Should You Get a Sam's Club Membership Just for the Sam's Club Mastercard?

A basic Sam's Club membership costs $50 a year. This means you need to get at least that much value to break even on your membership fee. (Ideally, you'll get way more than that.)

Plenty of folks get their membership fee back in savings on everyday essentials, like paper products or even groceries. Some people can make up the fee in one or two big deals each year.

But what about the Sam's Club Mastercard? Is the rewards credit card that requires a Sam's Club membership good enough to pay for that membership? Let's find out.

Easy win: 5% gas rewards

Arguably the most valuable perk of the Sam's Club Mastercard is that it earns up to 5% cash back on gas stations and EV charging stations, on up to $6,000 in purchases per year.

Gas rewards is already a highly competitive category -- and this card competes. It's one of the top-earning cards in the category, even beating out its rival, the Costco Anywhere Visa® Card by Citi.

While it may be competitive, the bigger question is: Can you earn enough to cover your Sam's Club membership? Here's how the math works out:

As you can see, you'd only need to spend $1,000 a year on fuel to earn enough in rewards to cover a basic Club membership fee. That's about $83 a month.

An average driver

If you go through at least two tanks of fuel each month, then you're probably spending in that $83 range. But the statistics say most of us are spending much more.

According to AAA, an average gallon of gas right now goes for $3.12, so $83 would buy you just over 26.7 gallons of fuel. The average vehicle gets 25.4 miles per gallon (per the EPA), so 26.7 gallons will take you around 678 miles.

An estimate from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) says the average driver actually covers 29 miles every day. Over a 30-day month, that's 870 miles, more than enough to hit the $83 minimum. In fact, that much fuel on a Sam's Club Mastercard would net $65 a year in rewards -- enough to cover a membership with $15 left over.

What about Plus members?

A Sam's Club Plus membership is more than twice the cost of a regular membership, coming in at $110 a year. That's going to be a hard push to pay off in just gas rewards for most people.

As the table shows, it would require spending $183 on fuel each month. Using the same numbers from above, that would require driving approximately 1,490 miles per month.

If you have a vehicle with worse-than-average gas mileage, you may end up with a much higher fuel bill, especially if you drive a lot and/or for work. Similarly, if you run a small business and are fueling up multiple vehicles, it could be much easier to hit these kinds of numbers.

In either case, if your monthly gas station purchases total more than $500 you'll hit the earnings cap for that category.

Bonus rewards on Sam's Club spending

The other significant perk of the Sam's Club Mastercard is that it can earn bonus rewards for Sam's Club purchases. Unfortunately, this is only the case if you're a Plus member.

Specifically, Plus members who use their Sam's Club Mastercard in a Sam's Club or on samsclub.com can earn 3% back on those purchases. If you're shopping in-store, this will stack with the 2% back you get for being a Plus member, giving you a total of 5% back on eligible in-store purchases.

Depending on how much you spend at Sam's Club, it could be easy to earn at least $110 back in a year. Indeed, according to the table above, $183 a month would earn $110 in one year at 5% back.

If you're just a regular Club member, you only earn 1% back on Sam's Club purchases. At 1%, you'd need to spend $5,000 a year to break even on a $50 Club membership. If you're spending $5,000 a year at Sam's Club already, just get the Plus membership, especially if you regularly shop in-store.

Redemption limitations

One big thing to keep in mind with the Sam's Club Mastercard is that it doesn't earn cash back. It earns Sam's Cash.

Unlike regular cash back, which you can redeem for statement credit to cover your card bill, Sam's Cash can only be redeemed toward Sam's Club purchases or your Sam's Club membership fee. This isn't ideal, since you won't earn credit card purchase rewards on purchases you pay for in Sam's Cash.

Another important thing to keep in mind, particularly if you're a big spender, is that your total Sam's Cash earnings can't exceed $5,000 in one calendar year. At 5% back, this would require spending $100,000 at Sam's Club in one year. While that's not likely for most of us, it could be a problem for some small business owners.

All in all, it's really easy to get a great value from the Sam's Club Mastercard, especially if you are a Plus member. But even regular Club members can get good returns when they use the card for gas. Crunch your own numbers before applying to see how the math works out for you.