Your days of borrowing mom’s card to grab a rotisserie chicken are numbered.

Soon the only way you’re gonna be getting into Costco without a membership is through the vents: Card scanners are coming to all front entrances “over the coming months,” the retailer of everything in bulk announced this week in an escalation of its Netflix-like efforts to end membership-sharing.

The main change: Instead of showing your pass to a Costco employee (the ones TikTokers have made a trend of foiling ), you’ll present your physical or digital membership card to a scanner. But robots aren’t taking jobs—there will still be someone at the door guiding the process.

Here’s why your days of borrowing mom’s card to grab a rotisserie chicken are numbered:

• The grocery warehouse makes most of its money from membership fees (they accounted for $4.6 billion in revenue last fiscal year).

• It started cracking down on card-sharing over a year ago after noticing more shoppers using memberships that didn’t belong to them, especially at self-checkout. Since then, Costco has tightened up its entrances and started requiring customers to show photo ID if their membership card doesn’t include a picture.

Memberships are also getting a price hike for the first time since 2017. On Sept. 1, the basic Gold Star tier will go from $60 to $65, and the Executive Membership will increase from $120 to $130. —ML

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