The Texas BBQ Forum

If you frequent Costco, several things you must learn. DO NOT GO to a Costco on the weekends. Way too much traffic. Use their monthly sales coupons. If you're a member, you get one in the mail every month. Learn which aisles hold what merchandise. Seldom are changed. Only hit each aisle if you just want to look. In our case. most of the Kirkland stuff is pretty good. On par with HEB store brands. I buy about 150 pounds of pork bellies a month in my sideline business. I have the meat dept manager's cell, and I text him when I need to pick them up several days ahead to make sure he's got them in stock.

Getting back to the original credit card issue... It's not totally Costco's fault. Credit card companies charge an arm and a leg to process transactions, combine that with Costco's policy of never charging more than 12 or 13% markup over their costs, and they get squeezed fairly hard.

Overall, that reality does little to change my annoyance with them though, LOL. Rexster's experience is clearly different than mine, as the stores are constantly being juggled here so you have to hunt. Likewise NO time is a good time to visit here, LOL. The absolute worst is the first weekend of the month though. I swear half of Sacramento's population is employed by the PRC's bureacracy, and gets paid once a month on the first. Combine that with all the folks on welfare getting their benefits at the same time, and the stores are an utter nightmare the first week of the month.

Gotta agree with TX1911 also; the other customers are the biggest annoyance. Sideways carts, 3 or 4 VERY wide down the isles... My biggest pet peeve is the vultures around the free food sample stations. Carts sprawled everywhere and at least a dozen of them at every spot just dying for a free meatball or whatever. You need a bulldozer to get around or through them.

I know that there are lots of advantages for some to shop Costco and I'm happy for them, however, I refused to add one additional card "just for" the privilege of shopping at one store when "EVERY OTHER STORE" accepts my Master Card - - - as I mentioned at the beginning "I am too Cantankerous"

I'll gladly put up with the lower prices in exchange for some rudeness, which I seem to have no problem finding at every other store that wants my money.

We usually try to hit it just after it opens at 10 am usually Tuesday-Thursday's.
Our Costco built a bigger store here last year. Much nicer parking with walkways and bigger stalls. Also the isles in the store are wider then the old store. The new store as far as where the items are located is dang near identical to the old store, just much more room.
Living close to the Canadian border the Canucks flock to our Costco even tho they have a Costco just on the other side of the border and their dollar compared to US dollar is in the toilet as far as buying power down here.

Another thing I like about Costco is their return policy. I've had to return a few items over the years, some was manufacture errors and some user error Never once did they not refund my money or let me exchange it for another one with no questions asked. Heck I had a hammock for over a year and I was able to exchange that. My kids had a party one weekend and wanted to see how many of them could get on the hammock . They had 6 good size teenagers on it and everything was good till number 7...a gal well over 200 pounds jumped on it. Split the base right in half. I returned it to Costco without the box and they let me exchange it for a new one.

I’ve found Wednesday night to be the sweet spot. Not sure why, maybe it’s church or mid week lul but I’ve pretty much had the place to myself.


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Been a Sam's Club member since the 80's, Costco was a latecomer. Sam's used to only accept Discover CC in the olden days, then they started accepting MC, nowadays I use either MC or VISA. I don't think there's a huge difference in club membership cost vs Costco so you might consider tagging along with a friend who has a Sam's membership to a Sam's and see if you like it better. If so, negotiate a different club membership with SWMBO.