Ebates currently has an offer on Costco memberships. It expires 12/31/2009. It costs $50 to join Costco. This offer is good if you either join Costco as a new member or upgrade a current membership. Ebates is free to join and they give you cash back on your online shopping. Basically Ebates has an affiliate program with different merchants like Costco and they share their commissions with their customers. If you join or upgrade your Costco membership through the Ebates offer, Ebates will give you cash back of $1.75. The catch is that you have to have a minimum of $5.00 in cash back for Ebates to cut you a check, so this offer only works if you use Ebates for other online purchases.
Beside the cash back from Ebates, Costco will give new or upgrading members coupons worth more than $50 including:
1. A free rotisserie chicken.
I don't usually buy this item at Costco but I'm guessing this is worth about $5.
2. Free photo processing.
We just print our own pictures on the PC printer, except for one of my kids who is taking a photo class, but he has to develop his own pictures anyway as a part of the class. So to me free photo processing isn't worth anything.
3. A two pound bag of coffee. The brand is Cosco's house brand, Kirkland signature.
We only drink instant, organic coffee so to me this isn't worth anything. I don't normally even buy ground coffee, but I would guess this is worth about $7 to people who like to drink generic ground coffee.
4. A 48 pack of AA batteries.
Name brand AA batteries go for around $1 a battery at warehouse prices, but the house brands are usually considerably less. I couldn't find a price for a Kirkland AA batteries online, but the Member's Mark brand AA batteries at Sam's Club sell for around $10 for a pack of 48 single use batteries.
Then they offer the nebulous "and more" which could be more of the above or totally worthless stuff. Who knows? They also say they will give you multiple certificates to give as gifts, but they don't say what the certificates are for.
So is this s good deal? If you were going to join or upgrade your membership anyway, then sure, anything extra that is free is worth it.
If you are a current member, is it worth it to upgrade? Maybe. The Executive membership costs $100, $50 more than the standard membership, and gives you 2% back each year, so if you spend a lot at Costco, then the upgrade can pay for itself even without the free coupons. Personally, I've started buying more at Sam's Club, because they have this new service called Click N' Pull. This service allows you to place your order online and then they assemble and put everything in the cart for you. You get an email when your basket is ready for you. So you get warehouse prices with a concierge shopping service. That is a neat feature that is hard to beat, and as far as I know Costco doesn't have anything comparable.
I still keep my membership at Costco because I like their optical department, and we have enough myopic people in my family that the Costco membership fee is worth it just for that, if nothing else. Other than that, these days I'm personally a Click N' Pull shopper at Sam's Club.
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