AAA Roadside Service both National and Mid-Atlantic Lockout: Five Hours and $195 Nationwide

We are Plus AAA members and generally have had good service and security in dealing with them, basically at many different locations in the country We live in MD, and this was within an hour of home.  The problem was keys that got locked into the trunk, with the doors locked.  Yes, our fault, and yet still a classic 'lockout'.

My understanding, from our first several exchanges with AAA is that they do provide lockout service. They also state that they do on their web page. But, after being told that service was coming within the hour, and nothing happened, we called back, got the line that it was delayed, but coming.

After still nothing, we were then told that they only will tow to an auto dealer (quite some distance away, since we were up near the Delaware state line).  The operator told us that the previous two operators were mistaken and that they don't do a lockout service. So, after four hours of waiting, mistakenly for a lockout, we called a local locksmith, and within another hour were able to get into the car.

Lesson learned: don't bother anymore with AAA road-service, they won't give you a true status report -- maybe something is off with their local affiliates -- but five hours wasted and no benefits from the membership -- we should have simply called for a local to come and help us.  If we had known the situation with AAA right at the start, we wouldn't have wasted time and might have maintained some confidence that the membership was a reasonable security.