The claim could be true even if every customer is exactly like you. The implication is that Costco doesn't really make money selling stuff, they just need to roughly break even. And "breaking even" here includes paying rewards on purchases. The fact that you earn a lot of rewards doesn't stop your membership dues from contributing to Costco's bottom line.
If you have an executive membership they guarantee that you make back your membership dues. If you fall short you can just ask them to give you the difference (and then they will downgrade you to the regular membership).
But also remember regular members don't get cash back. The ratio is about 50/50. So about 40 million people pay for membership and don't get cash back.
> If you have an executive membership they guarantee that you make back your membership dues.
That's not quite their policy - their explicit policy is "The Reward is not guaranteed to be equal to or greater than the Executive upgrade fee paid." - but they will refund you if you ask for it.
The only year I broke even-ish on my executive membership was the year I bought an expensive engagement ring. All other years I (household of 3-4) went below break even. I lived 1/4th of a mile across the highway from them even. I just couldn’t make it work.
Then why keep signing up? You clearly don’t need the bulk quantities, so why put up with that inconvenience?
To justify the subscription I made the commitment to buy all my necessities there that I could, and in return I get back the equivalent of a month’s worth of free groceries.
That’s my point, it didn’t work and we did quit shopping there.
The prices never really worked out in our favor and the experience of finding a cool product we did truly love only to find it not stocked the following month is awful.
It really makes me wonder how astroturfed the brand is.