Driving Instructor Chelsea Benish was absolutely the best instructor we could have asked for! She was patient, kind, encouraging, and made every driving lesson a positive and confidence building experience for my daughter. What truly set Chelsea apart was how much she genuinely cared. She even gifted my daughter thoughtful mementos that she will forever hold close to her heart. We are beyond grateful for the amazing experience she provided and will forever appreciate her patience and dedication. I highly recommend Chelsea to anyone looking for an exceptional driving instructor! read more

Securing a driving lesson is nearly impossible due to poor scheduling availability, yet AAA enforces rigid policies and steep penalty fees for even the minor delays. AAA feels completely out of touch with today's young drivers. This generation naturally takes a more cautious, deliberate approach to learning, but instead of accommodating that pace, AAA's strict expiration policies and re-enrollment fees feel designed to profit off of it. As a longtime customer who used to trust AAA as a primary resource, this driving school was a major disappointment. Teaching a teenager to drive is stressful enough without dealing with predatory policies and administrative roadblocks. Save yourself the headache and do your research--there are far more affordable, flexible, and supportive options available elsewhere. read more

It so difficult to login and schedule an appointment for behind the wheel classes. Call and nobody answers email and get no response. Regret choosing this Drving school. read more

Garbage. Save your money and shop around. Great, great instructors, crappy company. I actually cancelled my membership with these foolios. They care about one thing, and one thing only, money and how can I get more out of you. 6 hours and no freeway? Garbage. Hey, but they'll teach you how to park on a hill and check underneath the hood. Last time I checked, neither is on the test. What a joke. Make sure you wear the proper shoes. Boom. Cancelled lesson plus $60 charge. AAA, nah, more like FFF cause they fail in almost every category. If you really want to learn how to drive, don't go to AAA. read more

Ms. Chelsea did a great job teaching my teenager to drive. She is patient, and gave great tips that she will be able to use throughout her time as a driver. Thank you for making my teen feel comfortable and gently correcting her when needed. Also, thank you for your thoughtful keepsakes read more

We had a great experience with AAA Driving School at the Long Beach location for my daughter's driving lessons, especially with her instructor Chelsea. My daughter completed 4 out of the 6 lessons with Chelsea, and she was absolutely wonderful-patient, kind, informative, and funny. Chelsea also did something extra thoughtful by letting my daughter pick out little prizes at the end of each session, which made the lessons fun. When my daughter needed corrections, Chelsea explained things clearly and constructively in a way that never made her feel like she was messing up, which really helped build her confidence behind the wheel. Scheduling the lessons with AAA was also very easy and hassle-free. I especially appreciated that they allowed me to sit in on the lessons, which helped me better guide and support my daughter when she practiced driving with me on our own. Overall, it was a very positive experience, and I would definitely recommend AAA Driving School, and Chelsea in particular, to anyone looking for driving lessons. read more

My daughter completed the AAA online teen driving course in October 2024. After waiting weeks for her DE-964 certificate, AAA updated their system in February 2025 -- and suddenly their records showed she never finished the course! This is completely wrong because she already got her learner's permit, which proves she completed it. AAA refused to fix their mistake or issue the certificate unless we paid for the full course again. Their customer service was unhelpful and kept blaming their new system instead of resolving the issue. We trusted AAA because of their reputation, but this experience was very disappointing. Beware -- if they change systems, your records might disappear, and you'll be the one paying for it. read more

Took the online course and the 6 hour in car package in which with the help of the online course I passed my permit test first try. My driving instructor was Alice, so patient and calm. Great instructor, after my 5 th lesson I took my driving test and passed first try as well. Be a blank slate, take their advice because they know more than you and if you implement it you will be a great driver. Would recommend this course. read more

My daughter had Chelsea Benish, out of the Long Beach office, and loved her. She was very patient and made the experience very easy for her. She also made it easy to schedule all of our appointments with her and that was incredibly helpful. I knew my daughter was in good hands with her. read more

The drivers themselves are great. The setup of the program is poor. The way it works is, your teen and the instructor meet for 1 hour every 2 weeks for 6 lessons. The challenges are (1) you can only schedule 2 meetings at a time. So I signed my daughter up in November to begin in January as it showed availability in January. Then when we paid, and I went to schedule, there was availability, but only during the middle of the school day. So her first appt was in mid-February with her second appt 2 weeks later. Great! Then following her first driving lesson I tried to schedule the third lesson, and there was nothing available after school or on weekends for THREE weeks. This has continued to be an issue, with the delayed appointments due to lack of availability, and here we are in May and her 6th lesson is in late June. I thought she would be done in March! The second and related problem is that I am having to completely teach her to drive in-between lessons because one hourlong professional lesson every 3-4 weeks is not doing it. I feel the length of time between lessons is doing a disservice to both me and my child. The third issue, is that we have to take whatever single appointment is available so there has not been consistency in the driving instructor. I regret paying AAA a ton of money to teach my daughter to drive and would not recommend them. read more

Horrible service. First off,this company is a sham and a complete fraud. They hide onerous and unscrupulous terms like a chicken shit $75 fee if you cancel the program after 3 days. This is absolutely disgusting. They do this to you no matter how loyal of a AAA customer and insurance client you are. I came here to give them a bad review but based on their ratings, it looks like many others already did! I only wish I had seen this before. What was the $75 for? We did not cancel on any instructor. No, they charge to simply process an online form via their computer system. They hide this in the fine print and it is a charge for nothing; no person was put out or used their time. It was simply an online form that processed the 10 hour course and then we very quickly, only a few days later, cancelled because they do not have access to instructors in our area. Our punishment for trying to use their service is to waste $75. Not a huge sum but if someone came by and stole $75 from your wallet, you too would be angry. And if they wore a hat with AAA on it, as if they could be trusted; even more so! To improve, stop being fraudulent. Stop having terms that charge $75 for nothing; especially when you do not have sufficient instructors to address a 10 hour course during a reasonable timeframe. Nobody wants to wait for 10 months for a 10 hour program. And their customerservice is awful. They do not follow up or return calls. When I called within the 3 day period, they did not tell me the actual terms and I did not see them buried in the fine print (and I am an attorney!) People don't spend their time reading this bullshit, not even me. We expect normal reasonable terms from a brand like AAA; not scumbag terms like you would get from a mafia run organization. They might as well charge "vig." Save yourself from this and do not bother with this company. They obviously don't care about their members, are looking to scam people out of hidden fees and do not have enough instructors. Someone should sue them for a class action. I might look into this with my buddies as these type of a terms seem inherently unconscionable. read more

My daughter has taken and failed the driving test seven times (today being the 7th attempt). They don't teach how to avoid critical errors and they don't adequately prepare drivers for the road. Definitely not worth the fee. read more

Horrible. Son completed online portion and had to contact the school multiple times to get the certificate wasting months of them telling us the certificate was sent, waiting, not getting it, calling again, telling us it was sent, not getting it, finally calling again, saying there was some mistake and finally getting it. Finally got son's permit so he could start his 10 lessons that we paid for. You have to drive to a AAA location for the test. And you can only sign up to two tests ahead of time. We were expecting to be able to schedule lessons about two weeks apart at the AAA closest too us. Ha! Good luck with that! Despite going online to select the next available slot as soon as finishing each lesson we were stuck scheduling lessons up to two months apart. Fortunately we were able to get the 6 mandatory and one additional lesson in before AAA stopped showing ANY availability. What the--? An instructor suggested calling the school because we probably took too long getting the course completed. What?!? Yeah, I wonder why? AARRRGH!!! WASTE OF $$$! Why I didn't just go with the school we used for my daughter is beyond me. The instructor drove to our house. The lessons were done in a timely manner. No hassles. And it was cheaper. I would NEVER recommend anyone use AAA driving school. read more

The instructor is great but the overall program is terrible. It took 6 weeks and probably about 10 daily phone calls to get my son's certificate for completing the online course. Then his last in-car driving lesson was canceled, which meant that I had to reschedule it AND reschedule his driving test with the DMV, delaying his license again. Because of AAA, my son's license was delayed by 2 months. Don't use them! read more

My certificate never arrived and I had to reschedule my DMV appointment. Wouldn't expedite my second certificate....now waiting a month to get get a cert. Course was just too repetitive and mostly useless info. read more

it is so bad, the 30 hour online course is so slow, their videio is glichy, then their scheduling system is worse, there is not much choices, and then they came back and say that you are over your time limit as you need to finish everything within a year, now they are demanding more fee so we can extend our package. you call and then waiting over a week to hear back from them and still no answer....DMV is operating better than AAA read more

whatever you do do not take the online class. I got locked out due to a glitch in their system. I was about four hours into the course. I went round and round and round with them having the same circular argument they refused to unlock my course to the four hour mark. I got royally and they wanted me to start over. read more

I've taken probably twenty 1-3 day in-person defensive driving courses for work over the years. This was the first online one and I thought it was pretty good and worth it to get an insurance discount. I did have a few bugs/hang ups in the 7th module but I just logged out and came back 5 minutes later and moved on. read more

AAA Driving online course would not let me advance to the next screen. I had to keep exiting and going back in. Finally after several days and hours, got to the end of the module and it would not advance me to the final test. Called customer support and they said I was only half way through which was not true. I passed all the tests with 100%. I gave up after trying again and it was the same problem. I even went from my iPad to my laptop, same issues. I have no certificate after spending several hours on this program. I feel taken advantage of. This program is not user friendly, it has lots of glitches. read more

This course sucks! User interface is awful. Lots of bugs and delays. Currently on my second chat conversation of the morning with them. Cannot access next step in the course. Have tried both in Chrome and Safari. Problems in both browsers. Can't rewind the little videos they show. Really confusing. read more

Borderline useless. Appointment availability is a joke. Total waste of money. If there is such limited availability with mandatory 2 week spacing between lessons it's great for them, money for nothing. After over 50 years with AAA with my family I am rethinking after such poor customer service. Borderline scam read more

AAA Driving School - Example of poor availability in my area across multiple locations - Driving Schools Near Me - Long Beach, California

Bad scheduling system. You won't be able schedule your teen driving lesson at the location and time that meet your teen shedule. They don't have enough instructors. Saturday and Sunday are not avaiable. read more

AAA is it possible to give your driving school a negative star rating? My son signed up for behind the wheel classes after passing his permit test. You've consistently cancelled his classes and he has yet to get behind the wheel. It's been 45 days AAA Driving School. Now after requesting to get our money back and go elsewhere, you charge him a $75 cancellation fee?! That's just bad business and after being on hold for an hour and talking to two representatives the best we got was an email sent to someone asking for the refund to take place. I won't hold my breathe and typically I wouldn't give this kind of negative review but sometimes you just need to hear when you suck and today you lost me as a customer. 16 years of membership and I'm done read more

Wish I would have read the reviews BEFORE paying for my son to take driving lessons. I figured AAA would be solid. Yes..."the portal" they have to schedule appointments. What happens when your instructor leaves? No follow-up and have to wait 6 weeks for another appointment. I understand the difficulty with staffing and finding people, but was promised that I would "hear from someone" to figure this out. No return email. No return call. Supervisor would "not talk to me". I've been a AAA member for 40 years... will be canceling everything. Someone said it was a scam...I'm thinking that is definitely the case. DON'T SIGN UP! read more

My poor grandson didnt get credit the first time he took this course. He completed it in the 6 months but didn't get credit because of some technicality. So we bit the bullet and took it again Nov 18 and they had "system upgrade" the end of January after he completed 16 of 17 chapters and he did not get credit. No one will give him credit. The course is like torture. 20 minute waits between questions and a 24 hour wait between chapters. AAA should give up on educating. This is a negative experience for any young persons learning mindset. Now he is at chapter 7 and has the same deadline. They didnt even extend that after the "system reset" This has been going on since march of 2024. Due to his location it is the only online school in Ross county ohio. When you call the representatives it is humiliating as they are actually like nurse rachet and mean spirited. It is the worst experience I think I have ever had. We have had AAA for 50 years too. Unbelievable. read more

I am an AAA member and purchased this as a gift for my daughter. The program constantly locks you out for 24 hours. My daughter completed all the modules and only needs to take the test. This time we are told she is locked out because her time is up. It states online they have six months to complete the course. Now they state it's six months from the date of purchase, not the date you begin classes. read more

The school is fine . It's expensive , difficult to get appointments scheduled. Don't let the thought of a discount for your AAA insurance influence your decision because it's a mess with AAA. Even though it's advertised as AAA and they advertise it they don't communicate with each other and it's so much effort to get it applied. read more

the online driving thing is genuinely the most boring thing i've ever experienced in my life. You have to manually click on every single image on every slide, listen to every boring speech, and then once you finally get through a section it tells you to wait for like 30 mins to review. I can not get myself to go through all 40 or however many hour long sections there are and I can't get my dad to understand that this is genuinely terrible. read more

I have been trying to get an appointment in our area, choosing up to 3 cities and all hours are available during school hours. How are teens supposed to complete their driver course hours while in school? It's really an inconvenience, had I known beforehand, I would not have paid for the courses. At this point, I will be seeking out another driving school for my teenager. read more

Why there is no option for Zero Stars is beyond me.....They are beyond awful. I have had an AAA membership my entire life, and in fact during college had written a paper on them as a case study project. I have no idea why they have fallen so badly. Even before Covid-19, I have had to chase them down for lessons for my daughter over and over. The instruct went out for surgery without a word. Then I call and they tell me the delay for Covid-19. I am told I should get a call by May15...nothing.....no call, then its June 1, Then June 8th....and today its I will get a call back before June 22nd....REMINDER -- A CALL BACK IS NOT COVID RELATED ... I am in the dark. Originally, I had here for 10 hours or training, but reduced it to 6 given that in 6 months they could barely accomplish 4. The reason I say barely is that I had to call multiple times to get those 2nd, 3rd and 4th lessons. I had been given wrong dates/times, Showed up to one but did not have the original forms on her (would have been good to know in advance), and of course the instructor being out. They are very insistent that they break the lessons up to over a week apart. I found another driving school in Irvine that is willing to take over the lessons, however need a sign off for the ones she has completed. AAA has now forwarded the request to their management. I am doubtful they will sign off and told me that they have over 6000 drivers in queue for lessons. So Frustrating. They started telling me about the $100 cancellation fee and the $60 per lesson charges. I told them I do not care about the money I paid, they can keep it, but I just want the sign off sheet. They are sending a note to their Driving school management to process. They really are a bureaucracy to work with, and very difficult to communicate with. If I find that they can't sign off or provide lessons in the next week, I will be forced to start from scratch else where. God I wish I never was involved with them....... read more

Definitely do not recommend for anyone. My son got his permit in March I enrolled him in as soon as he got it. They were not able to get him in until mid April which was fine with me. You also can only have 2 scheduled lessons at a time and they have to be 2 weeks apart which is very odd. He completed his first lesson which was fine and his next 2 lessons were scheduled for in may. I get just a email saying that both of his upcoming lessons have been canceled a day before one of them was. Luckily i caught that email unless I would have wasted time showing up. I go into the portal to schedule another lesson and there are none until mid JULY. Mind you I have already payed 524 for this. Absolutely crazy. Wish I could cancel but I can't. I suggest everyone just go with there local driving school. They also don't allow you to do them at more than one location. I have to stay at the same location for all 10 lessons. Wish I would have read the reviews before read more

So disappointed with this program. Not only is the online learning part of the program useless (just shows different ways one can crash), the in-person driving lessons are impossible to schedule. You can only have 2 lessons on the schedule at one time, as soon as you do one lesson and go to schedule a new one it is 2 months+ before any availabilities, if there are availabilities. My daughter's permit is going to expire before we can get in the requisite 6 lessons -- Don't waste your money! read more

This review is only based on what is offered for Teen Driving School. I called today to find out whether they offered weekend lessons and they do. However, the driving schedule they offer for the weekend is 1 hour lesson every 3 weeks! That would be a MINIMUM of 18 weeks to complete the minimum required lessons in California! 4 1/2 months to complete 6 hours?? read more

Driver training is not very comprehensive and instructive. The driving school admin team is not helpful at all in trying to resolve issues or getting another trainer assigned. Very poor service. We also purchased a training program outside of AAA (Karens' driving school) and it was way, way better. Avoid AAA!!!! read more

Don't waste your money with this program. My whole family has some sort of Triple A membership so I was optimistic that their driving school would be reputable. I should have read all the reviews before committing my daughter to the driving school. For $524, I signed my 15 years old daughter in February, 2021. 6 months later, she is only halfway completed with the program. Her first class was available in April (2 months later!). If and when you have a question, forget calling their customer service line. I called on 3 separate occasions regarding a $60 missed class and was told that a manager would get back to me. It's been over a month. With so many unhappy customers, I don't understand why someone from their corporate office don't do anything about. Avoid this program if you want your son/ daughter to get their license quickly. Its costly and painfully slow. read more

Virginia was great. I had no problem booking my kids appointments. They went about every 10 days for 6 lessons each. My son got his license about a month after lessons were completed. My daughter is not ready yet but has nothing to do with the quality of the driving school. Only thing I would suggest is being able to book siblings together for one longer spot instead of having to do them separate. That was kind of a pain but not a deal breaker. read more

No one calls back. No one knows what the procedure is and will give advice any how. Booked with RMV (as told) then AAA finally got the person signed up for test was told don't be surprised when you don't hear from me for a month. They called and cancelled said if you have questions call back, I did they didn't answer or return the call. Called again and got a random person they can't help me and transferred me to the person who didn't call back. So now we're 2 months behind on getting the road test and with the 6mos limitation for teenage drivers this is getting to the point that I wouldn't be surprised if she ages out before she gets attended, like her sister did. read more

Long over due. I purchased the 10 lesson package for my son with the assumption he would complete during the summer break. Unfortunately receiving a return call to schedule a driving lesson or multiple lessons in advance was beyond challenging. I was advised not enough instructors to meet the high demand of students. Also which I found shocking, was that he could come in once a month. 10 months for driving school???????????? The communication was not what I had expected. Please stop and consider going elsewhere. As parents we want our kids to be knowledgeable and prepared for driving. I know we can agree we are concerned for their safety not out blood pressure elevating due to a stressful experience. read more

Additional fees for everything. Son diagnosed with covid the day before his first lesson, but not 24 hours before. Charged $60 dollars for cancelling late. Called and have to jump through hoops just to send a message to Admin to inquire about a refund. In the mean time, we cant reschedule the appointment and appointments are filling up 3 weeks out. When we scheduled the first lesson the only appointments were a month out. I asked about switching to another location where more appointments might be available, "that's $25" and then you have to stay at that new location. I asked for a refund since we haven't used any lessons and getting them scheduled is a nightmare. "That will be another $75." I would recommend finding another driving school and we haven't even started lessons yet! The only positive is the kind lady I spoke with about all of this. She felt bad that she had to keep quoting fees and couldn't solve any problems for us. Too much red tape! read more

I've been a AAA Premier member for 21 years. After reading a good review here I bought the 10 lesson package. However this was the worst service I've ever endured. The only number given was a number to leave a message. between myself, my Daughter and my wife we left over 10 messages over 4 weeks before we got a call back. Finally we got to schedule a class. The driving instructor Virginia assigned to my daughter was terrible. She was rude! and made my daughter feel terrible. She hated the experience. It was the absolute worst person you can imagine. Please don't put your child through it. I hired another company soon after and the experience has been great. SAVE YOUR CHILD. DO NOT USE THIS SCHOOL. read more