Comments on: A Costco Reward Gift That’s Nice to Have

By: Jacob

Jacob — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:40:59 +0000

Peter wrote above, “”"I could take that extra $50 and instead put it into my ING Direct savings account and let it collect 1.35% for me.

Costco Executive Membership only earns me back 2% on each purchase, which will only ever pay for my membership renewal.”"”

Why would you want to make 1.35% interest on your money, when you could be getting 2% from the Executive Membership?

The second part he wrote is incorrect. The earnings back are entirely liquid, and can be applied to membership renewal, any item Costco sells, as well as the ability to redeem them for CASH.

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:36:22 +0000

The problem i have with spending $50 extra for the costco executive membership is…

instead of Costco taking the additional $50 for the executive membership each year and putting it into an investment account and collecting interest for them, and only giving you back 2% on each purchase… I could take that extra $50 and instead put it into my ING Direct savings account and let it collect 1.35% for me.

In 10 years, I will have spent $500 on memberships with the other $500 that i would have spent to upgrade to executive memberships collecting interest for me, and compounding…

versus spending $1000 in 10 years for the executive membership, and only earning back 2% on each purchase which will only ever pay for my membership renewal.

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 24 May 2009 18:35:47 +0000

A good write up and useful comments! I’ve added a link to this article in my blog entry “Six ways to lower Costco Membership fee” http://costcohacks.blogspot.com/2009/05/six-ways-to-lower-costco-membership-fee.html

By: tom

tom — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:41:56 +0000

Actually it’s worth it for everyone to upgrade to the Executive Membership.

I have an Executive Membership, but didn’t receive nearly as much in cash back as I thought (only $12!!). I guess I don’t shop there enough. Anyway, I went up to the Customer Service desk to downgrade back to Gold and they said that if you receive anything less than $50 in cash back, Costco will refund you the difference and they did. I got my membership for $37 in April and they refunded me $25 cash! They next time you are under $50, bring in the check and they will refund the difference.

Needless to say I’ll be keeping my Executive Membership!

By: SunFinancial (Suns Financial Diary)

SunFinancial (Suns Financial Diary) — Mon, 18 May 2009 20:32:21 +0000

A Costco Reward Gift That’s Nice to Have: Last Friday we received a membership renewal letter from Costco. Toget.. http://tinyurl.com/qeastt

By: Alan @ Saving For Serenity

Alan @ Saving For Serenity — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:09:39 +0000

I used to work at Costco. All the time we’d be telling members to upgrade to the executive membership because it just made sense.

To make it even easier to figure out if you should upgrade, ask yourself if you spend about $200 a month there. I know a lot of families can easily drop $200 per trip to Costco, so even if you only go once a month, if you’re spending $200 a trip, its worth it to upgrade.

Or, if you ever make a large purchase there (TV, couch, computer, etc), it might be worth it to upgrade as well. I’ve rang through a couple of multi-thousand dollar purchases and got the member to upgrade – because it is basically like handing them money back (of course, you have to wait for the yearly check, but still).

Personally, we spend less than $150 a month at Costco, so it just isn’t worth it for us yet.