The best cards for Costco: Get the most rewards from these cards.

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Contrary to popular belief, the best card for Costco purchases is not the Costco Anywhere Visa® Card. While the card is one of the best cards for gas and is a decent card for rewards on travel purchases, you might be surprised that other cards earn better rewards at Costco and on Costco.com. Here are the cards you should be using for your Costco purchases in-store and online.

Our picks for the best cards to use at Costco

For most people, these will be the best cards to use at Costco and Costco.com:

• The U.S. Bank Altitude® Reserve Visa Infinite® Card offers the most rewards of any card on Costco in-store purchases if you use Apply Pay, Google Pay, or Samsung pay to pay in-store. The card also offers an extended warranty benefit, which the Costco Anywhere Visa® Card no longer offers.
• The Costco Anywhere Visa® Card and Costco Anywhere Visa® Business Card will give you 4% cash back (as Costco Cash) when you use it to pay at the pump at Costco.
• The TD Bank Double Up Credit Card will give you unlimited 2% cash back on all your purchases, including Costco.com, and you can redeem your rewards right away. Plus the card has no annual fee and offers an extended warranty.

The best credit cards to use at Costco

Here are the best cards for Costco purchases at Costco stores, online at Costco.com and at Costco gas stations.

	Best use at Costco	Other rewards
U.S. Bank Altitude® Reserve Visa Infinite® Card Annual fee: $400	Best rewards at Costco in-store with mobile payment and extended warranty: Earns 3 points per dollar if you use Apple Pay®, Google Pay™, or Samsung Pay. Plus the card gives you an extra year of warranty coverage on the things you buy. Points can be redeemed for 1 cent of cash back each, or 1.5 cents toward travel purchases. Up to 4.5% in travel rewards for purchases at Costco. More on the U.S. Bank Altitude® Reserve Visa Infinite® Card.	5x on prepaid hotels and car rentals booked in the Altitude Rewards center. 1x on all other eligible purchases.
Chase Freedom Unlimited® Annual fee: $0	Best card to use at Costco.com with extended warranty: Adds an additional year of warranty to eligible warranties of 3 years or less, plus get 1.5% cash back at Costco. A few years ago, the Costco Anywhere Visa® Card dropped its extended warranty benefit. The Chase Freedom Unlimited offers a combination of decent rewards, a great extended warranty benefit and no annual fee on a Visa card. More on the Chase Freedom Unlimited®.	5% on travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards. 3% at drugstores. 3% on dining at restaurants, including takeout and eligible delivery services. 1.5% on all other purchases.
Bank of America® Customized Cash Rewards credit card Annual fee: $0	Best card to use at Costco for Bank of America Preferred Rewards customers: Earns up to 3.5% cash back at wholesale clubs (2% base cash back, plus a 75% rewards bonus) when you have Bank of America Preferred Rewards with Platinum Honors. *Cash back rewards in 2% and 3% categories are limited to a combined $2,500 of spending each quarter. More on the Bank of America® Customized Cash Rewards credit card.	3% on a chosen select category.* 2% cash back at grocery stores and wholesale clubs.* 1% cash back on all other purchases
Costco Anywhere Visa® Card Annual fee: $0 Requires paid Costco membership	Best for gas at Costco: Earns 4% on eligible gas and EV charging, including at Costco. Plus 2% on purchases at Costco and Costco.com. *You’ll receive your total accumulated rewards once annually, after your February statement closes, as a reward certificate, which can only be redeemed at a U.S. Costco location. More on the Costco Anywhere Visa® Card by Citi.	3% on restaurants and eligible travel. 1% on all other purchases.
Costco Anywhere Visa® Business Card Annual fee: $0 Requires paid Costco membership	Best for gas at Costco for business owners: Earns 4% on eligible gas and EV charging, including at Costco. Plus 2% on purchases at Costco and Costco.com. *You’ll receive your total accumulated rewards once annually, after your February statement closes, as a reward certificate, which can only be redeemed at a U.S. Costco location. The only substantive difference between this card and the Costco Anywhere Visa® Card is that this is a small business credit card. More on the Costco Anywhere Visa® Card by Citi.	3% on restaurants and eligible travel. 1% on all other purchases.

My take on the best Costco cards

While the Costco Anywhere Visa® Card is a overall decent card, offering excellent rewards on gas, travel, and dining, it’s not a great card to use on purchases in-store at Costco or on Costco.com.

First, Costco Visa offers only 2% rewards in-store and on Costco.com. Any no-annual-fee fee 2% rewards card can give you similar rewards on every purchase, plus you aren’t limited to redeeming your rewards in-store at Costco once a year in February. Additionally, the Costco Visa no longer offers an extra year of extended warranty coverage on the things you buy. That benefit was quietly cut a few years after Costco switched its co-branded cards to Citibank and Visa.

So, which card should you use for Costco purchases?

Far-and-away, the best card to use at Costco for in-store purchases is the U.S. Bank Altitude® Reserve Visa Infinite® Card. Costco stores accept mobile wallet purchases and when you use Apple Pay®, Google Pay™, or Samsung Pay, you’ll get 3% cash back rewards (or 4.5% toward travel) with the Altitude Reserve. Plus, the Altitude Reserve has an extended warranty benefit, which can give you an extra year of warranty coverage on your Costco purchases.

For your Costco.com purchases, you can’t use a mobile wallet, so you should consider whether you need extended warranty coverage. If you are purchasing household consumables or groceries, you probably don’t care about warranty coverage, so you should use a 2% rewards card that offers cash back rewards. If getting an extra year of warranty would be to your advantage, use a card that will give you 1.5% rewards with an extended warranty benefit, like the Chase Freedom Unlimited card.

What to consider when choosing a card to use at Costco

If you have a Costco membership, chances are you spend a significant amount of money at the store. You likely buy a substantial amount of groceries there and it’s probably your first choice for household consumables. There’s a good chance that it’s your go-to store for electronics like computers and household appliances, and you probably fill your car with Costco gas.

Your needs and priorities will change based on what you are purchasing. If buying a new laptop, you likely value getting an extended warranty over a marginal half a percent cash back. But you don’t need that extended warranty on the gas you purchase—getting the most cash back at the pump is probably paramount.

Here’s what you should consider when selecting the card you use for your Costco purchases.

Extended warranties: Important for expensive purchases and you won’t get one with your Costco credit card.

If you’re buying expensive electronics or household appliances at Costco, using a credit card with an extended warranty is a smart move. Getting an additional year of warranty coverage from your credit card can be an incredibly valuable benefit that you’ll wish you had when your laptop fails a few days out of warranty.

Unfortunately, Costco-branded credit cards no longer offer an extended warranty. Perhaps one of the biggest misconceptions (that we’ve heard repeated by Costco employees!) is that the Costco-branded credit card offers an extended warranty. It doesn’t. Citi dropped the extended warranty benefit from most of its credit cards, including the Costco cards. If you want an extended warranty, you’ll need to use another card.

And don’t expect to simply return an item if it fails outside of warranty. Costco only accepts returns for most electronics and major appliances for 90 days.

Payment methods accepted by Costco and Costco.com

When it comes to credit cards, Costco accepts only Visa cards in-store. That means there’s no way to use your American Express, Mastercard, or Discover in-store. You can also use a Mastercard online—Costco used to allow you to use a Discover card online, but the company dropped that option from the website last year.

You’ll notice that the cards on our list are all Visa card for this reason. Even though some American Express and Discover cards offer better rewards than a 2% cash back card for online purchases or at warehouse clubs, you can’t use them at Costco, so they’re not considered on our list.

You earn your Executive Membership rewards, even if you pay with another card

If you have an Executive Membership, you’ll earn 2% rewards, up to $1,000 each year, on most purchases at Costco, Costco.com, and Costco Travel. These rewards get issued as a certificate that comes with your membership renewal notice and looks a lot like the reward certificate you receive if you use a Costco credit card.

But it’s important to remember that your credit card rewards and your Executive Membership rewards are separate. You will earn your 2% Executive Membership rewards even if you pay with a non-Costco credit card. That means you can feel free to use another card that offers better rewards or better benefits without losing out on the rewards you earn as an Executive member.

Costco is not a supermarket or grocery store.

If you have a card that earns bonus cash back on groceries or purchases at supermarkets, don’t expect that card to earn elevated rewards at Costco. Credit card transactions are processed with a Merchant Category Code that identifies the type of merchant and charges from Costco will likely be identified as charges made at a warehouse club, rather than a grocery store. Many grocery rewards cards explicitly exclude Costco by name in their reward terms.

More on the best cards to use at Costco

Here’s a bit more detail on the best credit cards to use at Costco.

U.S. Bank Altitude® Reserve Visa Infinite® Card: 4.5% rewards toward travel Costco with a mobile wallet.

If you’re looking for total rewards, use the U.S. Bank Altitude® Reserve Visa Infinite® Card gives you the most rewards at Costco when you pay in-store with your mobile wallet. Paying with Apple Pay, Google Pay, or Samsung Pay will get you 3 points per dollar at Costco. You can cash your points in for 3% cash back rewards or 4.5% back toward travel when you book through the U.S. Bank travel portal.

Not only does the card earn the most rewards at Costco, but it includes an extended warranty benefit that can give you an extra year of warranty coverage on the items you buy. The U.S. Bank Altitude® Reserve Visa Infinite® Card is by far the best card to use at Costco in-store.

More about the U.S. Bank Altitude® Reserve Visa Infinite® Card

The U.S. Bank Altitude® Reserve Visa Infinite® Card is a premium travel rewards card from U.S. Bank. It offers incredible rewards on mobile wallet purchases, an easy-to-use travel and restaurants credit and a limited amount of airport lounge access. The U.S. Bank Altitude® Reserve Visa Infinite® Card has an annual fee of $400.

When you make purchases with your card using your mobile wallet, you’ll earn 3 points per dollar, making the card effectively a “3% anywhere” card. The Altitude Reserve can be used with Apple Pay®, Google Pay™. and Samsung Pay. You’ll earn 5 points per dollar on prepaid hotel stays and car rentals booked in the Altitude Rewards Center and 1 point per dollar everywhere else you swipe your card. Points can be redeemed for 1 cent of cash back each, or for 1.5 cents worth of travel through the U.S. Bank travel portal.

The card comes with a $325 annual statement credit that applies automatically toward eligible travel purchases or dining purchases. You’ll get a Priority Pass Select membership with 8 free visits to airport lounges and a $100 statement credit to reimburse your TSA PreCheck or Global Entry membership fee once every four years.

You can learn more about the benefits and rewards of the U.S. Bank Altitude® Reserve Visa Infinite® Card in our card overview of the Altitude Reserve.

Rewards of U.S. Bank Altitude® Reserve Visa Infinite® Card

+	5x	Prepaid hotels and car rentals booked in the Altitude Rewards Center
	3x	Mobile wallet purchases
	3x	Travel, including airlines, hotels, car rentals, taxicabs, limousines, passenger trains, and cruise line companies
	1%	All other purchases

The points you earn with your U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve card are worth 1 cent each when used for cash back or 1.5 cents each when used for travel.

Chase Freedom Unlimited®: Extended warranty plus 1.5% cash back

The best card to use at Costco.com depends largely on what you are buying. If you are buying electronics, appliances, or other durable goods and want the protection of an extra year of extended warranty coverage on your purchases, the best card to use is the Chase Freedom Unlimited®. (The Costco Anywhere Visa® Card no longer gives you a second year of warranty protection for free. Costco and Citi quietly dropped that benefit several years ago.)

With the Freedom Unlimited, you’ll get 1.5% cash back on your purchases, plus be covered by an extra year of Chase extended warranty protection for free on most things you buy that have a manufacturer’s warranty of three years or less..

More about the Chase Freedom Unlimited®

The Chase Freedom Unlimited® offers cardmembers 1.5% rewards on all purchases. It is the essential “everywhere else card” in the Chase Ultimate Rewards® ecosystem.

Although the Chase Freedom Unlimited® is marketed as a “1.5% everywhere” card, it offers plenty of bonus spending categories. You get 5% on travel purchased through Chase Travel℠, 3% on dining at restaurants including eligible takeout and delivery, and 3% on drugstore purchases. Although rewards are marketed as cash back, the card earns Chase Ultimate Rewards® points behind the scenes, which can be transferred to a premium Ultimate Rewards® card and redeemed for greater value.

For a card with no annual fee, the Chase Freedom Unlimited® comes with a healthy set of benefits, including purchase protection, extended warranty, secondary auto rental collision damage waiver insurance, and trip cancellation/interruption insurance.

Read our card overview of the Chase Freedom Unlimited® to learn more about the card and its benefits and rewards.

Rewards of the Chase Freedom Unlimited®

	5%	Travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
	5%	Lyft rides (through March 31, 2025)
	3%	Dining, including eligible takeout and delivery
	3%	Drugstore purchases
	1.5%	All other purchases

Bank of America® Customized Cash Rewards credit card: Up to 3.5% when you have Platinum Honors

If you hold large deposit account balances with Bank of America or investment accounts with Merrill and can qualify for Bank of America Preferred Rewards Platinum Honors status, you’ll get a 75% rewards bonus on many of Bank of America’s consumer credit cards. This 75% bonus turns the Bank of America® Customized Cash Rewards credit card into the best cash back card to use at Costco. Platinum Honors customers can get up to 3.5% cash back at Costco and on Costco.com.

The Bank of America® Customized Cash Rewards earns 3% cash back on your choice of eligible categories and 2% at grocery stores and wholesale clubs on a combined $2,500 in purchases each quarter. The key to making the card a cash back powerhouse at Costco is the Bank of America Preferred Rewards program. If you hold $100,000 or more in combined balances in Bank of America accounts and Merrill investing accounts, you’ll earn the Platinum Honors tier. With Platinum Honors, you’ll get a 75% rewards bonus on your Bank of America® Customized Cash Rewards credit card, meaning you’ll earn 3.5% cash back at Costco.

More about the Bank of America® Customized Cash Rewards credit card

The Bank of America® Customized Cash Rewards Credit Card offers increased rewards in a category of your choice, plus up to a 75% boost to your rewards if you have Bank of America Preferred Rewards with Platinum Honors status. The card has no annual fee.

You’ll get 3% base cash back on an eligible category of your choice. Categories include gas and EV charging stations; online shopping, including cable, internet, phone plans and streaming; dining; travel; drug stores and pharmacies; or home improvement and furnishings. Plus you’ll get 2% back at grocery stores and wholesale clubs and 1% on purchases everywhere else. 3% and 2% category rewards are limited to a combined $2,500 in spending each quarter.

The card doesn’t feature any notable benefits.

Bank of America® Customized Cash Rewards card rewards

	3%* (Up to 5.25%**)	Select category of your choice. Choose from among: Gas and EV charging stations. Online shopping, including cable, internet, phone plans and streaming. Dining. Travel. Drug stores and pharmacies. Home improvement and furnishings.
	2%* (Up to 3.5%**)	Grocery stores
	2%* (Up to 3.5%**)	Wholesale clubs
	1% (Up to 1.75%**)	Other purchases

* Earn increased rewards on up to $2,500 in combined purchases each quarter in 2% and 3% categories, then earn unlimited 1% thereafter.

** Get up to a 75% bonus on the rewards you earn if you have Bank of America Preferred Rewards. Gold status gets you a 25% rewards bonus; Platinum gets you a 50% bonus; Platinum Honors gets you a 75% bonus.

Bank of America® Unlimited Cash Rewards credit card: Up to 2.62% everywhere, including at Costco

Bank of America will give you a 75% bonus on the rewards you earn with the Bank of America® Unlimited Cash Rewards when you have Platinum Honors status in the Bank of America Preferred Rewards program. This means that the Bank of America® Unlimited Cash Rewards can earn more cash back than your Costco card—2.62% versus the 2% you’d earn with your Costco card.

Costco Anywhere Visa® Card: 4% back on gas, including at Costco

Somewhat surprisingly, the Costco Anywhere Visa® Card does not offer great rewards at Costco. But it does offer 4% back on up to $7,000 of gas purchases each year, including at Costco. This makes the card one of the best credit cards for gas purchases. But the card’s rewards come with a catch. Unlike other cards, which generally let you redeem your rewards whenever you want, the rewards you earn on the Costco Anywhere Visa® Card come once a year as a rewards certificate after your February statement closes. And the rewards certificate must be redeemed in-person at Costco.

The hoops you have to jump to redeem your rewards, plus the fact that the Costco Visa doesn’t offer an extended warranty, means that our other picks are better for your non-gas Costco purchases.

About the Costco Anywhere Visa® Card

The Costco Anywhere Visa^® Card by Citi is available exclusively to Costco members. But if you carry a Costco membership, this card is a wallet staple for its increased rewards on gas, EV charging, restaurants and travel. The Costco Anywhere Visa^® has no annual fee, but requires an annual Costco membership.

The card earns 4% back on eligible gas and EV charging on the first $7,000 of spending each year, plus unlimited 3% on restaurants and travel, including Costco travel. You’ll also earn 2% rewards on your other purchases from Costco and Costco.com. Notably, these rewards are in addition to the 2% rewards you can earn as a Costco executive member. Finally, the card earns 1% on all other purchases.

The Costco Anywhere Visa^® Card rewards are marketed as “cash back,” but redeeming them is…quirky. You’ll receive your rewards as a Costco Cash certificate after your February statement. This certificate can be redeemed for merchandise or Cash only at a Costco location.

The Costco Anywhere Visa^® Card by Citi doesn’t have too many other notable benefits, but it does offer Damage and Theft Purchase protection, which can cover your purchases if they are damaged or stolen within 120 days. The card notably no longer offers extended warranty coverage, though some items may receive an extended warranty through Costco Concierge Services.

If you are a small business owner, you can pick up the Costco Anywhere Visa^® Business Credit Card by Citi, which offers the same cash back rewards.

Costco Anywhere Visa® Card rewards

+	4%	Eligible gas and EV charging, for the first $7,000 per year, then 1%
	3%	Restaurants
	3%	Travel
	2%	All other purchases from Costco and Costco.com
	1%	All other purchases

Cash back is is issued as an annual credit card reward certificate once per year after your February billing statement closes. Certificate must be redeemed for cash or merchandise at a U.S. Costco store.

Frequently asked questions

Advertiser disclosure: Cards and Points has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Cards and Points and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers. Compensation may affect how and where card products appear on the site. The site does not include all card companies or all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities. Terms apply to all credit card benefits.