Costco/Sams Club Holiday Gas Sale

[storewanderer]

Costco/Sam's Club at least in Reno are running gas in the 3.43 range. This is a drop from last week when they were both in the 3.89 range.

The next cheapest stations in Reno are in the 3.89 range. Most Maverik/Chevron/Shell around town are 4.19-4.39.

So Costco/Sam's have done this in the past and it seems like they basically give up the industry standard .40 margin per gallon to get their price down like this during the Black Friday period.

Down in Carson City where there is just Costco and no Sam's, their gas price at Costco is 3.19, has been that price for the past couple weeks, and various other stations are matching that price or even slightly undercutting it.

There is an extra special gas tax in Reno that adds about .60 per gallon to the price which does not exist in Carson City. So that is the usual spread between the gas in the two cities. It is highly unusual for a spread of just .24 due to this (Costco Reno vs. Costco Carson).

[Brian Lutz]

Last year on July 4th Sheetz ran a promo where they sold regular gas for $1.776 per gallon, which mostly resulted in huge traffic backups around their stores. I don't believe they did it again this year.

[storewanderer]

Sams dropped to 3.42 today... Costco didn't play along, and stayed at 3.43...

Looks like these gas price drops are being initiated by Sam's.