll worry about that when the time comes.” And when it does, I shall hunt around for the best deal again.
And I didn’t bother relating to him the abominable Automated Angela and just asked him to cancel my account from when it renews next Friday, now I have the RAC membership in place.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.