【September 15, 2024 update】 A data point from the community: someone paid at Costco with PPP, needed the refund back on PPP, and the PPP account got locked. Other reports say those PPP balances never came back.

Costco will refund to any card — it does not have to be the original one. Debit is the safest choice.
If you are tempted to get clever with refund routing, skip it. Getting banned by Costco is not worth it.

Costco has been growing fast as a warehouse club: you rarely leave without spending a few hundred dollars, the aisles are packed, and new Canadian locations keep opening. This piece covers which cards to use when you pay at Costco directly — not workarounds beyond that.

1. Is the Costco co-branded card the best option?

Costco spending splits into in-warehouse and online. In Canadian warehouses you can only use Mastercard — or another country’s Costco co-branded card, even if it is Visa (for example, the U.S. Costco Anywhere Visa Card by Citi works in Canadian Costco warehouses, and Canada’s CIBC Costco Mastercard works at Costco abroad). On Costco.ca you can pay with Visa or Mastercard.

A common myth: CIBC is always best at Costco because it earns the most cash back. Not quite. The CIBC Costco co-branded card earns only 1% in Canadian warehouses and 2% on Costco.ca online orders.

If you already hold the Costco CIBC card and do not have a stronger option (covered below), you can buy Costco Shop Cards (Costco gift cards) online and spend them in-warehouse to lock in the 2% online rate.

Buying Costco Shop Cards online also opens the door to Visa cards on Costco’s site. That widens the field: for example the TD Aeroplan VIP (about 2.1% value at 1.7 CPP for Aeroplan), or the CDC VISA (up to 5% back).

2. Cards with a wholesale spend category

People often treat Costco like a grocery store and expect a supermarket bonus card — such as the MBNA RWE Mastercard — to pay 5× points. That is wrong. Costco’s MCC (the merchant category code on the terminal) codes as a wholesale club, not grocery retail, so typical grocery bonus cards do not boost at Costco.

In Canada only a couple of cards currently multiply both wholesale clubs and alcohol retailers (LCBO and similar):

Everyday spend: 1 Air Mile / $12; wholesale: 2 Air Miles / $12

Everyday spend: 1 Air Mile / $25; wholesale: 2 Air Miles / $25

Note ⚠️: only the first $500 per statement cycle earns the 2× rate — but grocery, wholesale club, and alcohol retailer each get their own $500.

At an Air Miles valuation of 95 Miles for $10, the BMO AIR MILES World Elite Mastercard works out to about 1.7% cash-equivalent. That beats the CIBC Costco card’s 1% in-warehouse — but it is still not the top pick.

3. Strong all-category cards

Wholesale-club bonuses are rare. Are there high-earning “everything else” cards that work well at Costco?

  • Consider Rogers’ standout card

The Rogers World Elite Mastercard (apply via GCR for an extra $50) earns 2% cash back on all purchases, or 3% cash back when you redeem toward Rogers services — provided you have a Rogers-family plan (Rogers, Fido, and so on).

If you load PPP with a 5% card and pay the 1.4% fee, spending on PPP works out to about 3.6% effective cash back.

Closing thoughts

Because Costco partners with Mastercard in Canada, and Canadian Mastercards rarely offer strong unrestricted cash back, the Rogers WE Mastercard’s 3% redemption rate stands out — a solid fit for Costco and other everyday spend.