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No. Costco's default position is to accept no credit card. If you have a membership there you pay with Cash or Debit (Check card). AMEX has a higher than norma

by bane 12y ago

No. Costco's default position is to accept no credit card. If you have a membership there you pay with Cash or Debit (Check card). AMEX has a higher than normal merchant charge, so many businesses (especially ones that work on many small transactions like restaurants and convenience stores) don't accept it. Costco and AMEX had some kind of deal for a very long time that allowed you to use AMEX cards instead of cash/debit, and if you got a Costco branded AMEX card it acted as both your membership card (it has your Costco ID and photo ID on it) as well as gave you some percentage of total purchases back at the end of the year. [1] We've been Costco members for about a decade and the Costco membership fee is easily made back on the low prices we pay for toilet paper over a year. The rest of the prices are good enough that it almost doesn't make sense to shop other places for a great many goods. And if you don't have an in-depth knowledge of pricing and quality, you can usually be assured that most of the stuff Costco sells is of reasonably high quality at a good price. My wife and I pretty much only buy our wine there. They have a deep selection, and their $10-13 wines are easily $17-30 at the local wine stores, and $30-70 at restaurants and are of pretty consistently high quality. We don't do as much grocery shopping there, with just two of us, all the bulk items are simply too large and we end up throwing away most of the food due to spoilage. For large families though I think it works very well. We'll buy meat and repackage it into our freezer, and milk, yogurt, some frozen items. We also get detergent, medicine, bulk cleaning items, coffee, nonperishables, that sort of thing. I honestly don't know why people who live within reach of a Costco don't have memberships. There's always some kind of excuse about bulk items, but seriously, between wine and toilet paper the membership pays for itself for us at least 10 times over during a year. And we get several hundred dollars back every year from their AMEX program. [1] https://www304.americanexpress.com/credit-card/costco-american-express https://www304.americanexpress.com/credit-card/costco-americ...

panarky 12y ago
> Costco membership fee is easily made back on the low prices we pay for toilet paper over a year Kirkland Signature 2-Ply Bathroom Tissue, 425 Sheets costs $0.650 per roll at Costco. http://www2.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?prodid=11751647&whse=BD_823&topnav=bdoff http://www2.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?prodid=11751647&w... Angel Soft Toilet Paper, 2-Ply, 396 Sheets costs $0.664 per roll at Walmart, no membership card required. http://www.walmart.com/ip/Angel-Soft-Triple-Roll-Bathroom-Tissue-396-sheets-12-rolls/36471953 http://www.walmart.com/ip/Angel-Soft-Triple-Roll-Bathroom-Ti... Adjusting for the difference in sheet count of 425 vs. 396, the Walmart product costs $0.06 more per roll than the Costco product. So to pay for your $55 membership fee, you and your wife would need to consume about 917 rolls per year, 17.6 rolls per week. That's 67 sheets of toilet paper every waking hour, assuming you sleep 8 hours each night.
- cookiecaper 12y ago
  And herein lies the genius of these bulk discount stores: people think they're being frugal just by walking in the door, even though there's an admission fee. Yes, it's true that some things are substantially cheaper, but on many things the items are the same cost or more expensive than they'd be elsewhere. We've found that each item needs to be priced out specifically to find if it's actually cheaper at a wholesale club like Costco/Sam's (we've had memberships to both but only have Sam's now since Costco is much further away) or a big box retailer like Wal-Mart. The overall difference for general household goods is usually not very significant (YMMV depending on what you're buying). We maintain the membership(s) because we like to get some things in larger quantities and some goods for sale at Sam's/Costco are not available elsewhere. Costco also has ultra-good customer service and return policies.
- bane 12y ago
  Actually this isn't a good comparison. You should be comparing cost per sheet. The Kirkland SKU you linked to is cheaper than the Walmart one. But this is a shitty fight, if I wanted the cheapest toilet paper in town, I could drive an hour across town and buy some from Big Lots. It's not like we only go there to buy toilet paper, that's a dumb pedantic argument to make. With the toilet paper are six or seven bottles of wine, $5-$15 cheaper than anywhere else in town for the same, several pounds of meats, about 30% cheaper than any local grocer, bulk milk, again cheaper than my grocer (and without the troubling safety issues the plague Super Walmart grocery sections), maybe a hard-drive at reasonably cheap prices. And 0-minutes spent shopping around, instead of hours spent finding the best possible price for each item. My time isn't free, why is yours?
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    I think they were responding to your hyperbole. You did say something very specific about the membership fee being covered by what you save on toilet paper in a year. I realize that people have different communication preferences, but I understand where they are (apparently) coming from, I too find hyperbolic emphasis tiresome.
    - 12y ago

by bane 12y ago

panarky 12y ago

> Costco membership fee is easily made back on the low prices we pay for toilet paper over a year Kirkland Signature 2-Ply Bathroom Tissue, 425 Sheets costs $0.650 per roll at Costco. http://www2.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?prodid=11751647&whse=BD_823&topnav=bdoff http://www2.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?prodid=11751647&w... Angel Soft Toilet Paper, 2-Ply, 396 Sheets costs $0.664 per roll at Walmart, no membership card required. http://www.walmart.com/ip/Angel-Soft-Triple-Roll-Bathroom-Tissue-396-sheets-12-rolls/36471953 http://www.walmart.com/ip/Angel-Soft-Triple-Roll-Bathroom-Ti... Adjusting for the difference in sheet count of 425 vs. 396, the Walmart product costs $0.06 more per roll than the Costco product. So to pay for your $55 membership fee, you and your wife would need to consume about 917 rolls per year, 17.6 rolls per week. That's 67 sheets of toilet paper every waking hour, assuming you sleep 8 hours each night.

cookiecaper 12y ago
And herein lies the genius of these bulk discount stores: people think they're being frugal just by walking in the door, even though there's an admission fee. Yes, it's true that some things are substantially cheaper, but on many things the items are the same cost or more expensive than they'd be elsewhere. We've found that each item needs to be priced out specifically to find if it's actually cheaper at a wholesale club like Costco/Sam's (we've had memberships to both but only have Sam's now since Costco is much further away) or a big box retailer like Wal-Mart. The overall difference for general household goods is usually not very significant (YMMV depending on what you're buying). We maintain the membership(s) because we like to get some things in larger quantities and some goods for sale at Sam's/Costco are not available elsewhere. Costco also has ultra-good customer service and return policies.
bane 12y ago
Actually this isn't a good comparison. You should be comparing cost per sheet. The Kirkland SKU you linked to is cheaper than the Walmart one. But this is a shitty fight, if I wanted the cheapest toilet paper in town, I could drive an hour across town and buy some from Big Lots. It's not like we only go there to buy toilet paper, that's a dumb pedantic argument to make. With the toilet paper are six or seven bottles of wine, $5-$15 cheaper than anywhere else in town for the same, several pounds of meats, about 30% cheaper than any local grocer, bulk milk, again cheaper than my grocer (and without the troubling safety issues the plague Super Walmart grocery sections), maybe a hard-drive at reasonably cheap prices. And 0-minutes spent shopping around, instead of hours spent finding the best possible price for each item. My time isn't free, why is yours?
- maxerickson 12y ago
  I think they were responding to your hyperbole. You did say something very specific about the membership fee being covered by what you save on toilet paper in a year. I realize that people have different communication preferences, but I understand where they are (apparently) coming from, I too find hyperbolic emphasis tiresome.
  - 12y ago