A friend of mine just tipped me off on this trick where you can buy gas at Costco without a Costco membership. All you have to do is swipe an American Express card first, when you would normally swipe your membership card, and then swipe it again for payment. Afterwards, it will let you buy the sweet sweet nectar of condensed dinosaur bones at rock bottom prices without the $50/year membership. It’s that simple.

Normally, you have to swipe your Costco Card or the American Express Costco TrueEarnings card in order to authenticate in their gas station systems. It appears that you can simply use any American Express card in the authentication phase because the American Express Costco TrueEarnings card is just an AMEX with a Costco bar code.

I’ve confirmed that this works in Maryland and others have reported success in other states (except those that require an attendant to pump your gas, like New Jersey and Oregon). Locate a Costco nearby (check to make sure it has a Gas Station) and give it a try, Costco gas is usually many cents cheaper than local competitors.

(Photo by shindohd)

I have an interesting “ethical” question for you all, especially given the fervor over the Costco return policy.

I recently purchased an Epson Home Cinema Projector that came with a $300 rebate and a free bulb rebate (worth nearly as much). One of the quirks about the rebate was that you had to mail it within thirty days, rather than the typical static time limit that was ignorant of when you purchased. As you can imagine, what happened was I got all excited with the projector and forgot to mail the rebate within the 30 day limit. I did exactly what the manufacturer wanted, I purchased the project at the “list price minus the rebate amount” in my mind but I actually paid full price. It’s been a while since I’ve made a $300 mistake like that, one that could be chalked up to carelessness and laziness rather than circumstances that were less within my control.

My solution to this was something that some may find unethical (or at least gray) but I didn’t see a problem with it. I purchased another Epson projector and then submitted that receipt with the other documentation (UPC code, serial number) so that I’d be compliant and the rebate was approved. The only cost to me was shipping the second project back via UPS Insured; it set me back around $60. All in all, the added hassle netted me $240 and a free bulb.

While I feel that was certainly in the gray area (submitting a receipt that didn’t technically match the UPC), I personally found that to be on the good side of the ethical line. I returned the project in exactly the same condition that it was sent to me and Amazon wasn’t out anything (maybe shipping fees) and I received a rebate I was rightfully entitled to (I did buy the projector, I just missed the 30 day window by a few days). And I was certainly on the good side if you consider how quickly rebate fulfillment companies are to screw the consumer at every opportunity!

What do you think?

Two days ago, as my fiancee and I were leaving a meeting with a wedding caterer, one of us noticed that my front passenger tire was a little low. I had been noticing a little sluggish handling as of late but nothing surprising but I only a few hundred miles away from when I needed the tires rotated and balanced so I brought it into Costco for some service.

For those that don’t know how tires work at Costco, you might pay a little bit more for the tires but what you get is a “lifetime warranty” against any sort of problems and you get lifetime rotating and balancing. The lifetime warranty means they’ll repair any damage absolutely free and if something bad really happens, then they will prorate you the cost of the tire based on remaining tread.

Also, Costco uses dry nitrogen to fill the tires, which they claim is better. The reasons aren’t good enough to convince me to use nitrogen if it cost any more than regular air, at Costco it doesn’t cost more. In fact, I erroneously though that you couldn’t top off a tire filled with nitrogen and that’s part of the reason why I brought it in. Luckily I did because they found a nail in the tire!

All told, balancing and rotating, including the repair of one tire, took approximately thirty minutes and cost me absolutely nothing. When I priced out tires before, the difference in cost between Costco and another place was less than ten dollars a tire so I saw the increased price as sort of a warranty, a really good warranty.

One of the reasons I joined Costco was because the price of gasoline at a Costco was about a ten cents (or greater) cheaper than the surrounding gas stations when I lived in College Park (the neighboring gas stations were two Exxon’s, a BP/Mobile, and a Gulf). At the time, even with a 5% rebate on gasoline credit card (AT&T Universal Cash Rewards, though here’s the latest list of the best gas credit cards), the difference in price was greater than 5% plus I had the benefit of buying in bulk at Costco for things like 7 lb. tub of nacho cheese. The downside of using Costco was that they only accepted American Express (1% cash back) or debit cards (0% cash back), so I couldn’t double dip and use a higher cash-back card with the cheaper gas, until I ran into a concrete and useful real life example of price competition.

When I moved up to Howard County, the Costco Warehouse still had gas but it also had two Exxon’s right next to it (you can debate the usefulness of two Exxon’s within a mile of each other, but whatever). Due to the proximity, the Exxon’s gas prices were depressed compared to gas stations not in the region. If you strayed more than a mile, you could see “regular” gas prices not affected by the lower Costco price.

Here is where the price competition comes into play: The Exxon gas prices are essentially pegged to be three or four cents higher than Costco’s gas price (based on my experience only, no actual concrete evidence). So I can get Exxon gasoline at a price cheaper than Costco after you factor in the 5% cash-back and current gasoline prices (at $2.00, if you can find it that cheap, you get 10 cents back).

Price competition in a capitalist society in action! I better find a pretty good reason to keep Costco around now… I mean, other than the 7 lb. tubs of nacho cheese.