Best Credit Cards for Costco

Costco, with its vast offerings of groceries, household essentials, and so much more, is a popular place to shop for many Canadians.

For the cost of an annual membership, members gain access to good prices on bulk quantities of popular brands, including Costco’s own Kirkland brand, to help them stock up for less.

Given that the average trip to Costco ends with an overflowing grocery cart, it’s no surprise that shoppers have often asked us about which credit card is best for this notable spending category.

In this article, we provide details on the three best credit cards for maximizing the rewards you earn on your Costco spend, plus we include a few honourable mentions to round out the list.

Earning Points at Costco

Costco warehouses can be a great place to shop for groceries, cleaning supplies, pharmacy items, and more.

It can be particularly beneficial if you’re buying for a larger household since its offerings often focus on bulk quantities at a competitive price.

Plus, Costco generally has similar product offerings to those offered by other large Canadian grocery stores (e.g., Metro, Loblaws, Sobeys), though they typically focus on only a couple of brands rather than a wide array of brand options.

Costco also has some cool bigger ticket items like kitchen appliances, TVs/electronics, and garden/yard supplies which can add a considerable amount of money to your Costco bill.

Given how easy it is to spend a lot at a Costco warehouse, you certainly don’t want to be wasting the opportunity to earn points to help fuel your travel dreams or to offset the cost of life.

That said, earning points at Costco comes with a couple of hurdles.

First, the warehouses exclusively accept Mastercard (plus debit and cash), which (mostly) leaves your Visa and American Express credit cards out of the picture.

The reason for this single card-type monopoly is that Costco and Mastercard have an exclusive contract that lets Costco negotiate lower credit card fees which in turn helps them keep their costs down.

Comparatively, Costco US warehouses have an exclusive contract with Visa and do not accept Mastercard.

The second hurdle to keep in mind when choosing the best credit card for Costco is that the Costco warehouse doesn’t code as “grocery” spending on your statement.

Costco purchases…