If you’re not a member of AAA, you should be. It surprises me just how pervasive and ubiquitous are the companies that provide discounts to AAA members. Check out AAA Discounts, a free iPhone app, and you’ll see what I mean.

When my wife brought up the idea of our joining AAA a few years, I poo-pooed the idea, thinking all we would get out of it is an occasional battery jump start in the winter and perhaps a tow truck on the rare occasion one of our cars broke down on the highway (which has never happened, fortunately).

As it turns out, my family has needed jump starts several times and our cars towed after a couple of minor accidents.

Where we’ve really gotten out money’s worth (something like $35 a year) is from all the discounts we’ve gotten for rental cars, hotel rooms, theater tickets—even prescriptions. AAA says it saves its members about $100 a year and I believe it based on my experience.

Launch AAA Discounts and the app asks to use your location and then pops up a map pinned with AAA member companies within the surrounding area. Tap a pin and you’ll get a description of the member company, the discounts it offers and driving directions to get there. If you plan to return to the same company, you can save it to a list.

AAA Discounts will sort your discounts by name, distance and business category. You can also run a search to find merchants in specific business categories.

There are a couple of other features, but those are all you need to know. The AAA Discounts iPhone app is as easy to use as a hot butter knife and it just plain works. Nope, AAA doesn’t give me a discount for plugging their app. It’s free anyway.

For more articles like this, subscribe to the AppCraver RSS feed.

category: Best Free Apps, Editor's Picks, Lifestyle