Costco shopper reveals the secret to turn your rewards points into cash — not many know about it

Costco memberships remain attractive for shoppers because of several perks including a generous return policy and deals that boost savings on grocery bills. While a basic paid membership is enough to get the benefits, Costco offers cash-back rewards for premium members. Reward points are typically redeemed to get products in exchange, but a TikTok creator named Kriss (@krissmemore) has shared a hack to convert them into cash.  

Cashing in on Coupons

Executive Members of Costco earn an annual 2% reward which goes up to $1,250 in total value. The reward points are collected with every qualified purchase on Costco, Costco.com, and Costco Travel. For executive memberships, customers need to shell out $130, as compared to $65 for Gold Star and Business memberships. 

The Reward certificate is mailed to the 'Primary Member' every year, and Costco's website says that the reward points can only be redeemed toward purchases of most merchandise through the front-end registers and can't be exchanged for cash. To find a way around this, Kriss shared a clip showing a hack that she learned from a Costco worker, and has tested herself since.

Kriss says that the Executive Members of Costo can go into the store and use their annual 2% reward points to buy merchandise. However, if they use them to buy a single item, "let's say a pack of bananas," the change is returned in cash. In her case, the creator says she used two of her coupons to buy just four items, and a worker at the register returned the change in cash. "So yeah, that's how you cheat the system," Kriss said at the end of her video.

Several viewers in the comment section thanked the creator for sharing the tip. Some even shared other tricks to use the reward points differently. "I use it towards my membership fee so sometimes it pays itself off," @hmontoya19 wrote.

Meanwhile, several viewers claimed that the rewards can absolutely be cashed in, even thought the Costco website claims otherwise. "I've been cashing my Costco reward check at the customer service for how many years now. They always give me cash, and I live in Washington State," @vanessaclemente9699 said. 

In any case, this adds another reason to the list of perks of getting a Costco membership. In the past couple of years, the Washington-based wholesale chain has been cracking down on membership sharing to prevent people from using paid accounts of their friends and family. Earlier this year, Costco announced that it's installing special devices at all store entrances to scan each membership card and make sure that the user is the original owner. The official statement added that all members must scan their physical or digital membership cards through a scanner machine.

As part of the crackdown, members who do not have their photo on their membership card will need to show a valid photo ID to a worker to enter the store and shop, CBS News reported.

For more such hacks and entertaining content, follow Kriss (@krissmemore) on TikTok.