How Your Costco Membership Can Save You Money At Restaurants

There are a lot of added benefits to having a Costco membership besides just having access to shop there — you get cheaper gas, you have access to discount prescription medications, you can book vacations through Costco Travel, and more. There's also a lesser known perk that you may not be aware of: using your Costco membership to save money at restaurants.

This is possible because Costco offers gift cards to a wide variety of restaurants at a discount. For example, Costco offers a four-pack of Red Lobster gift cards, each one priced at $25, for a discounted price of $79.99. In other words, if you buy that pack of gift cards for yourself, you can get $100 worth of food at Red Lobster while spending just under $80. About $20 worth of free food at Red Lobster — which is planning a comeback – is certainly hard to pass up.

Red Lobster is far from the only restaurant that you can buy discounted gift cards for at Costco. Other restaurants include Outback Steakhouse, Fogo de Chão, IHOP, P.F. Chang's, and Morton's Steakhouse, just to name a few. You can also get $60 worth of gift cards for Cold Stone Creamery for just $47.99 and $60 worth of gift cards for Krispy Kreme for just under $45.

The Costco gift card hack may go beyond just popular chain restaurants. In the Reddit thread r/Costco, shoppers discuss which local restaurants Costco offers discounted gift cards for. One user wrote, "Frisco, TX Costco has Hutchins BBQ gift cards. I think it was $80 for $100 in gift cards (beef rib, here I come!)." Overall, the thread is full of comments of shoppers naming local restaurants that they've seen featured in Costco's gift card section, so you can check it out to see if anyone has mentioned what's offered in your area. If not, teenbean12 left a helpful comment, writing, "If you go into the Costco app select the warehouse you will be visiting and then search for 'Gift.' It will show you the gift cards available." This could be a great way to support local restaurants while still saving a bit of money.

Further, the discounted gift cards at Costco go beyond just restaurants. There are gift cards available for movie theaters, spas, stores for shopping such as Old Navy, and entertainment spaces such as bowling alleys — all offered at a discount. You can even save money on Playstation gift cards or Uber. All in all, it's impossible to deny that buying these gift cards — whether it's for yourself or intended as a gift — is a good idea. In fact, taking advantage of gift cards is actually one of the secrets of Costco super shoppers.