The membership increase, set for September 1, 2024, will impact around 52 million memberships, a little over half of which are on the “Executive” plan.
The annual US and Canada “Gold Star” memberships, Business and Business add-on members will see fees increase by $5. The annual fee for a “Gold Star” member currently sits at $60 plus sales tax, Costco said in an announcement this week.
Higher-tier “Executive” members in the US and Canada will see annual fees increase from $120 to $130. The maximum annual 2 percent reward, associated with the Executive tier, will increase from $1,000 to $1,250.
This is the first membership price hike Costco has announced in seven years.
“To clear up some recent media speculation, I also want to confirm the $1.50 hot dog price is safe,” Costco’s new chief financial officer, Gary Millerchip, said in May.
"I came to [Sinegal] once, and I said, ‘Jim, we can’t sell this hot dog for a buck fifty. We are losing our rear ends.’ And he said, ‘If you raise the ef**** hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out,” Jelinek recalled in a 2018 presentation, 425 Business reported.
If I'm hosting an outdoor event with a group of people in the middle of summer where there's no easy access to drinking water, I'm not going to count on everyone bringing their own water in sufficient amounts and then have to worry about someone getting severely dehydrated. As much as they suck, sometimes disposables are necessary.