Costco Cash vs OBC

[Naterfan]

Looking at the opening day prices posts and I noticed that some folks are getting crazy ($500+) Costco Cash and from past experience, TA's usually provide $100-200-ish in OBC. I realize the Costco money can't be used on the ship, but I'm sure there's something I need at Costco. Am I missing something or misunderstanding something as to why more people don't use Costco?

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Looking at the opening day prices posts and I noticed that some folks are getting crazy ($500+) Costco Cash and from past experience, TA's usually provide $100-200-ish in OBC. I realize the Costco money can't be used on the ship, but I'm sure there's something I need at Costco. I'm I missing something or misunderstanding something?

"Missing" or "misunderstanding" what?

 

[Naterfan]

Sorry, fixed.

 

[FigmentSpark]

Costco will not give you the personalized service a TA at a regular travel agency would. You phone Costco and deal with whomever answers. But they are fully registered as a travel agency, not an aggregator, so they can book the same things a regular TA can. You get more, because it's Costco. They're huge and people pay to shop there, so there's more margin to return something to customers.

 

[Naterfan]

Please don't get me wrong, I love my DU TA, she's awesome. I was just wondering why folks choose Costco over a TA and vice-versa, especially when looking at the difference in "rewards".

 

[JWG]

We use a TA because I don’t want to have to call Costco. I send an email to our TA right before bookings open and she spends the hours on hold and gets us what we want. For me letting her do that and me only having to send one email, I get a couple hundred bucks. Works for me.

 

[Geomom]

Amounts: From what I've read on here, people who use Costco get 8% of the cost of their cruise back as a Costco card after their cruise. TA's might give 5% as OBC for 'new' bookings, and 2.5% for OBB/transfers.

As far as why 'not' Costco--not everyone has one near them or shops at them. While we have one 'near' us, I've never shopped at one, so it would be useless for us. I also prefer having the OBC to lower my 'on ship' costs.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Please don't get me wrong, I love my DU TA, she's awesome. I was just wondering why folks choose Costco over a TA and vice-versa, especially when looking at the difference in "rewards".

Not everyone has a/or uses Costco. Some people prefer their personal TAs to handle trips for them. It's all personal choice.

 

[Disneypeach]

Agree with others that it is dependent on your personal situation. I shop at Costco anyway so use them as my TA because they give more back (in the form of the Costco card) at 8% but now executive membership will get an additional 2% back on travel. I don't really need much from them as I've gotten more experienced in planning thanks in great part to the folks on the DIS cruise forum!

 

[L8blumr2]

We love our Costco cash card. I was used to making our travel arrangements since I am a frequent traveler for work and prefer to make my own reservations. When I found out that all I have to do is call Costco to get several hundred dollars to spend there, it was a no-brainer! And I don't even have to go to the store, everything is online.

 

[cvjw]

And, if you use the costco citi card to pay for the cruise, you get an extra 3% back in rewards. Booking thru costco is really a no brainer for us.

3% costco citi card rewards
2% executive Costco membership rewards
Really nice costco gift cards after the cruise

Plus if you transfer your reservation that you made on the ship, you also get the 10% discount on the cruise, plus the on board credit that Disney cruise line gives you for booking on board.

 

[dtrain]

My formula has been pretty simple for our last 3 trips: Book placeholder on ship, assign to Costco, get $200 OBC for 7 day cruise and 10% off price of cruise, get 8% cash card back from Costco after cruise, cash out card at Costco and use towards next booking, repeat.

YMMV as to whether Costco will cash out your cards, I think it's a state to state thing. But since Costco Travel won't accept the cash cards as payment, that's how I do it in AZ.

 

[JRV]

We just booked three rooms through Costco for 2019 westbound PC.

Pros: we will receive almost $2000 in Costco cash cards, plus 2% for executive membership and 3% for using Costco Visa card.

Con: took over 5 hours to book the rooms. We live in California and got up at 5am to start the process. It took about 30 minutes to reach a Costco travel agent, then Disney’s phone lines were busy for almost an hour, finally had to wait 2 hours for a Disney representative to come on the line once we were able to get through.

It did take an extraordinarily long time to book but given what we receive back, I would use Costco again in a heart beat.

 

[Bethany10]

We're costco members and I did look at the cash card vs OBC. If we had been able to go on the 3 day this coming summer I wanted to do then we would have booked using Costco. For a 2019 trip I'm going to book darn it, I called the TA. Why? Because I knew the TA was going to be the one spending hours on the phone dealing with opening day madness. This is going to be a 20th anniversary trip for just DH and I, and there are several on board things we'll do as it's just the two of us. (Mixology, palo brunch etc) i just didn't want to deal with booking those things, and the OBC will lower our on ship costs. In this instance that has more value to me.

Now, if we're looking at going again as a family of 4 (When our focus would be more on excursions and doing things as a family) then I'd probably book through Costco. That being said, the length of the 2019 trip is short enough we're also not talking hundreds of dollars difference between the cash card and the OBC.

 

[MickeyCruzin]

I just booked my 3rd cruise. I booked the first two myself and this was the first time using costco. It was great. I called at 9:00am PST and waited 20 minutes. The travel agent came on the line and I said I was a teacher and only had 30 minutes before I had to go back to work. She took all my information and I told her what i needed done and she said to go back to work and she would call me back when she was done. I got an email 3 hours later that the room I wanted was booked and that I would get a $520 Costco cash card. Had I have booked myself I would have spent hours on the phone and would not have gotten a gift card. I got paid basically to not do anything.

 

[moet7]

And, if you use the costco citi card to pay for the cruise, you get an extra 3% back in rewards. Booking thru costco is really a no brainer for us.

3% costco citi card rewards
2% executive Costco membership rewards
Really nice costco gift cards after the cruise

Plus if you transfer your reservation that you made on the ship, you also get the 10% discount on the cruise, plus the on board credit that Disney cruise line gives you for booking on board.

Are you saying you get 3% for using their Visa card PLUS another 2% for being an executive member?

 

[tink1970]

Please don't get me wrong, I love my DU TA, she's awesome. I was just wondering why folks choose Costco over a TA and vice-versa, especially when looking at the difference in "rewards"

-The nearest Costco is 56 miles away.
-I have no idea what I would spend the amount of money we would have received back at Costco.
-$1000 OBC was easily spent however.

Everyone is different and there's no right or wrong way. That's just why having a TA works for me (and if it obc isn't high enough, I don't even bother with them).

 

[havaneselover]

I started with a TA from small world vacation. She was very nice but I always felt like I was bothering her and she wasn't that helpful. My last and next cruise are through Costco. Getting a lot more back with extra 2%, service is generally good and I actually prefer calling a call center because I don't feel badly about bugging someone. I am seasoned and do a lot of research so I am only using a TA for cash back/OBC.

 

[JW9DVC]

We use a TA because I don’t want to have to call Costco. I send an email to our TA right before bookings open and she spends the hours on hold and gets us what we want. For me letting her do that and me only having to send one email, I get a couple hundred bucks. Works for me.

Many of us know more than Travel Agents do in the first place. Makes Costco a no brainer really. Not everyone likes free money though.

 

[DCLCrazy64622]

Looking at the opening day prices posts and I noticed that some folks are getting crazy ($500+) Costco Cash and from past experience, TA's usually provide $100-200-ish in OBC. I realize the Costco money can't be used on the ship, but I'm sure there's something I need at Costco. Am I missing something or misunderstanding something as to why more people don't use Costco?

We use Costco bc they have cheap gas prices. You can use the Costco cards at the pump. If you have $400 in Costco cards and spend $30 a week in gas, that’s about 3 months worth of free gas in your car.