‘You gotta pay the price,’ Sam’s Club customers fume as policy forces you to pay more for certain hours

SAM'S Club has a little-known policy requiring shoppers to pay extra to shop during certain hours.

Shoppers shared a word of warning on Reddit.

Sam's Club offers two membership tiers - the Club membership for $50 annually or the Plus membership for $110.

The premium membership offers shoppers extra perks, including free shipping, free curbside pickup, and access to early shopping.

With the latter benefit, Plus members can shop in-store at a time when Club members cannot.

Sam's Club opens for Plus members to exclusively shop from 8 am to 10 am, offering them a less crowded experience.

PLUS PERKS

In a post to Reddit, a Club member questioned what would happen if they shopped during the early hours.

"You’ll be forced to either upgrade or come back later during normal hours. You gotta pay the price to shop early just like everyone else," retorted one shopper.

Another customer chimed in, sharing that the register automatically recognizes a non-Plus membership and prompts shoppers to upgrade.

"Good that's how it should be. Glad the system has some sort of intelligence to combat that," said a Plus member.

One shopper mentioned that even getting past the entrance without a premium membership may not be possible, as an employee checks members' cards as they enter.

Others disagreed, saying their local store hadn't checked for membership for years or that anyone could enter but only Plus members could successfully pay at the registers.

One shopper managed to enter Costco and pay with just a Club membership.

"I've been able to buy things early without a Plus membership but it did pull up the screen about upgrading," they shared.

Other shoppers managed to evade the early-hours store policy by using the Sam's Club Scan & Go feature, which allows customers to scan their items as they shop and skip over the registers.

"I used the app to scan/pay during early hours and didn’t have any issues," said one.

"Last I knew, SNG doesn't enforce hour restrictions sadly," shared another.

Sam's Club membership rules

Early shopping is available exclusively to Sam's Club Plus members Monday to Friday from 8 am to 10 am.

On Saturday, the Plus hours are 8 am to 9 am.

All members have the same store hours on Sunday - 10 am to 6 pm.

COSTCO CRACKDOWNS

Although rival warehouse Costco does not have a similar policy in place, the retailer is restrictive in its own ways.

Costco is cracking down on membership rules in-store to ensure only members and authorized users can make purchases.

One such rule is that Costco memberships are non-transferable, meaning members cannot share their cards.

While Primary Members are permitted to add a free household member to their account, each member must use a separate card with their name and picture.

Additionally, Costco members are required to show their membership card and picture ID when checking out to ensure the member is the one using the card.

The warehouse also requires that customers scan their membership cards when entering Costco rather than just showing them to an employee.

Costco has also cracked down at the food court, forcing customers to show their membership cards to make purchases.

In related news, a Sam's Club shopper "Dropped my membership completely" after Plus members are set to see a huge price increase.

Plus, Costco members spot a new checkout feature at a local store – payment is "quick" and "better than self-checkout."