Costco Membership Deals – Ways to Save on Membership Fees
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Costco Membership Deals, Coupon & Discount Offers – Ways to Save!
If you’ve been wanting to join Costco Wholesale club, but are unsure if you’ll use it enough to justify the $60/year cost or if you are just looking for any way to get Costco Membership deals, Â here are a few different ways that you can save on membership to Costco:
Ways to Save on a Costco Membership:
Special Costco Groupon Offers for Costco Cards, Using Coupon Code:
Costco Groupon offers available include – get a $30 Costco Executive Shop card and $20 one for Gold Memberships, with a new membership sign up! This offer is available for new members only and requires that you sign up on autopayments. Grab this one here. Just look for the coupon on Groupon and that will provide you the promo code and information to get this offer (it is currently SPRING23).Â
Costco Membership Card on Groupon:
From time to time Groupon offers this deal too. Buy a Costco Membership for $60 and get a Digital Shop Card. You can check to see if it is currently available here.
- A One-Year Costco Gold Star Membership
- A membership card for the Primary Cardholder and one additional Household Card for anyone living at the same address, over the age of 18
- A $40 Digital Costco Shop Card
- $40 off an order of $250 or more (before tax and shipping) on Costco.com
- Restrictions apply, *Valid for new Costco members
Current Costco Membership Deals Available:
Get a $20 Costco Shop Card as a new Executive Member or get a $10 Costco Shop Card as a new Gold Star Member.
Join as a new Executive Member and enroll in auto renewal to receive a $20 Digital Costco Shop Card. Or, join as a new Gold Star Member and enroll in auto renewal to receive $10 Digital Costco Shop Card. To get this offer:
- Head to the offer page here.
- Use promo code CJPROMO at checkout.
To receive a Digital Costco Shop Card, you must provide a valid email address and set up auto renewal of your Costco membership on a Visa® card at the time of sign-up. If you elect not to provide a valid email address and sign up for auto renewal, a Digital Costco Shop Card will not be emailed. Valid only for nonmembers for their first year of membership. Not valid for renewal or upgrade of an existing membership. To qualify as a new member, an existing Costco membership must be expired at least 18 months or more. Limit one promotion per household. Digital Costco Shop Card will be emailed to the email address provided by the primary member at time of sign-up. within 2 weeks after successful sign-up and enrollment in auto renewal. Costco is not liable for incentives not received due to entry of an invalid address during sign-up.
*Use the provided single-use promo code when entering your payment information. (Note: You will see a $0.01 deduction on your membership cost after the promo code is entered. This indicates that your promo code has been successfully processed so your incentive will be emailed.) New members will not receive the promotion if the provided code is not entered at checkout when purchasing the membership.
- Teachers get a $20 Costco Shop Card with Memberships!
- Earn a $10 Costco Shop Card when you refer a friend
- Costco Membership Student Discount – College students, get a $20 Costco Shop Card with membership
More Ideas on How to Save on Membership:
Costco Gift Memberships. Use a gift card to shop:
If you only plan on shopping a few times a year for specific items, have a friend with a Costco membership buy you a gift card (Costco Shop card) & then you can shop using the gift card. You will not be able to refill Costco shop cards, though, and only Costco members can buy them. We have done this before we had a Costco membership to try it out & had a family member buy it for us. I think it’s a great way to shop Costco for items that your family regularly buys to see if a membership will work for your family & your shopping needs.
Look for daily deals on Costco memberships deals:
If you know you want a Costco membership eventually but don’t need it right away, take your time & wait for one of the deals to come around where they are offering extra freebies when you purchase a membership. We will list these in the section above when we see them available, but it can be one of the best ways to get a great deal on membership. You can also often find Costco booths at places such as festivals, fairs & other events with special membership packages.
Buy the Executive Membership:
The Costco Executive Membership is a great way to go if you can afford the $120 up front. The way this works is that you pay $120 for the Executive membership your first year.
You will get a rebate of 2% of your spending at the end of the year. If you spend approx. $250 a month or $3000 a year, you will make money off the rebate (assuming you renewed for the $60 membership the following year. You would have to spend $5,500 annually to cover the cost of renewing at the Executive rate of $120 for the following year).
However, if your spending does not reach that amount, Costco will make up the difference to get you to $60 (for example, if they sent you a rebate check for $25 for the year, you would go to the customer service desk, and they will give you the difference). Â That means that if you apply that $60 towards the next years membership, you did not end up paying any extra for the Executive membership (you got two years for $120 out of your pocket, or $60 per year).
But if you are a frequent shopper or know that you’ll be purchasing some larger ticket items , this could be a great way to save as you will earn cash back on your purchases, and will likely make money off the membership.
(One last note on this – TNWM reader Monique, was not able to qualify for the $60 minimum, because they used the car rental service. She was told that if you use the extra services available to Executive members, then the minimum refund won’t apply, so you may want to double check on that if you plan to use those extra services)
Employer & Military Discounts for Costco:
Ask your employer if they will be offering a Costco discounted membership package. When I worked in the schools, several times a year, Costco would come set up in the teacher’s lounge & they would work with the school district to offer a special membership package (similar to some of the discount membership packages we’ve seen at the daily deal sites where you might get some freebies or a Costco card when you sign up to be a Costco member). Â If your employer does not offer this, then check with your professional organization.
I know the NEA (National Teacher Association) does offer a special Costco membership package, so I bet that other professional organizations might offer this as well.
There is a military membership package as well. You can purchase Costco Membership Activation Certificates to join Costco as a new member and you will receive a $20 Costco Shop Card.
Find promotions available to these professions too:
Medical Professional offers here.
First Responders get a $20 shop card with sign up here.
Government Employees get a $20 Shop card with sign up here.
     Costco Membership Discount AAA
Is a Costco Membership Worth It?Â
It is going to really depend on your shopping patterns, to determine if it is worth it for you or not. Most Costco members love their memberships, and if you can get a Costco Membership deal like we mention above that makes it more worth it. There are other online retailers where you can buy in bulk and have it shipped to you (like Walmart – they do offer a free 30 day trial of their Walmart+ membership here, if you want to try that out).
Costco Products Price List – over 1,000 prices to compare
If you’re still debating about whether a membership to Costco is worth it, check out our Costco Products Price List, where you can compare the prices for over 1,000 grocery & household products to other stores to see if the products you buy the most will be priced better at Costco or other stores. This is a very helpful resource to print off specific sections or use the database to see if a Costco membership is the best decision for your family based on the regular items on your grocery & household list.
We also share tips on how to save on travel by using Costco Travel here!
Do you have any other ways you have saved on membership costs at Costco? What are your favorite Costco Membership deals?
Other Costco Savings Articles you might be interested in:
- Search Costco Price List (with over 1000 Costco Products)!
- Sams Club Membership Deals
- Save on Costco Travel
- Costco Toy deals
Quick math – if you spend $230 or more per month on NON-GASOLINE Costco purchases, then the Executive membership is a good deal. They are eager to sign you up, and have always guaranteed me that if I didn’t earn back the extra $55 membership fee, they would refund the difference (which they did).
Gasoline may not be the only category of Costco purchases that is non-qualifying for the 2% discount, so be sure to ask Customer Service if your typical purchases qualify.
Eric – Yes it definitely can be a great idea to get that Executive membership for sure, if you know you regularly spend a certain amount at Costco, like you mentioned or if you have some high-value items to buy there, but great tip to make sure to look at all the categories of qualifying purchases!
If you are planning on going on a vacation, a Costco membership might be worth it. We just booked a trip to Cabo and Costco was $1000 less than the cheapest sit we could find for the same hotel/room. Also, their car buying service is amazing and we saved several thousand using their service and also saved the crazy dealer negations.
Great tip on the vacations, Diane, looking at hotel rooms! And I definitely did not know that about the car buying service – very good to know! We have done car rentals thru Costco & found them to often have the cheapest rates as well!
Where I live (Quebec), gasoline, milk, alcohol and cigarettes do not count towards the 2% Executive cash back. In short, everything that is in any way price-regulated by government rather than market.