Super cheap AA & RAC breakdown cover loopholes.

AlicePalice

I had a renewal letter through from AA for £130.50.

I rang to tell them RAC are offering the same for £98 plus £20 cashback, and they've managed to reduce it to £78.30 :money: its amazing what one phonecall and a little threat of leaving can do :rotfl:

asbokid

one thing worth asking when buying breakdown recovery insurance is "what is your definition of a breakdown?"

you might find, as we did with Tesco (spit) Breakdown, that we were not covered for recovery when the car got stuck in the snow..

the telephone conversation went something like this...

"hi we've got the car stuck just before the brow of a hill on an A road. the car has slid sideways on the snow and is now stuck perpendicular to the carriageway. when we try to move the vehicle, we can't gain any traction on the tyres and the wheels are just spinning."

"is there any damage to the car?"

"nope"

"does the engine start?"

"yep"

"then we can't recover you.."

that was with the top-of-the-range £79 tesco breakdown policy.. be warned..

lin473

I would strongly advise anyone tempted by AA free M&S voucher offer to steer clear.
I joined via the link posted here on 1.2.09 .
After 5 months they have not arrived and AA have told me I am not entitled (even though when I rang a few weeks ago they did not dispute the entitlement - they just said due to high demand they would be delayed)
None of the paperwork that came confirms the entitlement so I do not have any proof that this is what the website promised at the time.
Call me naive but I would not have believed that such a big company could be such crooks.

Anyone else had problems?
Would it be worth contacting trading standards ?

trytosave

Just taken up on the £8 deal with RAC. Was previously with AA and phoned to cancel. When I mentioned I could get RAC membership for £8 through a cashback site they simply didn't believe me and told me that the £20 cashback would be included in the £28. Anyway I cancelled my renewal and bought with the RAC. A nice surprise was that when the cashback tracked it came through as £21 as I have bought other items through that cashback site this month (hence a bonus!). So £7 for the year! Bargain, and many thanks Martin :money:

TonyI

Hi everyone - my first post on this great site!

Just came across this article on the Guardian website called

Is the AA taking you for a ride?

(sorry apparently I am not allowed to paste the link as a new user !!!)

As my membership was up for renewal, I gave the AA a call (0800 0852608 not their 0870 number!) and after two conversations got my fee reduced from £186.50 to £133.50!!

Als found out that you can cancel your membership upto two weeks after the renewal date and get a full refund minus a £20 admin fee.

Tony

:j:j:j

adewton

Would anyone recommend subscription to AA Parts and Labour as well? I have a 5-year old car, but put 100 miles on it daily. Need to do that for 2 years. Will it be value-for-money?

gocat

gocat wrote: »

Hubby and I have had joint/family membership of AA for about 20 years with him as lead member. Renewed this year in January after hubby phoned them up to cancel family membership and just have joint membership for him and I as our kids no longer live with us, gave them his credit card number and then we cancelled our existing automatic renewal direct debit from our bank account.
Weeks went by. No deduction went from the credit card. I emailed them. They wouldnt deal with me as hubby was the lead member. Told him to contact them but it was always tomorrow:rolleyes: . Anyway, few months later, still no deduction from our credit card from AA. Then I saw an offer to get £50 cashback if you are a new member via Quidco, so I applied (via quidco) with me being the lead member this time. AA accepted this and deducted £136 for joint membership for hubby and I. All I had to do was wait for the £50 cashback from Quidco and bonus points from nectar :money: .
However, Quidco has just declined my cashback. Surely I do qualify as a new member as I wasnt the lead member before . They havent given a reason for declining but I've sent another query to quidco.

To add insult to injury, AA then deducted the original family membership that we cancelled in January (£262+ ) They have agreed to refund that after a lengthy phonecall from hubby to them. Still waiting for that :rolleyes: They tried to charge us a cancellation fee but soon changed there minds when we reminded them that we have spent the last few months not knowing if we are covered or not due to their bungling admin staff. :rolleyes:

Got £50 from quidco,so alls well ends well. Only took a few months :rolleyes::D

johnfthetraveller

Would appreciate clarification on two points.

1) The main MSE article says "Spend Tesco Clubcard vouchers on goods or services listed in its Deals brochure and you get back four times their face value.".

However the Tesco Rewards brochure has two kinds of deals, one where you trade in your Clubcard vouchers for tokens worth 4 times the amount of the vouchers, and a second type called "buy in full" which is just using the vouchers at face value. The RAC deal is a "buy in full" deal, so you DON'T get four times the face value as the MSE article says!

I think the MSE article is misleading people into thinking it's a better deal than it is.

2) I can't find any clarification as to whether they will honour the cashback if I am renewing (rather than taking out for the first time) my RAC membership. (I use Quidco).

Any answers? Thanks in anticipation.

beerleo

I just signed up with RAC Roadside through Topcashback then when returning to Topcashback RAC page noticed that the £20 cashback is ONLY for levels 1 AND 2 cover; i.e. you must have homestart as well as roadside recovery. I know I should have noticed this before, but MSE please correct the info. on this promotion as it seems to be incorrect.

Quentin

Topcashback actually currently pay £21.50 cashback, making it just £6.50 for a years breakdown cover.