Better World Club
February 6thJohn and I decided that we should probably look into some roadside assistance before our cross–country drive. There was a time when AAA would have been the only option, but now there’s Better World Club, which is based out of Portland, OR. AAA has a lobbying history that makes me want to cry, so they were definitely out of the question. I’d heard good things about BWC, so decided to check them out.
BWC does all of the standard emergency services and trip planning stuff that AAA does. BWC is priced competitively, too. We got the basic membership for the two of us for about $75. BWC will match AAA’s prices when those are lower. BWC also has a bicycle assistance program. It sounds cool, but it’s not the sort of thing we’ll invest in until we start going on long bike tours.
Two weeks before we set out for Oregon, I called BWC to get a route planned out. I got to talk to a real human being—a friendly guy who welcomed us to Portland. Our trip plan arrived in about a week. It was spiral bound, with easy to read maps and direction for each state we would be driving through. There were even notes about construction areas. There was also a section in the back listing interesting sights on our route, and we might have taken advantage of some of them if we weren’t hauling three cats along!
Luckily we didn’t have any reason to test out BWC’s service on the road. I did notice one little problem, though. While BWC says members can receive hotel discounts, we didn’t receive that information in the new members package. Every place we stayed asked if we were AAA members, but there was no BWC discount. I’m going to drop them a line about that one of these days. They did provide a gas rebate coupon for $10; there’s one for each quarter of the year for a $40 rebate overall. Since we barely drive, that’s a nice chunk of our gas spending.
BWC also provides a carbon offsetting service, travel planning and booking services, and an insurance comparison. They are part of a group working to introduce Pay As You Drive insurance. I’d love to see that in the future!
So far we’ve had a great experience with BWC. If we are unfortunate enough to need their emergency services in the future, I’ll let you know how that pans out. For now, I highly recommend giving them a chance.