Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is going well. A few days ago, I got an email reminder from Sam’s Club that my membership was auto renewing on March 5, 2022. I signed up for Sam’s Club last year since there was a targeted offer on my Discover It Credit Card where you would get a $45 Sam’s Club gift card when you signed up for a Sam’s Club membership, which costs $45 (see Doctor of Credit’s post). I went once to Sam’s Club to activate my membership, get my membership card, and pick up my $45 Sam’s Club gift card (which I used the same day shopping). I haven’t been back to Sam’s Club since because the closest location is 50+ miles away and I prefer the Costco location 2 miles away.
Long story short, I needed to cancel (or disable the auto renew feature on) my membership so I would not be charged again. I called Sam’s Club, explained the situation, and the rep sent me a $25 Sam’s Club / Walmart eGC that could be used to offset the membership cost, if I decided to stay with Sam’s Club. I will document the process below.
Sam’s Club doesn’t make it easy to cancel or disable the auto renew feature of your membership.
I googled the problem and landed on this Sam’s Club Help Center page that says to visit the Membership Desk inside a Sam’s Club or call 1-888-746-7726 to cancel the membership over the phone.
After explaining to the rep the reason why I wanted to cancel (the closest location is 50+ miles away), the rep disabled the auto renew feature of my membership and said they would send me a $25 Sam’s Club / Walmart eGC which I could use to pay for part of my Sam’s Club membership, if I decided to renew. The eGC arrived a few hours later.
I was able to view the eGC online and save it as a PDF. You can also print it out and use it in-store by scanning the barcode.
I then checked the eGC balance with Walmart to confirm that Walmart could see the balance. I occasionally order items from Walmart.com, so this is my plan for this $25 eGC.
I then went back to my Sam’s Club account and saw that my membership now says “Good until March 5, 2022” (the auto renew feature is disabled). I then spotted the Auto-Renew Settings link on the left side of the page (which I didn’t see earlier – why wouldn’t the Help Center page just link to that page?).
Here is the link to the Auto-Renew page. If you want to disable the auto renew feature, click that link and uncheck the auto-renew box. If you cannot access that link, you may need to call Sam’s Club at 1-888-746-7726. If you call, you may be offered the same $25 eGC option.
I haven’t decided if I will renew my membership yet, I most likely will not, but if I do, there is an option on the renewal page to pay with a GC / eGC.
If you have any questions about your Sam’s Club membership or how to disable the auto renew feature, please leave a comment below. Have a great weekend everyone!
3 years ago I used a similar offer. Went 3 times then never again. I almost signed up this year but the stories of people having problems getting their signup offer to work changed my mind.
The sign up process was pretty easy for me, but maybe I just got lucky :)
I was not offered a Gift Card. They disabled my auto renew.
That’s a bummer, but I appreciate you sharing your data point with me. How many times were you able to use your Sam’s Club membership in the last 12 months?
Better they would have sent you a CostCo eGC.