Also wanted to share my experience from today. After reading yesterday that I could cash out the costco cash cards, I called right then and confirmed, the operator said yes, just bring them to any register and they'll cash them out.
I took the time to go back to Costco today and they said absolutely not. I said I confirmed yesterday and they didn't seem to care and were actually kind of rude about it. They refused to cash out the cards after I talked to a manager. The only thing I was able to do was to return one of the passes and apply the original cash card to the second pass when I repurchased it.
It's not like I expected it and thought it was random they would cash them out to begin with, but when I confirmed with their employee, I thought okay, nice perk. Well to be treated like a jerk when I went in today was pretty lame. I asked the customer service person to maybe spread the word that they are giving out wrong information. He blew me off, so when I picked up my new pass, I told the manager that she should let anyone who answers as an operator to make sure they're not telling people wrong information.