Costco began strictly enforcing a new policy this month that gives Executive Members exclusive early access to its warehouse stores, and the majority of the retailer's cardholders, who pay for a lower-tier membership, are not happy about being told to wait outside.
The warehouse giant's "VIP hour" reserves the first hour of shopping on weekdays and the first thirty minutes on Saturdays for customers who carry the $130-per-year Executive Membership. Gold Star and Business members, who pay $65 annually, must now cool their heels until 10 a.m. before they can walk through the doors. Costco employees have been instructed to turn away standard members who show up early, as the Daily Mail reported.
The policy first appeared in June. For roughly two months, enforcement was loose, some stores still let standard members in early. That grace period ended September 1, and the new rules now apply nationwide.
Under the new structure, Executive Members can enter stores at 9 a.m. on weekdays and 9:30 a.m. on Saturdays. Everyone else waits. The early-access window also extends to Costco's food courts, optical centers, and pharmacies, the New York Post reported. That means a Gold Star member who needs to pick up a prescription before work now has to plan around someone else's premium perk.
Costco says the benefit is designed to reward its most loyal customers with a quieter, less crowded shopping experience. The company also frames it as an incentive for lower-tier members to upgrade, effectively doubling their annual fee.
The math behind the move is straightforward. Fewer than half of Costco's members pay for the Executive tier, yet those customers account for roughly 73 percent of the company's total sales, a figure attributed to Business Insider. Costco is betting that the members who spend the most will appreciate the velvet rope, and that the members who don't will either pay up or accept the new reality.
Not everyone is accepting it quietly. Social media lit up with complaints from standard members who feel they are being treated as second-class shoppers inside a store they already pay to enter. One frustrated member summed up the sentiment plainly: "It should be for all members."
The frustration is understandable. A Gold Star membership is not free. It costs $65 a year, and it has always bought the same basic access to Costco's warehouses. Now that access comes with a time restriction, one that hits hardest on weekday mornings, when retirees, shift workers, and parents with young children often prefer to shop.
Costco insists the policy is simply an added benefit for premium members, not a takeaway from everyone else. But telling a paying customer she cannot enter a store she has a membership to, because she did not pay enough, is a distinction without much of a difference.
The move also fits a broader pattern. Costco has quietly rolled back several membership perks in recent years, trimming benefits that members once took for granted.
Costco is not operating in a vacuum. Sam's Club already offers a similar early-access program for its Plus Membership holders, and the warehouse sector has increasingly moved toward tiered loyalty models that reward higher spenders. In that context, Costco's VIP hour looks like a competitive response.
But competitive pressure does not automatically justify every decision. Costco built its brand on a simple promise: pay your membership, and you get access to bulk goods at honest prices. The company's renewal rates, above 90 percent in the United States and Canada, reflect decades of trust built on that bargain.
Eroding that trust by splitting the membership base into haves and have-nots is a gamble. The 90-percent renewal rate is a lagging indicator. It tells you where loyalty has been, not where it is going.
Meanwhile, the retailer has also drawn attention for quietly changing credit card terms in ways that hit members with lower credit scores, adding to the sense that the company is nickel-and-diming the customers who can least afford it.
The financial logic is hard to argue with on a spreadsheet. Executive Members drive nearly three-quarters of Costco's sales. Giving them an extra hour of uncrowded aisles is a low-cost way to reinforce their spending habits and discourage defection to competitors.
But the 65-dollar members are not freeloaders. They pay their dues. They fill their carts. They wait in the same checkout lines. And many of them drive out of their way to fill up at Costco gas stations, where the savings on fuel alone can justify the membership.
Telling those customers that their money is welcome but their presence before 10 a.m. is not sends a message that no amount of corporate PR can fully smooth over.
This is not the first time Costco has adjusted the unwritten social contract with its members. The company has cut prices on Kirkland products in response to shopper pushback on rising costs, a sign that it does listen when the pressure gets loud enough. Whether the VIP-hour backlash reaches that threshold remains to be seen.
Several questions remain unanswered. Costco has not clarified whether the early-access window will eventually extend to its gas stations, or whether exceptions exist for members who arrive before opening and are already in line. The company has not named a spokesperson to address the complaints publicly, and no official policy document has been released for members to review.
The enforcement mechanism itself is also murky. Employees will apparently check membership tier at the door, but Costco has not explained how that process will work during peak arrival times, or how it plans to handle the inevitable confrontations when a longtime Gold Star member is told to step aside.
For now, the policy stands. Costco is betting that its Executive Members will feel valued and that its standard members will either upgrade or grumble and keep shopping.
That bet may pay off. Costco has earned enormous goodwill over the years, and its core value proposition, bulk goods, low margins, the $1.50 hot dog, still holds. But goodwill is not inexhaustible, and every time a company tells a paying customer to wait outside, it spends a little of it.
When you start sorting your own members into first class and coach, don't be surprised when the folks in coach start looking at other airlines.