Show and Go

If you're going to the USA, taking your AA membership card with you can save you a lot of money.

If you've ever examined the back of your AA membership card, you might have noticed a little logo at the bottom right-hand corner that reads: "Show Your Card & Save". That "AAA" logo might be of little significance here in Singapore, but if you travel to the USA, that innocuous-looking logo can save you a lot of money. On our recent honeymoon to the US, just about every hotel we checked into recognised the AAA logo on the back of the AA membership card.

The hotels usually obliged with a 10 or 15 percent discount. Put into perspective, if you're on a long vacation of more than 10 days, a 10 percent saving essentially translates to free accommodation on the 11th day. As vacations of two weeks or longer are common when traveling to further destinations such as the USA or Europe, the savings are even more appreciable.

My wife and I had planned on a "free and easy" honeymoon where we kept our itinerary flexible and travelled without making any hotel reservations. Usually, this kind of arrangement would result in higher room rates but we still enjoyed attractive discounts just by showing our AA membership card. Besides enjoying great rates on hotels, we could also get excellent deals on rental cars.

The "AAA" logo on the back of our AA membership card is recognised by Hertz, which has attractive deals and upgrades for AA members. While our AA membership card took care of our accommodations and travel needs, we were also pleasantly surprised to find out that many of the attractions and theme parks around Southern California such as Universal Studios in Los Angeles and Sea World in San Diego also recognised the "AAA" logo on the back of our AA membership card for specially priced entry tickets. The list of where we could simply show our card and save was virtually endless with retail outlets and even restaurants such as the Hard Rock Café, to name but one offered discounts that easily added up to savings in the hundreds of dollars during the course of our trip. Thanks to a little card in our pocket, our honeymoon turned out to be a lot more affordable and memorable than we had expected.

AA members can enjoy a whole range of discounts and benefits on hotels, shopping, dining, attractions and entertainment when visiting Europe, North America, Mexico, South Africa, Australia, Japan, South Korea and many other countries.

Visit www.aaa.com (zip code: 65330) for more worldwide savings tips in over 150,000 participating merchant locations.