Costco Membership Rewards Certificate Caution

[cardme]

My fiancé just got back from Costco after trying to redeem her Costco Membership rewards certificate from her Executive Membership (the 2% rewards, not specifically the Citi Costco card Rewards certificate).  Apparently Costco had injected new fine print that stated that it could not be redeemed for cash anymore and it could only be redeemed for a Costco Cash card.

While I understand this isn't directly correlated with the Citi Costco card's Rewards certificate (yet), both of their policies used to align pretty well (in that you could redeem both for cash at Costco).  I'd exercise some caution should you have been overly reliant on this card previously as I wouldn't be surprised if there will be a surprise next year when we all go to redeem the reward certificates.

[SpaethCo]

It's not exactly new fine print.  I could only find archives going back to 2012, but under "Using the 2% Reward Certificate" it states:  Rewards may be used toward purchases of merchandise only  ( https://web.archive.org/web/20120920073413/https://www.costco.com/executive-rewards.html )

This year they just started actually enforcing it and doubling it up with even more notes specifically saying "not redeemable for cash."  To me it doesn't feel like they're trying to sneak it in when they included this insert with the reward certificate this year:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50940008903_2f01f6d7fd_c.jpg

Meanwhile, the Costco Anywhere Visa terms have always said that the certificate is redeemable for cash.  

Credit card reward certificates are redeemable through December 31 of the year issued in a single transaction at any U.S. Costco warehouse, including in Puerto Rico, for merchandise or cash back.

https://www.citi.com/credit-cards/additional-info/citi.action?ID=AdditionalInfo-CostcoAnywhereVisa

Going back to when Amex issued the True Earnings card, the rewards rules have always specifically included the option to redeem the credit card certificate for cash.

[TheAuthorizedUser]

Grab a 40 pack of water valued around $2 and pay for it with the certficate and watch them give you the rest back in cash 👍

[staticvoidmain]

I know you explained it, but you might want to change the title. It's misleading and not really related to the Citi Costco Card, or any credit card. (I can have a Citi Costco card and not be an executive member, and this caution does not apply to me or my experiences).