This offer has the 10% service fee added to your purchase. If I'm not mistaken, anyone can go to Sam's Club and make purchases at any time, as long as they pay the 10% service fee.
Snotick said: This offer has the 10% service fee added to your purchase. If I'm not mistaken, anyone can go to Sam's Club and make purchases at any time, as long as they pay the 10% service fee.You are mistaken. You need the pass validated at the Member Services desk.
Which is better Sams Club or Costco? (I know you Costco employees are fiercely loyal and maybe rightly so, but in real life which store genuinely has the best day to day deals?)
thebee
Member
posted: Feb. 9, 2010 @ 10:47a
Go with Costco. Wallyworld/Sams is the strong arm of Chinese exports gripping the throat of the US economy. Of course Costco might not be any better.
meps said: Which is better Sams Club or Costco? (I know you Costco employees are fiercely loyal and maybe rightly so, but in real life which store genuinely has the best day to day deals?)
For me its Costco due to geography and gas purchases. The closest Costco is 5 minutes from my house and has a medium volume of people traffic out of the three locations in town. It also has the cheapest or one of the cheapest gas stations anywhere near my work or home. Sam's Club is a 01-5 minutes drive, is in the middle of a very busy shopping center and has no gas station.
However my father-in-law prefers Sam's Club (and he is a member for both) because you can go there really early (6 or 7 am) and they also have a way to fax in an order and its ready for you to just pickup. Not sure if either of those are specific to business accounts or not.
captainjrl said: meps said: Which is better Sams Club or Costco? (I know you Costco employees are fiercely loyal and maybe rightly so, but in real life which store genuinely has the best day to day deals?)
For me its Costco due to geography and gas purchases. The closest Costco is 5 minutes from my house and has a medium volume of people traffic out of the three locations in town. It also has the cheapest or one of the cheapest gas stations anywhere near my work or home. Sam's Club is a 01-5 minutes drive, is in the middle of a very busy shopping center and has no gas station.
However my father-in-law prefers Sam's Club (and he is a member for both) because you can go there really early (6 or 7 am) and they also have a way to fax in an order and its ready for you to just pickup. Not sure if either of those are specific to business accounts or not.
I prefer Sams club - compared prices of items we buy the most and Sams came out to be only marginally cheaper but the deal maker was that if you have young ones - Sams and Costco carry different brands of diapers - we like Pampers which Sams has but not CostCO. An yr ago when we had compared, some of the things that were noticably cheaper in Sams were whole wheat bread, Dreft, Charmin Ultrasoft bath tissues and bounty paper towels.
Oleg
Member
posted: Feb. 9, 2010 @ 11:04a
Sam's Club here seems marginally cheaper, while Costco seems to have better selection, especially in its food section where Costco stocks quite a bit of upscale merchandise like relatively exotic imported cheeses while Sams Club is more commodity-oriented.
Location is certainly a deciding factor for us. In the Seattle area there's 3 Sams outlets for the entire region while we have 5 Costcos within 20 minutes of our home.
10% Service Fee?!?! WTF! I love how they hide that in the fine print. To me, this is a frigid deal. I thought it'd be interesting to try a shopping trip at Sams Club (been a Costco faithful for as long as I can remember), but that FINE PRINT 10% "SERVICE" FEE totally kills the deal.
I'd try costo if they didn't cost $50 and I didn't have to drive 20-30 miles to get to one. My Sams membership was $10 last year and $25 this year, plus there is one less than two miles away.
I used to be a Sam member. I switch to Costco simply due to the curiosity. Both of them are side-by-side in neighborhood. Sam's products are cheaper. I especially miss the big bag Ghredaly chocolate chips. You cannot get it from anywhere else with that unit price. The member fee is cheaper too.
Oh, I am waiting for the end of my Costco due and will switch back to Sam again.
fatwellatio said: 10% Service Fee?!?! WTF! I love how they hide that in the fine print. To me, this is a frigid deal. I thought it'd be interesting to try a shopping trip at Sams Club (been a Costco faithful for as long as I can remember), but that FINE PRINT 10% "SERVICE" FEE totally kills the deal. If you join you don't pay the 10%. If you don't, you pay it. This the way it's always been with the guest passes. And it doesn't totally kill the deal. I am sure there are still very good deals there even with the 10% surcharge.
dancingboy said: Oh, I am waiting for the end of my Costco due and will switch back to Sam again.Why not just get a refund of the fee at Costco and go back to Sams? Or are you waiting until the end of the year to do that?
perpetualapprentice said: It's the service fee that isn't applicable in CA, SC, or Elmsford, NY, not the pass.That is correct, although I should say that the AH manager at the Sams Club in Elmsford, NY once had security tell me to leave the store after the cashier refused to let me use the guest pass, claiming it was not for purchasing. The supervisor and manager did not correct the cashier and they would not let me purchase. And Sams Club corporate never responded to my complaints.
wouldnt wait TOO long.. all sams here CLOSING UP.. !!!!!!!
billrubin said: dancingboy said: Oh, I am waiting for the end of my Costco due and will switch back to Sam again.Why not just get a refund of the fee at Costco and go back to Sams? Or are you waiting until the end of the year to do that?
jonnashville said: Snotick said: This offer has the 10% service fee added to your purchase. If I'm not mistaken, anyone can go to Sam's Club and make purchases at any time, as long as they pay the 10% service fee.You are mistaken. You need the pass validated at the Member Services desk.
I called. You do need the one day pass in conjunction with the 10% fee to shop there. This is still a luke warm deal. A year ago, Allstate had a 1 day pass that waved the 10% service fee.
acefuture
Member
posted: Feb. 9, 2010 @ 2:54p
Snotick said: I called. You do need the one day pass in conjunction with the 10% fee to shop there. This is still a luke warm deal. A year ago, Allstate had a 1 day pass that waved the 10% service fee.
Yes, the Allstate pass was a great deal. I printed several and went to Sam's a few times over a month long period. Hoping they (Allstate) do it again.
idajean said: wouldnt wait TOO long.. all sams here CLOSING UP.. !!!!!!!
billrubin said: dancingboy said: Oh, I am waiting for the end of my Costco due and will switch back to Sam again.Why not just get a refund of the fee at Costco and go back to Sams? Or are you waiting until the end of the year to do that?
That's exactly what I worry about. As Sam and Costco are side-by-side here, you see big difference in terms of the car numbers parked. The number of customers is so high to make Costco way more dirty and smelly than Sam.
My wife loves the coupons in Costco. I don't want to fight that over Sam.
idajean said: wouldnt wait TOO long.. all sams here CLOSING UP.. !!!!!!! Mind citing your source for that?
All I have heard is that Sam's is outsourcing the product demos with about 11,000 employees laid off consequently, and they are closing a very few under performing stores...
Just back from my first Sam's visit. It's virtually identical to Costco in all respects, including a very high percent of the products, which seemed to be a little bit cheaper on average. They did not charge a 10% fee on a temporary pass (in CA). One thing that struck me was that the place was practically deserted, which is completely unlike Costco.
It remains to be seen if the quality of their toilet paper measures up
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