The Offer
- Groupon is currently selling BJ’s wholesale club memberships at a discount.
- $25 for a One-Year BJ’s Inner Circle® Membership with BJ’s Easy Renewal® ($55 value)
-  $30 for One-Year BJ’s Inner Circle Membership with BJ’s Easy Renewal and $70 in Coupons††($125 value)
The Fine Print
- Promotional value expires December 6, 2018. Amount paid never expires.
- BJ’s coupons will be mailed to the address on file, may take approximately 2 weeks to process, and expire on January 6, 2019.
- Limit 1 per visit.
- Valid for new Members only.
- Purchasers will be enrolled in BJ’s Easy Renewal Program upon first credit or debit card transaction in club. By enrolling in BJ’s Easy Renewal, you authorize BJ’s to charge the credit or debit card you select, an annual recurring charge in the amount of the, then standard, Membership fee for all active Memberships on your account, plus tax where applicable
Our Verdict
Coupons seem to be mostly trash, e.g $10 off $100 is the best. Some might be interested in BJ’s wholesale club after the free period that just ended. You can view the differences in membership types by clicking here. Don’t forget to go through a portal for even further savings.
Hat tip to DDG
Need to update with current offers:
– $25 for a One-Year BJ’s Inner Circle® Membership with BJ’s Easy Renewal® ($55 value)
– $30 for One-Year BJ’s Inner Circle Membership with BJ’s Easy Renewal and $70 in Coupons††($125 value)
Went to BJ’s today to get a trial membership. Also, picked up a couple visa variable load gift cards for $500 each and the store is still not charging any fees for them.
How are you going to use these visa variable load gift cards ?
Who said anything about using them?
I live within a 10-mile radius of a Costco, Sam’s Club, and BJ’s.
Could someone point out the advantages of a BJ’s membership over the benefits at the other two clubs?
Edit: Of the three, the Costco is closest to where I live.
Costco: Busiest volume of the 3 along with highest average HHI by far. Usually their Kirkland brand products are great. Customer Service is fantastic. Just a bit more upscale feel than BJs/Costco. Much harder to get good deals on membership, usually can only be found on Groupon occasionally. Don’t take coupons but “sales” are every month as well as other items throughout the store. No signs for the aisles, they want you to spend time in the store looking for what you need in hopes that you fill your cart with stuff you don’t really need but see and buy on impulse. Also they sometimes move things around so you have to find where it is(like on an endcap or in the front of the store as you walk in). Seasonal merchandise is removed overnight very quickly after holidays and not marked down. (In contrast to Sams and BJs who leave it out for a bit and mark it down). 30 day price match, bring in your receipt and they will credit you the difference if the price of something you buy drops. Lines are either very short or very long in my experience and the number of cashiers working depends on volume and changes frequently. No self-checkout or express and gets annoying when you only have 1 or 2 items and are stuck behind people with carts of stuff. However the cashiers always work with a partner and they know how to move people through very efficiently. Food Court doesn’t have the biggest selection but the quality and pricing can’t be beat. $1.50 for a giant hot dog and soda, and $10 for a full size pizza(with topping!). Cannot be beat, not uncommon to see people carrying out 5 or 6 pizzas after calling in an order or a family eating there splitting an entire pizza(which are delicious!). Not as good of gift card variety as the other two. Sams: Lowest “feeling” of the quality of the stores/merchandise. Very easy to find deals on cheap memberships. I have found some things are cheaper than Costco by a couple bucks for the exact same thing. They seem to be going towards self checkout/cashierless much more than BJs and especially Costco. Can use the app to scan your items and pay and just show when you exit. Food court has a little more variety than Costco and similar pricing. Food quality not as good as Costco, IMO. More giftcard options than Costco. BJs: Somewhere in the middle of Sams and Costco in terms of the “feeling” of the store and merchandise. I’ve found their prices tend to be slightly higher than Costco on things carried by both stores. They accept manufacturer coupons as well as their own coupons. Can do digital coupons in their app too. It is a bit annoying to have to find/clip the coupons as opposed to Costco, however there are more things “on sale” in a given month than Costco. Some self checkouts. Food courts seem to… Read more »
Wow!!!
Excellent write up!!
Kudos
Having membership to all 3, even at a discount, seems like overkill.
But thanks for all the info. I’m a big fan of self-checkout.
No perk rewards price listed, please fix.
Doc, you have a post about getting the membership for effectively $15:
“Refer a friend to BJ’s membership and each of you will get a $25 BJ’s gift card.
Plus, membership via referral costs just $40 instead of the standard $50 fee.”
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/refer-friends-bjs-membership-get-25-gift-card-plus-40-membership-cost/
I tried your referral link a week ago in the post and it is still working.
Just did this today, can confirm it still works. by far the cheapest way
You can confirm the membership fee is $40 with a referral? That part isn’t mentioned anywhere… just that the referral program is still active
Yes, membership fee is $40 with referral. Click on join now and before checkout you’ll see this image below:
http://richmedia.channeladvisor.com/ImageDelivery/imageService?profileId=52000717&imageID=refer_landing_offer_2016
Can you confirm the price is still $40? I couldn’t find that mentioned anywhere, it only mentions the $25 gift card offer.
Yes, membership fee is $40 with referral. Click on join now and before checkout you’ll see this image below:
http://richmedia.channeladvisor.com/ImageDelivery/imageService?profileId=52000717&imageID=refer_landing_offer_2016
The good of BJs membership is that if you don’t extend it, you are highly possible receive 3 month free membership. And this can be done many times. In June 2015 I used a 3 month free membership public promotion. Then in Sep 2015(when my free membership end) my wife enrolled it too. We didn’t extend it since we are loyalty of Costco. Surprisingly in Feb 2016, both my wife and I receive a mailed 3 month free membership promo( under the same address). So we did the trick again get another 6 month free membership in total. And after that, we received such promotion twice a year, which eventually made us have free membership of BJs all the time. I’m not sure whether this would work for everyone and don’t know when it would be end. Also I don’t know what really trigger it. Maybe because I’m a Costco member? Maybe this only works for some area like central NJ? Hopefully someone can share more DPs and benefit everyone.
Good DP