They jack the price up on you every year as they try it on. It makes my blood boil. Why do they insult long standing customers and waste our time. Someone in management needs to be fired for treating their customers this way
Alistair, they have no intention of treating their customers well and indeed their business model doesn't require it. Both the RAC and the AA are owned by venture capital groups who simply want to harvest a captive client bank rather than growing the business by competing on service, price etc.
Carlyle is (was?) the RAC’s controlling shareholder and the AA is (was?) owned by a consortium of Permira, Charterhouse and CVC Capital Partners.
Those familiar with the Venture Capital industry will know that these groups receive favourable tax treatment in return for investing in start-ups and other high-risk ventures. But only if they can't find any nice safe established company with a big customer base that they can rape repeatedly to get nice easy returns. It started out as a good idea, but poor financial regulation has let these groups drive a coach and horses through the original intent. Very difficult to avoid doing business with VC-owned businesses in some form, but worth a go...
