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Free AAA?

So, not too long ago, I was at the sporting goods store and I went up to pay for my purchases. Nothing terribly exciting really, except that when I got up to the counter and swiped my card it was denied. I of course tried again to no avail when I realized that my debit card was expired. I was not terribly happy about that because I it put me off and I had to use a different card. However, life went on and after a nice dinner and a beer, it didn't seem to matter much.

The next day, I called my bank to ask about getting a replacement card. They claimed they had already sent me one, which I never saw so they promptly offered to send another one, free of charge. Also, they would upgrade me to a "gold card". I thought, gold card? I don't want any credit junk here. They said it was still just an ATM card, but that it had additional services like AAA (Mastercard's version of roadside assistance). I thought that was great since it was free. However, I am now hard pressed to figure out how other people become eligible and exactly what services this includes. Some web searches seem to indicate that this is a service that provides basic AAA type assistance, but at a flat/reduced rate. Is that the case? Has anyone else ever used this who could provide some insight about how it works?
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