Costco is introducing its own “Buy Now, Pay Later” program.
The wholesale retail chain will offer a payment plan option on some online purchases through its payment partner Affirm.
Buy Now, Pay Later programs offer flexibility to customers and let them purchase products by paying for them over a specified time period.
Costco’s Buy Now Pay Later program can be applied to transactions on its website that total between $500 and $17,500, with repayment periods ranging from three to 36 months.
The new Buy Now, Pay Later option will also charge interest, with APR rates between 10% and 36%. A $500 purchase at 20% APR, with payments spread out across 6 months, for example, will cost $88.27 per month and the original $500 item would cost $529.61 overall.
Payments must be made through Affirm’s app or website but customers can also set up automatic payment deductions.
A Buy Now, Pay Later plan can help stretch a large purchase, such as an electronic device or home appliance, across multiple months and paychecks, but there may be penalties for customers. Missing Buy Now, Pay Later payments or paying installments late can hurt one’s credit score.
The 2030’s Costco Bubble
I agree they also have benefits like extended warranties, IMO the way to go is to have two lines from the same bank, one with low interest and a high limit locked to only be used for emergency expenses, and another card with a low limit that has good rewards
One can be a financial cushion and the other can be habitually used to skim rewards with relatively lower risk of ending up in debt
Yup. I do it that way. Except, to counter my own point, I do have that setup and there’s one flaw I’ve seen so far.
I once was moving and making a lot of purchases with my lower limit card then paying them immediately to keep it available and utilize the rewards for the next round of purchases. They flagged it for fraudulent activity and locked my card because I made too many payments on it within a pay period. It was a fucking pain to get them to unlock it, especially since I needed it during the move. So, there’s one downside if you have a lower limit card. Might be best to just use it as much as the limit allows or a little more and pay that within one period only. Anything more might create some issues, resolvable but annoying. Ironically, not paying it won’t flag anything besides interest.