Starting this week, Costco customers risk being turned away if they don’t come during their memberships’ designated hours.<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON \u2014 Costco’s new\u00a0<\/a>policy allowing an exclusive shopping hour for some members will take full effect this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n Starting Monday, Sept. 1, the wholesale club will strictly enforce its latest perk: giving an exclusive, hour-long shopping window in the morning for its higher-paying members. The policy was announced earlier this summer, but Costco had given a grace period for the policy change in July and August.<\/p>\n The enforcement goes into effect on Labor Day, when Costco is closed, so shoppers will likely see changes starting Tuesday, Sept. 2.<\/p>\n Executive Members will be given early access to shop from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. local time on weekdays and Sundays, and from 9 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. on Saturdays.\u00a0<\/p>\n Gold Star and Business members who arrive at Costco during the “Executive hour” run the risk of being turned away by greeters at the door.<\/p>\n The change, which is limited to U.S. stores, means executive members will get to shop earlier than when most – but not all – of the stores typically open. Some Costco locations, including all of the ones in California’s Bay Area, already open at 9 a.m. Monday through Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to company data<\/a>, executive members make up 73% of Costco’s sales despite representing a little less than half of their 79.6 million memberships.\u00a0<\/p>\n The move aligns Costco with rival Sam’s Club<\/a>, which has long offered exclusive early morning shopping hours for its premium plus members.\u00a0<\/p>\n As part of the change announced June 30, Costco said that all U.S. warehouses will now be open an extra hour on Saturdays, closing at 7 p.m. for all members. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Last year, Costco raised the price of its memberships for the first time since 2017.\u00a0The cost for a Gold Star membership<\/a>, the basic tier, increased<\/a> from $60 to $65. Executive memberships, the higher-tier plan, increased from $120 to $130.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Starting this week, Costco customers risk being turned away if they don’t come during their memberships’ designated hours.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":192666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-192665","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115131623946850433","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nHow much is a Costco membership? <\/p>\n