A few replies....
Costco Cash Cards can be purchased from the Costco Website and everything I have heard, the website will remain the same. Problem with Cash Cards is you have to plan far in advance. It takes a 1 to 2 weeks for the cards to arrive. If you select express delivery, they charge the fee on every card... they can't seem to figure out how to send them all in one envelope for express delivery.
The cards are sent via USA Mail, without tracking (drove me nuts....)
The max you can put on a card without problems is $1K.
Activating multiple cards is not quick. There used to be a bulk order activation system but when Costco changed Cash Card Providers a few years ago that feature was dropped. It could be back, I have not played this game in over 2 years.
So, you could continue to shop at Costco with Cash Cards purchased on the Costco Website with your DL Amex card.
Some Costcos will cash out Cash Cards for you... they started cracking down for fraud reasons but if you have a good relationship with your club manager you probably will be able to cash them out, or at least the remaining balance after a purchase. We cashed ours out but it was to pay off POs so cash never left the club.
While Costco and Amex said they could not reach terms, the pressure is on Costco to compete with new offers of co-branded cards from both Sam's and BJ's. BJ's recently switched from Barclays bank to some unheard of MC provider and Sams recently switched from Discover to MasterCard but remained with GE Capital. Both switches resulted in much better rewards program. I now get back 2% from Sams MC and 2% from Sams Club, I used to only get 2%, not the total of 4. BJ's went from 2% to 5%. Although, both Costco and Sams can be redeemed for cash and BJ's must be used to purchase goods in the store.
At the moment I earn 1% back at Costco with the Costco Amex Card and 2% back up to $750 with the Costco Exec Membership.
Costco has a new president (within a year or two) and many internal things have changed... I am not sure the new man understands that one of the reasons Costco is such a pleasure to shop is that you are not shopping at Walmart. Shopping at Sams is almost like Walmart. The Amex Card is harder to qualify for and this has helped keep Costco Members a little higher in spending ability.
It is in the news that Costco has been talking to Capital One about a card. My guess is what ever happens, the new Costco program will be better than the old one. If you are a Volume Shopper at Costco and earn miles and or MQMs with the DL Amex card, this change is going to hurt unless you play the cash card game.
Amex has announced it is will come out with a new card for current Costco Amex holders, although details of the plan are not available. Since the Costco Amex Card amounts to 10% of Amex issued cards and 8% of their revenue, my guess would be that Amex comes up with a nice product. Not sure it will help DL Amex Customers if Costco is your big spend. Although, Amex may be in trouble if they don't turn things around, so maybe earning elite status from any Amex product on DL could emerge?
Jet Blue switching to Barclays Bank... I never had a problem with Barclays other than their website is terrible. They did double the speed a few months back, but still poor layout and design. When BJ's switched from them to the no-named provider, features on the website were lost (no more SMS alerts) but the new BJ's credit site is easy to find what I am looking for.
Will be interesting to see how things progress.