Costco will start accepting Visa on June 20. The Citi website for the new Costco card will be live at that time.

Historically Costco only accepted American Express cards. You didn’t have to have a Costco American Express, any American Express would do. American Express lost the Costco co-brand to Citibank. Citi will issue Costco Visas, and crucially you will not need a Costco Visa or even Citibank Visa to shop at Costco. Any Visa will do.



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Chase offered ‘warehouse clubs’ as a 5x earning category in the second quarter for their Freedom product. Clearly Chase wanted to get the message out that you can use their cards at Costco, too. In fact, Chase issues almost exclusively with Visa as a result of a flat rate pricing deal for use of Visa’s network.

However Costco’s transition to Visa took longer than expected, making the second quarter bonus not super useful for that message.

That’s why, according to Chase spokesperson Rob Tacey,

With the Costco credit card acceptance changing to Visa on June 20, including those issued by Chase, Chase Freedom is announcing that it will continue to offer the 5% cash back category of Wholesale Clubs through the end of the year. Chase Freedom cardholders earn 5% cash back each quarter on up to $1,500 in combined purchases from Wholesale Clubs, including Costco®, BJ’s® and Sam’s Club®, and other additional rotating quarterly categories.