Citi is a TPG advertising partnerUpdate: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.One of the mysteries of the universe that I have never truly understood was the intense devotion that some (many?) have to Costco and even the Costco co-branded credit card. I mean, I’ve been to Costco, I’m fine with Costco, but I’ve never been one of the oh-my-god-yes-pull-over-there’s-a-Costco folks. However, right now we are shopping for a (shockingly expensive) new swing set/play area thing and many people recommended checking with Costco after we suffered from sticker shock at Rainbow, so we made a detour into our local Costco yesterday to see what they had to offer.On the hunt for a new play structureWhile I didn’t really see any play structures deals to speak of at Costco, in between scarfing down samples of mixed berry smoothies, organic soup, and losing half of my family for quite a long time in the massive and busy store, I took a look around their gift card section and can at least understand why folks would love that part of the store.It’s no surprise that Costco has some third-party retailer gift cards available at a discount for Costco members, but this isn’t just a little discount, in some cases there are major discounts on gift cards available both in-store and online. Let’s start with the one that I purchased, two $75 Blue Apron gift cards that have a face value of $150.We use Blue Apron for a box of delivered indgredients and recipes ready to cook into good meals at least once a month, and the cost normally just gets charged to my credit card they have on file, so historically I have indeed paid $150 for $150 worth of Blue Apron (outside of the first discounted order - I have a few free first delivery invites to send out if you want one). However, at Costco, we paid $89.99 for $150 worth of Blue Apron gift cards, which means we enjoy about a 40% savings on future Blue Apron meals!That’s the only gift card we added to our already quite expensive Costco cart yesterday, but there were others that caught my attention.$100 in gift cards to Build-a-Bear for $69.99$200 iTunes and App Stores gift card for $164.99$150 in gift cards to iFly for $89.99$100 in gift cards to Buca di Beppo for $69.99$100 gift card to Mattel for $69.99While we aren’t regular visitors to iFly, we did take C for her 7th birthday last year, and it was a fun way to celebrate her special day.From memory I think we spent close to $150 to have her and me take a few flights, so dropping that price to about $90 with discounted gift cards would have obviously a better deal and something to keep in mind if we go again in the future.Sign up for our daily newsletterEmail addressSign upI would like to subscribe to The Points Guy newsletters and special email promotions. The Points Guy will not share or sell your email. See privacy policy.Naturally, if you have the Costco co-branded Visa then you can also get 2% back by paying for these Costco purchases with that card. Does you family shop Costco for discounted gift cards?
