Things you can unlock

The most expensive mistake on this page would be acting on a rule that no longer exists.

• Pentagon Federal Credit Union: This is the biggest correction on the page. Every guide still says to donate to Voices for America's Troops. That requirement is gone — no charity, no association, and no military affiliation appears anywhere in PenFed's current membership instructions. Open an account with $5 and you are a member.
• Alliant Credit Union: Guides say to join Foster Care to Success. That option is not in the dropdown any more — the organisation is now the Alliant Credit Union Foundation. Anyone following old advice will hunt for something that does not exist.
• Consumers Credit Union (Michigan): The "Consumers Cooperative Association" that almost every guide names appears nowhere on the live eligibility page — independently confirmed twice. The route is the $5 Special Olympics Michigan donation plus a newsletter signup.
• Andrews Federal Credit Union: The instruction everyone gives — "go join the American Consumer Council, then apply" — costs you $15. ACC's own join page sells only an Individual Lifetime membership at $15 and has no free tier anywhere on it. Andrews says plainly "There is no fee associated with ACC membership". Both are true: ACC is free only when the credit union sponsors it inside its own application. Select ACC in the Andrews form and pay nothing.
• NASA Federal Credit Union: The complimentary year is treated as a token everywhere. NSS prices Regular membership at $62 a year on its own site, so the waiver is worth roughly $62 — more than any other association perk here. NSS also sells a Sub-orbital tier at $10 a year, which is worth knowing because NASA Federal only requires *a* membership.
• First Technology Federal Credit Union, DCU division: Two corrections. First, the $15 Computer History Museum route that every guide publishes is not the cheapest — DCU's own list carries the Financial Fitness Association at $8 and Reach Out for Schools at $10, both open to anyone and both permanent. Second, and bigger: DCU and First Tech are no longer two credit unions. DCU's own footer says they "have merged to form a single credit union named First Technology Federal Credit Union", operating as two divisions. Every list still treats them as separate back doors. The practical consequence is insurance — money at DCU and money at First Tech shares ONE $250,000 limit, so joining both no longer doubles your coverage.
• First Technology Federal Credit Union: Three things nobody publishes. It is not Computer History Museum OR Financial Fitness Association — both exist, and FFA at $8 is the DEFAULT if you choose nothing. First Tech may cover the first year but "any subsequent years will need to be maintained by me", so the "free" and "annual fee" claims are both half right. And dues paid on your behalf are taxable: "Any association dues and initial Membership Savings account deposit First Tech may provide on my behalf will be reported on an IRS 1099-INT." No consumer guide mentions that.
• Blue Federal Credit Union: Two corrections. Secondary sources say Blue is for Colorado and Wyoming residents; the Blue Foundation route on Blue's own page carries no geographic limit. And the page most guides link to is dead; the one that works is bluefcu.com/join.
• Association of Science and Technology Centers: The 90-mile rule is TWO tests, not one, and both must pass: the venue must be more than 90 miles from your home AND more than 90 miles from the science centre you are a member of. It is measured "as the crow flies" — a linear radius, not driving distance — so a venue two hours away by road can still be inside it.
• North American Reciprocal Museum Association: NARM's exclusion radius is 15 miles, not the 50 miles that circulates — and it is opt-in rather than universal. Only institutions carrying a double asterisk in the list apply it. That is six times tighter than ASTC's 90 miles and applies far less often, which makes NARM much more useful close to home than the comparison usually suggests.
• Association of Zoos and Aquariums: Three things are commonly published and wrong. "AZA gets you 50% off" is roughly right but it is really a matrix, and free admission is the exception rather than the norm — a home facility coded 50% never gets you in free anywhere. There is NO fixed exclusion mileage: "'Close geographic proximity' is determined by each institution", so any article quoting a specific AZA radius invented it. And reciprocity is void on a membership borrowed from a library — "An individual or family must own the membership to receive reciprocal admissions" — which matters if you were planning to combine this with a library pass.
• American Alliance of Museums: AAM is listed as a reciprocal museum deal all over the internet and it is not one. In its own words: "Although some museums may extend a professional courtesy to our members, we are not a reciprocal program, and free or discounted museum admission is not one of our member benefits." Individual museums may extend courtesy admission if they feel like it; AAM has no agreement obliging any of them to.
• Costco Wholesale: Two things circulate that are wrong. There is no such thing as a free Costco day pass — Costco's own words are "Costco does not offer free shopping passes." And the Executive cap is widely published as $750; that figure comes from Costco's own Member Privileges PDF, which is dated 2016 and stale. The live join page says $1,250.
• Sam's Club: Two corrections. The membership is $60, not the $50 that is still widely repeated. And the "walk in as a non-member and pay 10% more" advice is wrong: the 10% surcharge is online-only — "Guest membership is not available in-club or for making club purchases", and in club "ONLY a member may purchase items."
• BJ's Wholesale Club: The join-cancel-rejoin trick some blogs suggest works exactly once: "Refunds will not be paid for second or subsequent cancellations."
• National Park Service and five other federal agencies: The pass restructured in 2026 and most write-ups have not caught up. "$80" is now the RESIDENT price; non-residents pay $250. At eleven named parks — Acadia, Bryce Canyon, Everglades, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Rocky Mountain, Sequoia & Kings Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite and Zion — non-residents aged 16 and over also pay an extra $100 each unless they hold a pass. Fee-free days changed too: from 2026 "free entrance on these days will be for US citizens and residents only", and Martin Luther King Jr. Day is no longer on the list even though it is still widely published as one.
• NJ Department of Environmental Protection: New Jersey state parks are not free, and believing they are is the most common mistake on this card. The 2022 headline was a one-year FY2023 budget measure, and it was never residents-only — "Park entrance fees will be waived for all visitors, regardless of state residency." The original announcement URL now 404s. Fees are charged today and the 2026 pass is on sale. Note the inverse trap too: the $50/$75 figures look old enough to be stale and are current, while the newer-sounding free-parks story is the stale one.
• Public libraries, state by state: "Libraries lend park passes" is true in some states and not others, and New Jersey is one of the nots — at least at state level. Minnesota and Wisconsin run formal statewide DNR programmes; Wisconsin's alone covers "more than 150 libraries statewide". No equivalent NJ statewide programme could be found on any DEP or State Library page, so in New Jersey this is library-by-library and you have to ask.
• Ireland: Two things almost everyone gets wrong. Your ancestor taking US citizenship is irrelevant here — eligibility turns on where the grandparent was born, and s.24 of the 1956 Act says no person is "deemed ever to have lost Irish citizenship ... merely by operation of the law of another country." And the great-grandparent door is not simply shut: it opens if your parent registered before you were born. Separately, the Irish citizenship reform in the news in September 2026 raises naturalisation residence from 5 to 8 years and does not touch descent at all.
• Italy: The rule changed TWICE in 2025 and the version most sites publish is the one that no longer exists. Decree-Law 36/2025 of 28 March said a parent or adoptive parent "è nato in Italia" — born in Italy. The conversion law of 23 May replaced that with the exclusively-Italian-citizenship test. An Italian-born grandfather who took US citizenship passes the March wording and fails the law actually in force. Only applications submitted before 11:59pm Italian time on 27 March 2025 follow the old rules. Note too that the 31 May 2026 deadline for newly-adult applicants has already passed; it is still circulating as upcoming.
• Germany: Naturalising abroad no longer costs you German citizenship — §25 StAG, the provision that used to strip it, now reads simply "(weggefallen)", repealed. Most published guidance still describes the old loss rule as current. That rule is why most German-American lines were considered broken, so a chain written off years ago may be worth another look. Also expect confusion about the Bundestag vote of 8 October 2025: it abolished three-year fast-track naturalisation only. It did not touch descent and did not bring back the single-nationality rule.
• Poland: Polish claims die in ways people do not expect. It is not only the ancestor's own naturalisation. Under art. 11 of the 1920 Act, taking public office in another country, or serving in its military, also ended Polish citizenship — which catches a great many men who served in the US armed forces. And art. 13 made that loss derivative: it extended to "the wife of the person acquiring or losing Polish citizenship, and also to his children up to the age of 18." One man's 1930s decision can end the claim for an entire branch.
• Greece: Your ancestor becoming an American did not break the chain. Losing Greek citizenship was never automatic — art. 16(1) of the Nationality Code requires "permission of the Minister of Interior," granted after an opinion of the Citizenship Council. Absent that decision, a Greek ancestor who became American stayed Greek. There is even a trap inside the trap: art. 16(3) says permission cannot be granted to a man who owes or is in arrears on military obligation — so many men could not have been released even had they asked.
• Hungary: The real chain-breaker is not your ancestor's US naturalisation date — it is 1 September 1929. "If your Hungarian ancestor emigrated from Hungary before September 1, 1929, it is likely that his or her descendants were not born Hungarian citizens." Two more breaks catch people: before 1 October 1957 a Hungarian woman lost her citizenship on marrying a non-Hungarian, and a child of a non-Hungarian father and a Hungarian mother did not become Hungarian at birth.
• Spain: The "Grandchildren's Law" is closed, and this is the single most expensive misconception in this whole area. The Democratic Memory Law window ran two years with exactly one permitted extension, and it was spent: appointment requests closed on 22 October 2025. Spain's own foreign ministry said so again on a page dated 23 June 2026 — "Este plazo terminó en octubre de 2025." A second extension is not legally possible. Consulates are still working the BACKLOG into 2026, which is easily misread as the window being open, and anyone selling new applications today is selling something Spain no longer accepts. The Sephardic route under Law 12/2015 closed earlier still, on 1 October 2019.
• Portugal: There is no "2025 Portuguese nationality law," whatever you have read. That bill was partly struck down by the Constitutional Court and then vetoed by the President. The law actually in force is Lei Orgânica 1/2026, effective 19 May 2026. Commentary gets the generations backwards in both directions: the great-grandchild route exists but needs five years' residence in Portugal and is discretionary, while the grandchild route still needs NO residence. And the Sephardic route was not merely restricted — it was abolished; art. 6.º/7 now reads "[Revogado.]"
• Lithuania: Two corrections worth real money. First, an indefinite right is not an unlimited one: the statute defines a descendant as "a child, grandchild or great-grandchild," and the time limit and the generational limit get conflated constantly. Second, the official English translation circulating everywhere is the 2010 text and is a decade out of date on the two provisions that matter most. The 2016 amendment replaced "pasitraukęs" (fled) with "išvykęs" (left) — so no persecution or flight has to be shown. And the "repatriated to their ethnic homeland" exclusion that guides repeat does not appear in the statute in force at all; the real exclusion is departure into former-Soviet territory after 15 June 1940.
• Slovakia: This route became genuinely usable from abroad only on 15 July 2026. It was created in 2022 but sat inside § 7 ods. 2, which opens "Žiadateľovi, ktorý má na území Slovenskej republiky povolený pobyt" — a Slovak residence permit was required. Law 128/2026 moved it to a standalone ods. 8 and removed that requirement. Virtually all existing guidance still says residence is required, and so does Slovakia's own ministry checklist, which has not been updated. Two more corrections: the limit is great-grandparent, not great-great-grandparent — Slovak prefixes mislead English speakers, since pra- means grand and pra-pra- means great-grand — and the ancestor must have been born in Slovakia, not merely somewhere in Czechoslovakia.