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Show Your Card & Save program marks first decade with $2.5 billion in member savingsSince its founding 10 years ago, AAA's Show Your Card & Save (SYC&S) program has saved its members more than $2.5 billion and grown to include many of America's preeminent brands. AAA members saved a record $396 million last year with 65 national brands, including Hertz, Marriott, Amtrak, LensCrafters, Penske Truck Rental and Casual Corner Group.
So far in 2003, eight new national Show Your Card & Save program partners have signed agreements with AAA, including Barnes & Noble online, the Charthouse and Muer's restaurant chains, Boston Coach executive limousines, Hickory Farms and the Hard Rock Vault attraction in Orlando.
In addition to adding new partners in 2003, AAA plans to expand its national merchant database—Search for Savings, on www.aaa.com—and its savings network of international, reciprocal partner clubs in Europe, Mexico and Asia. Whether staying in hotels, renting cars or buying tires and eyeglasses, AAA members have saved more than enough with the SYC&S program to pay for their membership.
Scoreboard lights up eyes of players and fans
Part of the fun of youth baseball is the fantasy of being just like big leaguers. That fantasy may feel a little more real this season at Prospect Park in Wheat Ridge, thanks to a new electronic scoreboard unveiled on May 1. The scoreboard is a gift from AAA Insurance and SAFECO corporation's "PlayBall" program.
In partnership with local insurance agents and financial advisors, SAFECO is contributing $1 million during two years to install scoreboards at 62 youth baseball fields across the country—32 in 2002 and 30 more in 2003. The PlayBall contribution is part of SAFECO's ongoing Strengthening America's Neighborhoods program.
Prospect Park was chosen for this special donation through a competitive process where independent agents and financial advisors like AAA Insurance nominate baseball or softball fields in their community that might benefit from a new scoreboard. Scoreboards around the country are being installed throughout the summer.
AAA Insurance has been part of AAA Colorado for more than 70 years and is the largest independent personal line insurance agency in the state of Colorado. AAA Insurance has 15 locations statewide and handles auto, home, life, RV, umbrella and long-term care insurance for more than 40,000 clients.
The perfect book for the ultimate sports fan
With baseball in full swing and football preseason not far off, summer is a great time for a sports enthusiast's pilgrimage to a dream sporting destination. And planning a summer vacation around a sporting event is a fun way for parents and kids to share a favorite pastime.
To help this happen, there's AAA's The Ultimate Fan's Guide to Pro Sports Travel. This specialty travel guidebook is designed with fans in mind to make their sports travel experience enjoyable and memorable. The book provides venue information such as seating diagrams and tips, ticket prices and buying information, concessions, accessibility for the disabled and game-day tips as well as travel information such as driving directions, parking and nearby AAA Diamond-rated lodgings and restaurants. Covering four major professional leagues-Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Football League and the National Hockey League—this travel book also entertains and educates with team statistics, trivia, a brief history, league honors and quotes from players.
The Ultimate Fan's Guide to Pro Sports Travel can be purchased at AAA Travel stores and online at www.aaa.com; member price, $16.95.
AAA member savings means amusement park fun
Six Flags theme parks is a national Show Your Card & Save partner. This means that locally, AAA members receive a savings of $12 off an adult admission ticket at Six Flags Elitch Gardens. These special $21.99 tickets can be purchased at most AAA offices (except Durango and Grand Junction). Stop by your closest AAA office today and pick up your theme park tickets at the very best price in town.
www.aaa.com just got better
- Airfare calendar-date flexibility has been added as a search application, along with price and schedule, for those shopping for air itineraries.
- Expanded car rental search-previously, members could book car rentals only through airport locations. Now they can search for car rentals at airports, city locations and points-of-interest locations.
AAA Colorado's Safety Village is a traveling program that teaches children bicycle safety—including knowing traffic laws, road signs and the importance of wearing bicycle helmets. Children who participate in the program learn by doing as they ride their bikes through realistic street scenes. On Friday, July 4, AAA Colorado's Safety Village will be set up and teaching children at the second annual Colorado Springs Jazz Festival in downtown's Memorial Park. AAA Colorado is one of the corporate sponsors of the festival, which drew more than 125,000 people last year. As parents listen to the beat of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Otis Taylor, their children can be learning to ride their bicycles safely.
Did You Know ?
The AAA Travel store is actually 16 stores!
Many of you are already aware of — and have used — the AAA Colorado Travel Store. Other members, however, might not know that each of our 15 district offices has its own AAA Travel Store, and there is an electronic AAA Travel Store online at www.aaa.com.
What's in a AAA Travel Store? You'd be surprised. Each store offers:
- Luggage – backpacks and duffels to suitcases
- Travel accessories – disposal cameras and currency organizers to inflatable pillows and umbrellas
- Travel books/maps – guidebooks and specialty maps to road atlases and coffee-table photo books
- Children's items – books to games
- Auto-related items – car buying and leasing books and Life Hammers to auto safety kits and emergency car care guides For more information see the ad on page 1, visit your nearest AAA district office or visit www.aaa.com.
In early May, a team of two students from Doherty High School in Colorado Springs combined knowledge of high-tech auto repair and fast-paced teamwork to win the Colorado finals of the 2003 Ford/AAA Student AutoSkills contest. The team of Jonathan M. Masution and Travis Norvell then advanced to the June national finals in Washington, D.C. (which took place after this issue was printed, so results won't be published until the September/October EnCompass).
By winning the Colorado finals, the two young men earned spots in Ford Motor Co.'s ASSET (Automobile Student Service Educational Training) program, including scholarships to associate degree automobile technology programs.
Doherty High School also placed first in the written exam portion of the competition. The team's instructor, Brad Wheaton, is a 1997 Ford AutoSkills contestant who also placed first. Mike T. Oserrow and Marshall L. Moore from Smoky Hill High School in Aurora took second-place honors; their instructor is Brian Manley. Stephen C. Abbott and Chase C. Haug from Salida High School in Salida placed third; their instructor is Steven Best.
Is the contest just about auto skills?
Definitely not. Anyone who viewed the competition or talked to any of the instructors and students knows that for the participants the competition is much more than knowing computers and the nuts-and-bolts of car repair. The contest is also about lifelong commitment to learning, self-improvement and striving for excellence in a worthy profession. AAA congratulates all those who participated.
AAA works to maintain a healthy environment
by Bill Belleville
The futuristic Jetsons cartoon family had it easy. All they did was hop in their family flying saucer, click a lever or two and, zoom, off they went. No motor, no fossil fuel, no roads…no wonder they always seemed happy.
Real life is a bit more complicated. Automobiles allow us to realize a tacit American guarantee—to move about our country with great independence. But when millions of cars and trucks are traveling atop a complex highway infrastructure, the environment is affected.
Balancing the American desire to travel when, where and how we choose with a concern for the environment is an achievable goal. Cars can be engineered to run cleaner and more efficiently, and transportation systems can be more thoughtfully designed and maintained. And yes, bike paths and carpooling can be encouraged. Where does AAA come in?
For more than a century, AAA has developed a real-world ethic that balances the interests of people, the environment and the ever-changing demands of the marketplace. AAA has endorsed policies supporting conservation, ranging from support for goals of the Clean Air Act to community-based programs that help consumers recycle, fight pollution, encourage carpooling and promote use of bicycle paths.
In fact, AAA strongly favors investment to maintain, modernize and make our transportation system ecologically friendly. Highway gridlock, congestion and inefficiency burn energy and deplete resources. The World Resource Institute estimates that by 2005, Americans collectively will spend 7 billion hours in traffic gridlock at a cost of $75 billion.
AAA supports research in fuel cell and battery technology and other low- or zero-emission vehicle technologies, and endorses using tax credits to encourage consumers to use alternative vehicles that include mass transit.
AAA's commitment to the environment is long and sustained. In 1919, California State Automobile Association (CSAA) board member Burton A. Towne mounted a major effort to protect the giant Sequoias because the mammoth redwoods were threatened by increased logging. As a result of proactive AAA support for a park to protect the trees, funds were raised to buy 20,000 acres. The tract is now part of the larger Humboldt Redwoods State Park, a national treasure with 100 miles of hiking trails.
The heart of CSAA's earlier campaign to save the trees was reflected in a more recent national AAA effort. Called "Freedom's Way," the program encouraged travelers to practice an ethical form of ecotourism:
enjoy wildlife from a distance, pick up and dispose of litter and build campfires only in designated areas. AAA made it clear the ecological sensitivity of the environment was at stake.
Bill Belleville is an Orlando, Fla., writer who specializes in environmental issues.
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