Sam’s Club Gas for Members Only

Written by nickel - 10 Comments

I stopped for gas at Sam’s Club the other night and noticed a sign on the pump saying that, as of February 1st, gas sales will be limited to members only. Thus far anyone has been able to buy, but Club members have received a $0.05/gallon discount. I’m curious to see what (if anything) this will end up doing to their prices. When they first started selling gas at our local Sam’s, it was a pretty good deal… The ‘list price’ was the same as all of the local stations, so we really were getting a nickel off per gallon. Their base price has, however, floated upward over time, such that we’re now only saving a penny or two per gallon relative to ‘typical’ prices in our area. This hasn’t been a problem, though, as our local Kroger has since opened a gas station. Not only do they have low prices, but we also get a $0.10/gallon discount for every $100 worth of groceries that we buy. Needless to say, we buy most of our gas there. Still, it sure would be nice if Sam’s Club would couple their move to members only gas with more aggressive pricing. I doubt it’ll happen, but a guy can hope, can’t he?

Published on January 30th, 2006 - 10 Comments
Filed under: Automotive
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Comments (scroll down to add your own):

Our local Costco sells gas to members only and the price is about $.10 lower than the BP station in front of the store (I’m sure BP didn’t really appreciate Costco’s choice of location.)

With any luck, your Sam’s club will follow suit.
Comment by Jeremy — Jan 30th 2006 @ 1:59 pm
My local BJ’s has a member price that is on par or a few cents more/less than the best in the area, which is generally about 10-30 cents less than anywhere else in town (I know where to get the cheapest gas).

One of the gas stations that tends to be cheap doesn’t get my business anymore, though, even though they are on my way to/from work; bad service I can understand, but not from an owner/manager.

BJ’s non-member price tends to be 20-30 cents more expensive than the stations right nearby.
Comment by Blaine Moore — Jan 30th 2006 @ 2:40 pm
I use Costco too. Good prices all the time! (Plus free munchies around 11 am on Saturdays and Sundays!)
Comment by FMF — Jan 30th 2006 @ 2:54 pm
Oh! And I forgot to mention — my company picks up the annual membership fee to Costco as one of my benefits.
Comment by FMF — Jan 30th 2006 @ 2:55 pm
Our Costco doesn’t take credit cards at their pumps. I find that I can do better with my gas rebate card at a nearby gas station. With gas prices as they are, I save a dime a gallon with the 3% rebate.
Comment by mbhunter — Jan 30th 2006 @ 6:38 pm
FWIW, Sam’s Club here has always required membership in order to buy gas. But then again, I’ve always been able to get a much better deal by driving across the state line. (The _closest_ I’ve seen prices get between the two states is 30c/gal. 50c/gal is not uncommon and 75c/gal is not unheard-of. I might pay city prices if I drove enough that I had to refill on weekdays, but I don’t, so I don’t.)

I do miss the Speedway 2c/gal discount for rewards members, though.
Comment by Matt — Jan 31st 2006 @ 1:26 am
mbhunter: That’s one thing that I forgot to mention… While Sam’s Club doesn’t take credit cards inside the store, they do take them at the pump. So I can still cash in on those juicy 5% credit card rewards for gas purchases.

Comment by nickel — Jan 31st 2006 @ 7:21 am
Generally speaking, gas stations don’t usually make a lot of money from the gasoline sales. They often have to sell it at a loss of a cent or two per gallon in order to stay competitive with others in the area.

They make money from people buying candy bars and extra services. So it really makes a lot of sense that Costco would make the gas ‘members only’ as the members are the ones who buy the junk inside so they can afford the pumps.
Comment by Todd — Feb 2nd 2006 @ 5:53 am
I can echo Todd’s point about where gas stations make the most money, on the convenience store. Costco’s just doing the exact same thing… except they have a WAREHOUSE.

I rely on Costco to suppress the prices of gas stations around it so I can take advantage of the extra 5% cashback using a card Costco won’t take at the pump.
Comment by jim — Feb 2nd 2006 @ 8:51 am
Our Sams club(Boston) doesn’t do gas but our Stop and Shop does. They do 5 cents off if you have a S+S card and another 5 cents if you bought $50 in groceries. I’m not positive, it might be 10 cents. In calculating the price of their food I don’t think it is a great deal since you end up spending more on less food.
Comment by femmme — Jan 1st 2008 @ 10:45 am