Apr 4, 2026
A trip to Costco might not initially come to mind as a glamorous or high-flying endeavor, but that’s the message the wholesaler jokingly sent with a recent viral video. Costco’s higher-tier membership, the “Executive” membership, comes with perks, and content creators Penn and Kim Holderness took this idea to its limit with a video painting the Executive membership as a red-carpet affair (1).
The video has millions of views on Facebook, with its creators poking fun at the fact that the Executive membership includes a card that’s “jet black” with a gold, cursive letter E on it that’s “got to mean it’s exclusive.”
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The video also includes imagined scenarios where the creators envision their Executive memberships will get them a table at a busy restaurant, or help them avoid a traffic ticket.
While Costco shoppers likely don’t expect that an Executive membership will get them the royal treatment, they have been opting into the higher-tier, $130 membership. The company reported on a December earnings call that its income from memberships increased 7.5% year-over-year (2). At the end of the second quarter of 2025, the company recorded a 9.5% increase in Executive memberships, for a total of 40.4 million.
Costco vs. Sam’s Club vs. BJ’s: How much does it cost to shop wholesale?
Shopping at wholesalers can save you money if you are buying in bulk and shopping when items are on sale. But membership costs are an added expense, so it makes sense to investigate whether the savings will outweigh the cost of paying to shop at a wholesaler.
A standard “Gold Star” Costco membership costs $65 a year, while the “Executive” membership comes in at $130 a year.
One perk of the higher-tier membership: dedicated shopping times only for Executive members, with an extra hour on weekday mornings and Sundays from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m., and a half-hour window on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. You can also earn a $10 Instacart credit once a month if you make a Costco order through Instacart or Costco Same-Day that’s at least $150.
Where extra savings can come into play are the rewards and credits offered to Executive members. You can earn a 2% reward on purchases that qualify, which is issued annually as a store certificate. But it’s worth calculating how much you’d need to spend in order to get back the extra $65 you’re paying for the Executive membership: $3,252 will get you a $65 reward to spend at Costco. The reward is also capped at $1,250 (you’d need to spend about $62,500 to get there).
You can also get a refund for the $65 difference in the upgraded membership if you find you’re not going to spend enough to make the membership worthwhile.
Sam’s Club offers a higher tier membership called a Plus membership, which costs $110 a year, compared to $50 a year for a regular Club membership. However, Sam’s Club does offer promotional deals with discounts for both membership tiers. With a Plus membership, you can earn 2% Sam’s Cash back on qualifying purchases, up to $500. To earn back the additional $60 to upgrade to the Plus membership, you’d have to spend about $3,000 a year to end up with $60 in Sam’s Cash.
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The Plus membership also offers perks such as free shipping on orders over $50 and free delivery from your local store on orders over $50. Plus members also have access to earlier shopping hours as well.
BJ’s Wholesale Club also offers tiered memberships, with their regular Club membership coming in at $60 and the higher-tier Club+ at $120. The higher-tier membership offers two free same-day deliveries per year, for online orders over $50. The Club+ membership also offers 2% in rewards on eligible purchases, up to $500 in rewards (redeemable for in-store spending) per year.
However, take note that signing up for either membership automatically signs you up for an auto-renewal program that will charge your payment method annually at the then-current membership fee price, for all memberships on your account. You might be charged without notice, unless it’s required by law.
The wholesaler may also attempt to renew your membership with other payment methods other than the payment method you signed up with: “for your convenience we may make subsequent additional attempts to process such renewal fee using any payment method(s) we have on record for your membership,” the terms of service state.
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Should you join a wholesaler membership program?
If you are considering joining a wholesaler membership program, do some research to figure out what the benefits are, and whether the amount you’ll save by shopping there will surpass what you’ll spend on the membership.
If you’re already a dedicated wholesaler shopper, it’s worth checking out what you’re spending a month on grocery and household items, and making an itemized list of purchases, so you can do a comparison of what you’d pay at other retailers.
You may be saving a bundle by buying on sale or in bulk at a wholesaler. However, if you find yourself constantly making impulse purchases, or buying items that sit in your pantry and don’t get used up, consider whether the cost of buying big is worth it overall when it comes down to the dollars and cents.
Article sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.
Facebook (1); Investing.com (2)
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Rebecca Payne has more than a decade of experience editing and producing both local and national daily newspapers. She's worked on the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, Metro, Canada's National Observer, the Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press.
