AMA membership?

[E11even_Hunnit]

Venting a little, but anyone here ever had to use AMA’s roadside assistance?

I’ve had a membership for years. Never found the magazine interesting and have never had to use the roadside assistance until today. My wife is having a procedure done and I stopped for a quick cup of coffee on the way to see her (hospital coffee bleh!)

Sure enough, got back on the Bonnie and got one slow crank and click click. A few inquiries to other motorists in the parking lot for jump cables with no luck, so I pulled out the trusty AMA card that’s been in my wallet for just such an occasion.

“We don’t provide jump starts but we can tow your bike to a service center.”

Seriously? The simplest thing imaginable and they’d rather send a flatbed tow rig?

Can’t find a reason to renew the membership.

I ran into a somewhat similar situation this past Monday when heading for work- Bike ran out of gas on the hwy
This little incident, while different from yours, also required roadside assistance... Luckily for me, I had erroneously signed up for AAA back in June(which I was THIS close of cancelling days later upon finding out that motorcycle coverage was excluded from my "tier")

I called and got connected to a useless dispatcher who started playing 21 questions, I quickly stopped her on her tracks and told her to pull up my membership using my # since i had none in hand and was in urgent need of fuel stranded on my bike on the side of the road. She didn't like this and after wasting my time for another 10 mins on the line explaining my location she was keen to disclose to me that this request was out of my membership coverage and she could either connect me with a third party company(to bill me separately) or with their sales reps to discuss "other membership options for motorcycles"

I hung up on her and dialed again, this time, I knew better than to give them vehicle specifics. Before signing up, I clearly recall one of the selling points being that this membership was valid for the person purchasing the membership (even if I was driving someone else's car or as a passenger in someone else's car that broke down) Given the circumstances(and understanding that I was in fact "uncovered" by this technicality, this situation warranted a white lie in my book, the way I see it fuel delivery was no different from them sending out fuel to bail out someone in an actual car- Told them I was in a black 2014 Honda that didn't belong to me so i was unsure as to the model. Got off the phone with the dispatcher, got an sms link for roadside tracking and 15 minutes later the driver contacted me to tell me he was almost there, I would have found it hard to believe he would refuse to help since "I wasn't in the vehicle reported"

Moral of the story: The key is to have dispatch send out help.
From that point on, you can sorta take it up with the help that is sent your way, specially if you're more handy than a blonde trust fund baby driving her parents' BMW.

I'm the type of person that doesn't like taking "NO" for an answer without basis, I'm also well aware of how clueless both people in call centers could be, as well as the people calling in for help(sometimes)

Maybe calling in saying that you needed air in your tire or a tire change for that matter, the person to show up would've been equipped with both a compressor AND a jumper, and would've much preferred to use the jumper and not break a sweat. that's my .02c