I’ll be honest. I had a Costco membership for two years before I understood what I was paying for. I was buying bulk snacks and the occasional rotisserie chicken and calling it a day.

Then a viral Threads post with 1.6 million views changed how I see it. Tens of thousands of people dropped their best Costco tips in the comments, and I spent a morning reading every single one. Turns out, the Costco membership benefits most people are sitting on go way beyond bulk toilet paper.

This post covers the best ones, organized so you can actually use them.

Costco Travel Benefits (The Ones That Actually Save You Money)

This is where the Costco membership pays for itself if you travel even twice a year. I wrote a full breakdown of how to use Costco Travel if you want the deep dive, but here are the highlights.

Rental Cars at Nearly Half Price

Costco Travel regularly lists rental cars at close to half the price of booking directly. You still pick up the car at the airport, no extra steps. And the protection is real: when one member’s rental agency canceled with no cars available in the city, Costco made the agency reimburse nearly $500 in Uber fees. That kind of backup matters when you’re traveling.

Hotel and Vacation Packages

One member flew herself and her son to Hawaii for a week, flights, hotel, and a car, for $1,800. That included a Costco gift card, daily meal vouchers, and no resort fees. Compare that to booking those three things separately, and the math is not close.

Discounted Uber Gift Cards

Costco sells up to four $50 Uber gift cards online for $40 each month. If you travel often and know you’ll need airport rides, buying two or three at a time adds up. I use Uber constantly when I travel, so this one is going on my list immediately.

Travel Vaccines

If you travel internationally, Costco’s Travel Clinic offers CDC travel vaccines at lower prices than most travel medicine clinics. Stack this with solid travel insurance. Here is a beginner’s guide to travel insurance if you are not sure where to start.

Costco Pharmacy and Health Benefits

You do not need a Costco membership to use the pharmacy. That is the first thing most people get wrong.

Pharmacy Is Open to Everyone

Non-members can walk into Costco and use the pharmacy. No card required. When one person’s insurance dropped a prescription, CVS quoted $300, and Costco charged $37 for the same medication. Another person mentioned Plan B runs around $9. Worth knowing regardless of whether you have a membership.

Eyeglasses and Contacts

The Costco optical center offers prescriptions, frames, and lenses at a fraction of what most opticians charge. One member with complex high-index lenses paid $87 with insurance, compared to $400 or more at a standard optician for the same prescription. Get a copy of your prescription and price it out at Costco before you buy elsewhere.

Hearing Aids

A $60 basic membership covering hearing aids saved one family over $1,500 compared to Medicare pricing, with better quality. Costco’s hearing center is genuinely competitive.

Pet Prescriptions

Pet prescriptions at Costco run close to half the price of most vets. Flea and heartworm treatments in particular can save you more per year than the membership itself costs.

Generic Medications

Kirkland-brand Zyrtec (generic cetirizine) is around $14.99 for a year’s supply at Costco. A month of name-brand Zyrtec runs $30 or more at a pharmacy. Multiply that across a medicine cabinet, and you see how it adds up.

Costco Membership Financial Perks

The Executive Membership Guarantee

If you have an Executive membership and your annual 2% rewards check comes out to less than $65, go to the membership desk and ask for the difference refunded. That makes the upgrade essentially risk-free. You either earn it back or you get it back.

The Costco Visa Card

The Costco Anywhere Visa through Citi has no annual fee for members and earns 4% back on gas, 3% on restaurants, and 2% in-store. One member earned nearly $1,000 in cashback in a single year. Customer service also came through when concert organizers started an event an hour early. One member submitted proof and got a full $600 refund.

Price Adjustments

Buy something and find it on sale within 30 days? Go to customer service and ask for a price adjustment. They pull the purchase from your account and credit your original payment method. No receipt needed. One person got $200 back on a laptop.

Write Your Will for Under $100

Costco offers basic legal document services, including wills, for under $100. For anyone with a straightforward estate situation, it is a practical option most people do not know exists.

Shutterfly: 51% Off

Link your Costco membership to your Shutterfly account and get 51% off all products plus free shipping on orders over $30. Automatically applied once accounts are linked.

Home, Appliances, and Big Purchases

Appliances With Extended Warranty

Buy appliances at Costco, and you get free delivery, free setup, free removal of the old appliance, and Costco extends the manufacturer’s warranty by a year. One member had a washer and dryer delivered and installed upstairs by a professional crew with no issues.

Home Services: HVAC, Windows, and More

Costco offers home services through vetted contractors. One member got five bids on a new furnace, and Costco won, and the purchase came with a $2,500 Costco cash card credit. Worth getting them in the mix any time you are quoting a big home project.

The Costco Auto Program

If you are buying a car, the Costco Auto Program connects you with authorized dealerships that cannot haggle. They give you the pre-negotiated lowest price upfront, no back and forth. One member saved $5,000 on a Lexus. The program covers most major brands.

Tires

Costco tires come with free installation and free rotation; I recently used this service after my tire blew up on the highway. If you buy from them and need a patch later, it is $12. The ongoing service relationship is part of what makes it worth it.

Costco Benefits Most Members Don’t Know About

Trade In Old Electronics for Gift Cards

Costco’s trade-in program lets you send in old phones and tablets in exchange for Costco gift cards. One member traded an old iPhone and iPad and received around $500 back. Check the program before letting old devices collect dust.

Costco Business Center

The Costco Business Center is a different experience from the regular warehouse. Different deals, far fewer people, and products you will not find in the standard store. If there is one near you, it is worth a separate trip.

Your Membership Works Globally

Your Costco membership is valid at any Costco location in the world. Members have used it in France and Spain for gas and groceries. If you travel internationally and there is a Costco near where you are staying, you are already in.

Same-Day Delivery Perks for Executive Members

Executive members get $10 off same-day delivery each month. For one disabled member, that $10 more than covers the tier upgrade cost, gets groceries to the door in an hour, and still earns 2% cashback at renewal.

Instacart Integration

Connect your Costco membership to your Instacart account, and Costco member pricing applies automatically. Useful if you want the prices without the trip.

Weekend Samples

Go on a weekend around lunchtime. Costco runs enough sample stations that it genuinely feeds two small children without buying anything. This sounds like a joke. It has nearly 400 likes for a reason.

Caskets

Yes. Costco sells caskets. One family saved thousands compared to a funeral home for the same quality. The internet finds this wild. The savings are real.

Korean Skincare

Costco carries Korean skincare at prices well below dedicated K-beauty retailers. The selection rotates, so it is worth checking each visit.

The Liquor Section

Where available, Costco’s liquor section offers wines, prosecco, and spirits at prices that make stocking up reasonable. Their Kirkland-label spirits are sourced from the same distilleries as several premium brands.

Where Costco Beats Every Grocery Store

A few items that come up again and again as the best per-unit value in the warehouse:

• Bulk cheese, including Tillamook blocks, shredded cheese, cheese sticks, and a popular large block of Pecorino Romano
• Chicken and beef in bulk at per-pound prices that consistently undercut most grocery stores
• Kirkland-brand olive oil, organic produce, and generic medications
• The $1.50 hot dog, unchanged in price since 1985, and Costco leadership has said it never will be
• SNAP benefits accepted for food purchases

Why Costco Is Built Differently

One of the most shared posts in the thread was not about a deal at all. It was about how Costco operates as a company.

Costco requires a full inspection of any company whose products they carry, not just the products themselves, but the entire operation.

According to the thread, this makes them responsible for handling roughly 40% of food safety recalls in the US, including issues with products Costco does not even sell. They are running supply chain audits that should be standard across the industry, but often are not.

They also pay employees significantly above retail industry standard, maintain a generous return policy with no time limit on most items, and have held the hot dog at $1.50 for four decades as a commitment to members.

Are Costco Membership Benefits Worth It?

If you use even three or four things on this list, the membership pays for itself. Most people are underusing it by a lot.

The travel perks alone, rental cars, hotel packages, Uber gift cards, and travel vaccines can save hundreds annually. Read the full post on how to use Costco Travel to get into the logistics. Add the pharmacy pricing, the Visa cashback, and the price adjustment policy, and this starts functioning more like a savings account than a shopping club.

The standard membership is $65/year. The Executive tier is $130/year but comes with 2% back on most purchases and a guarantee: if your rewards check does not hit $65, they refund the difference.

And if you are doing any of this while working remotely or traveling long-term, the Uber gift card hack and the international warehouse access pair well with your digital nomad planning. I’ll be using my membership a lot differently from here on.