UPDATE: Since the two emails I sent never went anywhere, I commented on a post by AAA on Facebook. They have since refunded my money. I still for the life of me don't understand why they wouldn't just call the hotel and take them up on their offer to change the date of my reservation. That's all I wanted. That way, everybody would have won, and they wouldn't have had to refund anything. But oh well.

   
Whatever you do, Do NOT make hotel reservations with AAA. I had booked some hotels for a trip to Glacier National Park after my work was done in Spokane last week. When the park ended up besieged by wildfires that caused road closures and cancelation of all the activities I had lined up, I had to change plans. Despite the fact that my hotel reservations were non-refundable, I didn't have any trouble canceling one of my bookings for a full refund and getting an 80% credit on another booking for a future date. Since there was nothing I could do about the fires changing my plans, the hotels stepped up and did the right thing.

Then there was the booking I made in Coeur d'Alene for the trip home. I called the hotel, explained the situation, acknowledged my room was non-refundable, but asked if they could please change my reservation to two days earlier. I may not be able to go to Glacier National Park, but I could still hop over to Coeur d'Alene for a day after work was done.

The hotel was sorry about my trip being ruined, and said they would be happy to change the reservations for me. Except they couldn't, because it was made through AAA's system. They said that if I would contact AAA and have them request the change, they would be happy to accommodate me.

So I contacted AAA.

And received an email telling me that not only can't they change my reservation, THEY WON'T AUTHORIZE THE HOTEL TO MAKE A CHANGE TO THE BOOKING! They do say that the hotel can make a change at their discretion... but the hotel can't do that because the reservation is not in their system. The hotel would essentially have to make a second reservation for $0 and then have a second reservation for me that they would have to honor if I were a jerk who insisted on showing up. Needless to say, they can't do that.

So... the company that I rely on for help with things go wrong is the company telling me that they won't help when things go wrong? I complained to the main AAA site and was told I will be contacted. That was a week ago... and nothing.

Well fuck that.

So I guess I'm canceling my AAA membership that I've had since 1996 (and was on my parents family plan for a decade before that). Let's see... $92 a year for 21 years is $1932.00 I've paid to AAA and don't think I've ever used their roadside assistance. I have gotten a guidebook or two though. Coming up on a $2000 relationship that's been destroyed thanks to a $110 hotel reservation. Alrighty then. Guess I won't miss it. I think my VISA card has roadside assistance anyway.

If you have AAA, might want to check and see if you have roadside assistance on your credit card so you can dump their asses before they fuck you over too.