For those who don’t know, BJ’s Wholesale Club is a member warehouse store like Sam’s Club or Costco.
Anyway, I have a membership and it has to be renewed annually. I generally wait for it to expire and then renew it the next time I go to the store. I figure that way I’m not paying for something I’m wasn’t using.
But BJ’s has apparently decided to put a stop to this. I was there today and I was told my membership is about to expire. I stopped at the information desk on my way out to check to see if they were running any membership specials (sometimes you can buy a membership and get two extra months free).
They weren’t running any specials and I was also told that they will maintain my account for two months after it expires. I can’t use my account for those two months. But if I renew it in that time period, the renewal will automatically extend from the end of my previous membership.
I feel this is a rip-off. Let’s say I don’t buy anything for the next six weeks and then go in to pay for a new annual membership. They’re going to backdate my membership through the six weeks when I wasn’t using it and give me a “one year” membership that will actually only be good for ten and a half months from the date I buy it.
This pisses me off. I’m going to wait and see if they actually enforce this or if they’ll waive it when I want to renew. If they do try to enforce it, I’ll probably decide not to renew just as a matter of principle. I can always get a membership at Sam’s Club instead.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think that is new at all. I’m pretty sure they have done that for quite a while, if not pretty much always. It’s possible you’ve tried to pull that one before, didn’t think that they might be automatically circumventing that little trick, and *only thought * your hiatus didn’t count against the membership period you paid for, when it actually did.
Same thing happened to me. For a while now, I’ve intentionally done what you did, thinking I was skipping a month or two that didn’t count against my new membership period. But it was only during my most recent attempt that I actually paid attention and saw that the trick didn’t work. -_-
I believe that renewing a membership costs less than starting a new one. We were just in the store and were told as long as we renew before the deadline we saved a bit on the membership, I forget the exact numbers.
Our membership expired last month, and we didn’t have the money earmarked for it until last week. My husband went in there and paid – it was the same price as the regular renewal ($50, I think?) But then again we didn’t go past the two-month thing which I didn’t realize until the OP’s post.
What I don’t like is their not having family memberships. The next time I go to BJ’s I’m going to have to pay $50 for my own card. Down at Costco $75 renewal takes care of both of us.
BTW, I prefer Costco. BJ’s however, is less than 3 miles from our house.
They do this so that they can get more membership money. Thousands of members sliding their renewal dollars back a month or so has the same effect on the club’s bottom line as not getting an interest rate on a savings account for one month. It takes money away from their present value.
So a simple solution is to decide whether or not you want to give them that money. If not, quit going there.
Obviously they’re doing it to make more money. The point is how many people will be like me and avoid renewing over this? I’ll probably just game the system and switch memberships back and forth from BJ’s and Sam’s on a year by year basis.
They should take a clue from the airlines and tie their customers in with some kind of loyalty program. Give people a five dollar discount if they extend their existing membership.
I think he meant to suggest that it’s cheaper to renew within the 2-month period after your previous membership expired, than it is to renew after that 2-month period has passed. Which sounds about right, although I don’t know.
BJ’s sent me a “free” 60 day card. If I liked it I could buy a membership that would cost for a year but only give me another 10 months, basically extending the 1st two months. If I signed up for a year on the spot they would give me 15 months instead. If I used the 60 days and did not sign up within 30 days I would not be allowed to sign up for at least a year.
I took the free 60 days and don’t really intend to sign up ever after shopping there.
If not, the lesson would seem to be either don’t let your membership expire, or wait at least two months after it does.
I was going to say that backdating membership renewal dates (after a period where the membership was unusable) sounds like a practice that begs for a class-action lawsuit. I don’t really remember hearing about Costco’s.