TSA: Costco cards do not count as REAL ID
June 9 (UPI) -- The U.S. Transportation Security Administration is warning travelers of an important piece of airport protocol: Costco membership cards do not count as REAL ID.
The TSA, which began enforcing the requirement for REAL ID while traveling last month, said on social media that acceptable substitutes for the state-issued identification cards do not include wholesale warehouse memberships.
"We love hot dogs & rotisserie chickens as much as the next person but please stop telling people their Costco card counts as a REAL ID because it absolutely does not," the TSA said on X.
The post did not specify what people or entities were spreading the misinformation.
Accepted substitutes for REAL ID at U.S. airports include passports, border crossing and permanent resident cards.
The REAL ID act was passed in 2005, but implementation was delayed multiple times, most recently in 2022 due to backlogs stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
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