Have the various clubs ever said that they don’t like people thinking of them as one organization?
I don’t know, but I’m guessing a major selling point for AAA is that ‘you’ll be covered as you drive from state to state.’ So they definitely would NOT want potential customers to think in terms of bounded coverage, differing in the dozens of regional clubs into which the USA is divided.
Every communication I have ever gotten from them including what is written on my card is American Automobile Association of Southern California. In honesty I never thought much about how the different regions are linked but I think it’s a bit much to say that they are being deceptive. I knew if I moved to Maine that it would be a different entity getting paid.
Since the OP won’t satisfy our curiosity, I’ll submit my guess for what happened: the autopay failed for some reason, and the OP missed the notification. Notifications are easy to miss - they might go to spam, or people thinks it’s some sales pitch and delete it without reading.
Autopay failing is by far the #1 cause of cancellations for things like this, whether it’s insurance policies, membership dues, subscriptions, whatever. People’s credit cards expire and they forget to update the expiration date for the new card. Their card number was stolen, so they got a new card but forgot to update it everywhere. A bad algorithm triggered the automatic fraud detectors at the credit card company or bank.
Then when the autopay fails, the membership is automatically cancelled. The OP tries to pay the non-existent invoice, and it fails because there’s no active membership.
I find it hard to believe that the organization didn’t notify the OP (that the autopay failed and their membership would expire, and then that it was about to expire, that it expired, that it expired last month but you can still renew here, etc.) My understanding is that it’s really hard to get new subscribers so companies and organizations go to great lengths to retain the ones they already have.
You are covered as you drive from state to state. And in Canada. I’m not sure how they are hiding that it’s a federation of local clubs ( like many other organizations from Scouts to the Knights of Columbus to various sports organizations.) But when I go to the AAA website , it asks for my zip code because
AAA/CAA is a federation of regional clubs located throughout North America
It’s a good thing I just looked at my card- it expired June 1 and I haven’t gotten new ones. Apparently it’s all digital now - I’m sure they told me they were no longer sending hard copies but I’m also sure my husband just saw that it was renewal time and didn’t read any further.
Yeah, I’ve often forgotten to change an expired card for an online subscription, but I always gotten either an email or a text (or both) that the payment failed. And I get tons of reminders from AAA for everything.
We found that the California AAA that had offered excellent efficient service to us for forty years was utterly different from the disorganized hapless mess that calls itself AAA in Massachusetts. After several years of struggling with them we quit.
It’s not unlike Blue Cross and Blue Shield, which is not one single entity, but a set of regional (mostly state-level) companies, which provide services to people in their areas, but have a level of coordination between them, and provide reciprocal coverage to BCBS members from other areas when they travel.
Agreed, if this is the reason for the cancellation, the OP was definitely notified. But not everyone reads their emails as thoroughly as you. It is easy to delete ones that appear to be sales pitches.
If I remember right from the last time I was on the website—and I certainly might not, or they might have changed it—you can request hard-copy cards (sent through the mail or electronically for you to print out), but they won’t send them automatically.
Just to add, this is completely correct. The OP’s assumptions are wrong, and are based on guesses, not on factual information. I have recently used AA A (actually my provincial version) to tow a 58 year old car that had been in storage - towed it to a garage to get it started properly - drained the gas, rebuilt the carb etc.
It’s not just an inability to deal with suspense. If it happened to the OP, it could happen to any one of us. Since @2outta3 put it out there and is the only one who is in a position to clear up the mystery, they kinda owe it to us to at least investigate, even if it’s just a token attempt.
I think it’s clear the OP doesn’t want to return, and we are now beating a dead horse. I’m closing this thread.