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TrueEarnings Costco American Express Credit Card Review
I’ve been a Costco member for 5 years and right around the time that my wife and I started shopping there, we signed up for our primary credit card, the TrueEarnings® Card from Costco and American Express.
I’ll definitely be chatting about the virtues of cost savings from Costco on another day, but for today, I thought I’d chat about the virtues of the TrueEarnings Card.
But first, a disclaimer: before I get railed for talking about a credit card, know that I have never paid a fee or carried a balance on one. I’ve only used them to build my credit score and get rewards. If you don’t have that kind of discipline, this or any credit card is not for you. And I actually have used this American Express card for 5 years.
Costco American Express Credit Card Offers Higher than Average Rewards
Here are the card rewards you receive with the True Earnings card:
- 3% cash back for gasoline for annual gasoline purchases of up to $3,000 (1% thereafter)
- 2% cash back for restaurants
- 2% cash back for travel
- 1% everywhere else, including Costco.
Not bad, eh?
American Express does a great job at breaking down your spending in each category, much like Mint.com or Quicken. To the right, you can see a portion of my year-end summary. Using the yearly totals in each reward percentage category, I calculated that for 2009 the additional rewards (above and beyond the typical 1% most card rewards programs offer) earned me an additional $95 over the year.
How do you Redeem your Costco True Earnings Rewards?
This is one of my favorite things about the Costco American Express. Your card issues a cash rebate coupon annually. It can be redeemed at any U.S. Costco warehouse for cash or merchandise. I usually get my rebate in February and then have until August to redeem it. On one of our monthly trips to Costco, we redeem the card for cash.
Other Costco American Express Benefits:
Excellent cash rebate card rewards aside, the card offers a lot of other really nice benefits:
No annual fee with paid Costco membership.- All material purchases with the card get a 1-year extended warranty. This is actually a great benefit. When I purchased a Vizio TV from Costco, it came with a 1-year warranty and since I used the card to purchase it, I was, in effect, getting a free 2-year warranty on it.
- Free roadside assistance. Haven’t needed it yet, thankfully.
- Free 30-day credit score and report from Experian.
- Your card is also your Costco membership card (1 less card in your wallet).
- Costco only accepts American Express, PIN-based debit cards, cash, or check. It’s the only credit card you can use there. If you have a business and purchase from Costco a lot, the rewards can really add up vs. one of the other methods.
- 0% APR for 6 months.
- American Express truly does have great customer service. They are available 24/7 and I have requested multiple credit line increases and not been turned down.
Any Downside to the Card?
Not every merchant takes American Express. In my experience, about 90% do (but almost 100% of restaurants and grocers). For that reason, you might want to have a backup Visa or MasterCard debit card on hand. If you’re looking for one with rewards, it would be hard to beat Perkstreet Financial.
If you don’t shop at Costco and are looking for an American Express card with similar benefits, check out my American Express Blue Cash Everyday card review. It offers zero annual fee and a very generous rewards structure, much like the TrueEarnings Costco American Express. You may also want to check out American Express’s Blue Cash preferred card – my pick for the best grocery rewards card.
My name is G.E. Miller and 
I have found that shopping at Costco is risky. Obviously its great, but you have to really use your head when shopping there, and know prices of what is going on else where.
For example paper towels there are $3 more per pack than at my local grocery.
Very true. Just last weekend I purchased a large box of squeeze tuve apple sauce (kids love it). Happened to be at Walmart later that day and noticed Walmart carried it for over $1 dollar less (ie more than 15% less). I also agree that Costco’s paper products are way overpriced.
@ Paul – Agreed. I have found out price per volume on everything that I purchase there and then compare it to the store brand at other supermarkets that I shop at. We only buy items that come out lower per volume – and there are definitely a few of them. We’ve found that we save multiple times what we spend on the membership. We also don’t buy things that we don’t need (that’s where Costco makes most of its money, I’m sure).
Ciao GE. I’ve been using the same card for a little over a year now and it really is great. I’m also the type of person who pays it off every month though to get that free money. I got a little over $200 just from the amex and my costco card itself gave me another $60+. Even if you did spend slightly more on paper towels I think the cash back would still markedly be in your benefit.
I must add to the Amex praise. I’ve found that many large companies usually have terrible customer service. However, I’ve had the Blue Cash AMEX card for 8 years now and it’s awesome. I don’t carry a balance, but every issue or disputed charge I’ve ever had was handled in a matter of days with AMEX doing all of the legwork. I hate to sound like a commercial, but companies who do things right don’t often get the praise they deserve.
Costco always provides an extra 1 year warranty on electronics like TVs…so your Vizio would have come with the 1 year manufacturer warranty + the automatic 1 year Costco additional warranty = 2 year warranty. Does the Amex card add 1 more on for a total of 3 years?
I currently do a lot of air travel, so I’ve been using an Alaska Airlines credit card (through Bank of America). I’ll have to compare the value of the air miles to the Costo Amex rewards you mentioned, that would be interesting to see.
As a sidenote, why does Costco only accept American Express? I always forget and it bugs me every time I go in there. =-)
-Ryan
@ Ryan – No, I believe the Vizio had a one year-warranty and the Costo warranty overlapped with that (versus added to). The Amex added a year.
@G.E. – Hmm…they have had the 2 year warranty policy since 2007, perhaps you bought your Vizio before then? =-)
“The cash-and-carry retailer will provide a free two-year warranty for TVs and computers as part of the policy change.”
-Ryan
Thanks for the review.
We are Sam’s Club members and use a Discover More credit card (5% on rotating categories and 1% on everything else, extended warranty, great customer service, etc)…but I’ve been thinking about checking Costco out. Thanks!
I’m gonna check it out, looks better than regular amex rewards.
I came to your website when googling for True Earnings Costco Amex card reviews. I think I am going to get this card.
As an aside, I see that you recommend the Blue Cash card from Amex. I would suggest that you read the fineprint – “For the first $6,500 of Eligible Purchases, the rebate is 1.0% for Everyday Purchases and 0.5% for all other Eligible Purchases; for Eligible Purchases of $6,500.01 or more, the rebate percentage is 5.0% for Everyday Purchases and 1.25% for all other Eligible Purchases. “Everyday Purchases” are Eligible Purchases made at the following categories of U.S. merchants that are not departments of superstores or warehouse clubs: supermarkets, drug stores, and automobile gasoline stations (for purchases of automobile gasoline only, except that any purchase in excess of $400 at an automobile gasoline station will not qualify as an Everyday Purchase).”
Other credit cards that I would recommend are Citi Premier Pass for air travel, and Citi Forward for restaurants/entertainment. Of course, this is based on the assumption that you do not carry balances and choose credit cards based on rewards.
You need to buy food at Costco to really save, IE:
Case (12) of Hellmann’s mayo squeeze bottles (large size) was around $8.99. The local store by me sells the smaller ONE for around $4.59. How can you even compare??? I’m still amazed. They don’t always have deals like that, but when they do I just can’t pass it up.
Our family loves Costco. Thanks for the information you provided in this article.
Can anyone tell me if the trueearnings cards from amex offers an add-on year to the already 2 year warranty on tv’s bought at costco with the amex card? So in essence, my toshiba tv that is now crapping out is just over the two year mark (2 years and ten days) from when i purchased it at costco with the amex card…do you think i am still within the coverage period, i.e., is it a 3 year term because i used the amex card?
Mike,
I have the same problem. My Sony is 2 years and 2 months, looks like the main board crapped out. Did American Express Extended Waranty worked for you?
Thank you,
Brandon
Not a true rewards card, but anytime you can get a rewards card from Amex without an annual fee is a good thing, or at least in this case you are getting the value of the costco membership serving as your annual fee. The other thing to note is the maximum purchase gas on a year is $3000, which takes about 6-8 months to max out depending on the type of car you drive.
Some things to consider with this card:
The foreign currency conversion fee is 2.7%. This is better than many Chase cards, but still not as good as a Capital One.
Your cash back certificate is mailed to you only once a year, similar to your Executive membership reward. There’s no option for early redemption and you have to go to Costco to redeem. Although you could line up to customer service and redeem it for cash, you’ll likely use it to spend more.
Caution! Please look beyond this review for an idea of how Amex really works. I’m not certain how this particular thread ended up with so many postive remarks, but please do more research. I just had our credit limit reduced by 75%. Same story you’ll recieve elsewhere. My business has struggled not because of the economy (business total revenue increased 50% last year) but because of the lack of credit available to small business. Every card I had either raised interest rates to the roof or cut my limit to any balance owing. I still have no late/missed payments, I did use the card this winter because all of my other credit lines were reduced to a non-workable level overall. We’re through the worst part of the seasonal slowdown, so we’ll make it, but the folks in charge of credit nearly did us in. I implore you, please look beyond this one thread, you’ll get better information.
This is a personal consumer card, not a business card. I’m not sure how your small business getting its credit limit decreased applies to consumers who are looking to use this card, particularly when you said all of your other credit lines were completely removed? It sounds like Amex was the only one to give you any credit at all. Why should others take caution? I’m not sure I understand.
Tooltime may be referring to the business version of this card, which is similar to the consumer card, but offers 4% on gasoline, vs. 3% for the consumer, subject to earnings limitations.
If you are financing your small business with purchases from credit cards, I think there are other problems going on. You may have no late/missed payments which is good, but if the interest rate has been raised, you should have been able to lock the existing balances at the previous rate, as long as you agree to close the account and payoff the existing balance. It seems as if you accepted the interest rate increase by continuing to use the card.
Of course, by closing the card down you cannot increase the credit line but the interest rate would have been locked. I must reiterate that if you were using credit cards to help fund your business, then there are other fundamental problems going on.
American Express True Earning credit card…this is the credit card sponsored by Costco. While it does provide rebates do card holders know that if you have a late payment the company will charge you up to 27.24% of your balance for two months even if you pay the full amount one day late? ALSO know that they select an ‘attitude’ of your conversation…yes, the telephone receptionist not only records the date & time you call but will also write up/or select from a key their perception of your attitude! You may be paying a lot more than your rebate. So beware…
I have used the Costco True Rewards Credit Card now for some time, and find your review quite accurate. I like the this credit card. And like you, I use it the exact same way. I never carry a balance after making my monthly payment. That’s how credit cards make their money on the holder. So ultimately, we who exercise such fiscal discipline are considered “dead beats.”
Anyone else interested in a class action lawsuit against AMEX for not highlighting the annual rebate or e-mailing info to cardholder’s who have the Cost Amex and pay online?? The rebate is hidden along pages of junk in the paper statements and the rebate voucher looks like writing and not a real check or voucher! I have lost the last four years of getting this rebate as I pay online and AMEX said sorry, but there is no going back to refund the rebates to me! I am talking thousands of dollars I missed out on!