jQuery Autocomplete .data("autocomplete") is undefined

When I try to implement auto-complete using the code below I get an error stating:

.data("autocomplete") is undefined

How ever if I remove the .data() method from the end it works fine (just with out the customizable graphics that .data() provides). Can anyone tell me what's going wrong?

$("input#testInput").bind("autocompleteselect", function (event, ui) {

  }).autocomplete({
      appendTo: "#autoCompList",
      source: function (request, response) {
          $.ajax({

              url: JSONP CALL URL
              dataType: "jsonp",
              data: {
                  featureClass: "P",
                  style: "full",
                  maxRows: 12,
                  name_startsWith: request.term
              },
              success: function (data) {
                  response($.map(data.data, function (item) {
                      fbPageJson = item;
                          return {
                              label: item.name,
                              image: item.picture,
                              json: item,
                          }
                  }));
              },
          });
      }

  }).data("autocomplete")._renderItem = function (ul, item) {
      return $("<li></li>").data("item.autocomplete", item).append("<a><img src='" + item.image + "' alt='no photo'/></a>" + item.label).appendTo(ul);
  };