That's strange, as that was not my experience not long ago. I'm thinking there was some miscommunication about the rebate with your family.
I received my rebate after I had let my membership lapse without any issue. You can use the rebate even without an active membership. You can even walk up to the customer service counter and get your rebate amount in cash if you want. I ended up getting pizza and took the rest as cash back.
You can even walk up to the customer service counter and get your rebate amount in cash if you want.
Here, cashing out is the only way they redeem the vouchers unless it's a really high amount (4 figures+), in which case they cut you a company check (that happened to me once in 6+ years).
Actually, I might have been an edge case and not representative of their normal rules.
"The Reward is issued approximately 3 months prior to the member’s renewal date in a Renewal Statement and reflects rewards earned up until the issue date. A member must be an active, paid Executive Member when the Reward is earned and issued to receive the Reward. To receive a refund for the Executive upgrade fee the membership must be canceled or downgraded to a Gold Star or Business Membership and any 2% Reward issued or accrued will be forfeited. Any additional savings and services exclusively for Executive Members will be rescinded."
https://www.costco.com/executive-rewards.html
I received my rebate after I had let my membership lapse without any issue. You can use the rebate even without an active membership. You can even walk up to the customer service counter and get your rebate amount in cash if you want. I ended up getting pizza and took the rest as cash back.