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Comment by crooked-v | Hacker News Reader

The real value of a Costco membership is in the ancillary non-grocery stuff, like cheap glasses and contacts, discounts off high-end electronics, money back on plane tickets and rental cars, etc.

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Three of the big ones are car/home owners insurance and mortgages. I purchased my last two houses going through Costco's mortgage portal and saved huge on fees and had a much lower interest rate without having to purchase points. It's rather astonishing the number of perks to paying for the executive membership.

Yeah the PS4 and XBox gift cards tend to justify the membership cost on their own for me, so everything else feels like a bonus, and I don't feel bad about wasting money buying something somewhere else even if it's a bit more expensive since the Costco membership is already paid for.

Huh. I think we get 10-15% off iTunes cards sometimes, but not Xbox. I would say the bifurcation into Gamepass vs Xbox Gold may reduce the value of any discount, though.

It's been quite a while since I last used the deal since I've not been in the store. I think the last time I used it was something like $80 for $100 in playstation store gift cards, but I think I'm more used to the 10% off as the general rule for their gift cards.

ETA: I just checked online and they're only 10% off (both Xbox and PS).

Don't forget the discount fuel!

Yeah, my local Costco is so much more pleasant of a gas station I despise getting gas anywhere else.

It's the opposite for me, when I had a membership. However, per my original comment, my local stores may not be typical. I live in an extremely population dense area. I also live in an area where gas is about the cheapest in the nation already, so Costco is only about $0.10 cheaper per gallon, sometimes less, and it's so backed up that you wait 20 minutes to get to the pump. Again, if there wasn't this level of "friction" to each trip, I'd have no problem shopping there for items that are cheaper and more local supermarket for everything else.

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