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You go to warehouse clubs like BJ’s, Costco and Sam’s Club to save money when buying bulk groceries. But have you ever thought you could find similar deals for travel services? These clubs offer members travel deals ranging from full vacation packages to cruises, car rentals, hotel rooms and theme park tickets.
But to what extent do the warehouse clubs really deliver on their promised savings, including 55-and-over discounts? And can you depend on the clubs to deliver travel services as well as a travel agency does?
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Warehouse clubs apply the same large-scale buying power for travel products that they use to get discounts on foodstuffs. “Travel buyers are often able to negotiate special and exclusive deals for inclusion in our vacation offerings,” Chris Hendrix, Costco’s assistant vice president overseeing the travel buying division, told AARP via email.
According to Statista, in December 2023, 6 percent of BJ’s shoppers were 50 to 64 years old. Advertising platform Start.io found 5 percent of Costco shoppers were 45 to 54 and 8.1 percent 55 and older as of March 2023. At Sam’s Club, Start.io found 3.8 percent of shoppers were 45 to 54 and 14.9 percent 55 and older as of March 2023.
Many customers endorse purchasing travel through wholesale clubs. A 2021 Consumer Reports survey found that 35 percent of people buying travel through a wholesale club rated their purchase as an “excellent” value, versus only 15 percent giving that rating for online travel agencies. For customer service, 31 percent of warehouse club customers called it “excellent,” while just 15 percent of customers said that of online agencies. As a whole, 85 percent of warehouse club travel customers surveyed said they were likely to or would definitely use the service again.
“I think the customer service is great at Costco,” says Jill Gragg, 52, an attorney in Lake Oswego, Oregon, who has used Costco Travel for multiple family trips because of its “price and ease of booking.” She says it was “$200 to $300 cheaper” to book Las Vegas trips through Costco versus on her own, while her European vacation “was significantly cheaper; I would say $2,000 to $3,000 less.”
À la carte items such as rental cars and hotel rooms also can provide savings: Charles McGinnis, a software developer in Chicago, says he “found that rental cars through Costco were usually 5 to 10 percent cheaper than booking directly with the same rental car companies,” saving him “$50 to $100 a trip.”
Budgeting and finance experts agree that you can find good travel deals at the warehouse clubs, but you need to be a smart shopper to maximize benefits.
“Given that you can receive discounted pricing, plus earn cash back on select travel bookings, as well as bonus perks like credits and reduced fees, it can be well worth your time to book travel through a warehouse club,” says Julie Ramhold, consumer analyst with pricing advisory website DealNews.com. But she recommends buyers fully evaluate the costs and benefits of a bundled trip. “Make sure the details of the package are worth it to you. Sure, a large package with plenty of perks may look great at face value,” Ramhold says, “but if you aren’t going to use the perks or some of them aren’t of any interest to you, then you’re still wasting money paying for items you aren’t interested in.”
Having booked trips through Costco herself, family budgeting expert Andrea Woroch has identified tips and tricks to get the best value from warehouse club travel. She says customers should incorporate store incentives when considering travel package pricing. For a Disney Cruise she booked, Woroch says, “Although we ended up paying the same rate as available directly through Disney, we got a huge bonus — a $790 Costco Shop Card. We ended up using the shop card to pay for new flooring we were already planning to purchase so that was like getting a discount on the trip but through a different avenue of our budget.”
