Ah… the joys of breaking down at the side of the road and needing roadside assistance. I have long since given up and canceled my AAA membership, but that doesn’t mean I kind of wish I had something like that when I need it. I just found that for me, at least, the benefits did not outweigh the cost.
But there I sat on a Friday night, with a broken down van that needed to be towed to the mechanic’s shop
Credit Cards With Roadside Assistance
Maybe I am misremembering, but it seems like a few years ago all of the “ultra-premium” credit cards carried with them “free roadside assistance” where you could get a jump or a tow or other roadside assistance a certain (4?) times per year included with the cost of your (hefty!) annual fee. But as I quickly Googled through the terms and conditions of various cards, I found that no longer seems to be the case. Here is what I found
- card_name – Covered up to $50 for each service event, up to 4 events each year
- card_name – covers certain services up to a set amount
- American Express Platinum – no roadside assistance
Basically, Visa and Mastercard now offer roadside assistance, and most cards (outside the Chase Sapphire Reserve) just use that
Calling Up Capital One Venture X Roadside Assistance
So since I have the Venture X card (read our review), I called up the number on the back of my card. It took awhile to get transferred to the right department, but eventually I gave the lady my name, contact information and what was wrong with my car. She confirmed that through the Visa Roadside Assistance program, it would be $79.95 to send someone out. This seemed reasonable to me, especially given what I would likely have paid to just call up a random tow truck company. They texted me a screen with information about my tow truck driver, with an estimated wait time of 120-150 minutes 🙁
My Experience With Capital One Venture X Roadside Assistance
So then… we waited. It actually ended up being closer to 90 minutes which is still not a fun amount of time to just sit in the car, but it wasn’t that bad. My wife and son were with me initially and I had my wife drive my son home and then she came back and we just hung out together until the tow truck came. Call it the “poor man’s Friday night date” 🙂
Once the guy got there, he asked what was wrong, I told him, and he proceeded to just put my van up on his tow truck. I followed him up to the mechanic’s shop where he dropped it off.
The Bottom Line
Most premium and ultra-premium credit cards no longer offer complimentary roadside assistance or free roadside assistance. Instead, anyone with a Visa or Mastercard can take advantage of the Visa or Mastercard roadside assistance, which provides a set of services at a predetermined rate. I used the Capital One Venture X Roadside Assistance which ended up being just the Visa roadside assistance. They sent a tow truck for $79.95, and they towed my van to my mechanic’s shop a few miles away. While it wasn’t my favorite way to spend a Friday night, I thought the Capital One Venture X Roadside Assistance was pretty reasonably priced and the service was fine.
Have you used Capital One Venture X Roadside Assistance before? Leave your experience in the comments below
Points With a Crew has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Points With a Crew and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers and that compensation may impact on how and where card products appear on the site. Any opinions expressed in this post are my own, and have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by my advertising partners and I do not include all card companies, or all available card offers. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers and other offers and benefits listed on this page. Other links on this page may also pay me a commission - as always, thanks for your support if you use them
User Generated Content Disclosure: Points With a Crew encourages constructive discussions, comments, and questions. Responses are not provided by or commissioned by any bank advertisers. These responses have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the responsibility of the bank advertiser to respond to comments.
Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
I know that living in a small town I cannot participate in all of the activities that I see posted on all of the BoardingArea blogs; however, I do know that when I or a member of my family have an issue like this anywhere (!) in the state of Arkansas, there are people I know that I can call who will send someone out much quicker than 120 minutes. It runs the same for all sorts of professions and services throughout the state. It’s not what you know or what you carry in your pocket, it’s all about who you know! And I do carry many of the same credit cards that you describe because we do like to travel as well.
Yeah – who you know does often tend to be more important than what you know or what cards you have. Still, though to me it felt like $80 was a pretty reasonable price for the service. I mean when you figure an hour or so of driving (across town) plus gas, maintenance on the tow truck and labor, it didn’t seem like it was going to be a very high margin business. My wife and I were wondering if the lower rates ($79.95 for Visa Roadside Dispatch) played a factor in it taking so long since tow trucks would take a higher-paying job before that.
I am writing to ALSO write about my experience bypassing AAA. I used the roadside assistance that came with my Citi Prestige card when I had a flat tire on the highway in Philadelphia a few year ago. They contacted State Farm to dispatch a service truck. I thought that this was great. I would save the $75 that AAA charges.
After about 15 minutes of waiting a service truck came by and stopped. They were not a state farm service truck, but stated that they needed to go to their service call and would swing by afterwards.
After another 15 minutes, another service truck swung by. Actually, it was the first service truck again not State Farm.
As the service truck was loading my car onto the tow truck, State Farm called saying that they will be there in a few minutes. I said that I did not need them. State Farm started YELLING at me and angrily hung up on me.
The first service truck change my tire and towed my car to a nearby 24 hour tire store.
By the way, the first service truck was a AAA truck. I never called them.
if someone has lyft pink through chase reserve, they should be able to get free towing and other things, search for lyft pink roadside assistance.