Costco Just Announced a Major Change to Memberships, and Shoppers Are Annoyed
If you’ve been a loyal Costco shopper in the past seven years, you may have noticed that the membership fees have never once increased. You’ve been able to stock up on holiday decor for your home, plants for your garden, throw pillows for your couch, a zillion free samples, and so much more for just $60 a year. That’s the cost of the Gold Star and Business Memberships, while the Executive Membership goes for $120. But on Sept. 1 this year, that’s going to change.
On Wednesday, Costco announced that their basic membership will cost $5 more (or $65 total) and their executive membership will cost $10 ($130 annually) for stores in the U.S. and Canada. It’s not much, for the first price hike since 2017. But, as CNBC points out, it widens the gap between Costco and other warehouse clubs like Sam’s Club ($50 for the first tier and $110 for the higher tier) and BJ’s Wholesale Club (where membership costs $55 and $110, depending on the tier).
If you have an Executive Membership at Costco, though, there is some new good news. “The maximum annual 2% Reward associated with the Executive Membership will increase from $1,000 to $1,250. The fee increases will impact around 52 million memberships, a little over half of which are Executive,” the company shared. So, if you regularly fill up your cart at Costco, the rewards for doing so just got a little bit sweeter.
Though shoppers are predictably not thrilled about paying more, many Redditors seem to be understanding. “It’s a nominal hike and they’ve held the line for a while. It’s good for the company and does very little harm to the consumer IMHO,” says one user.
“A couple of days ago they said their employees will be getting a pay bump, so I’m good with it,” says another, referring to the recent news that Costco will be paying employees $1 more per hour.
Other shoppers have more of a backdoor approach to their pragmatism. “I’ll eat 10 extra hot dogs per year to balance out additional $10 annual fee increase,” one Redditor says. Now that’s a silver lining Joey Chestnut and all other hot dog lovers can definitely celebrate.