You certainly get what you pay for with the Costco Alpha Omega Elite, and in this case it has been tons of aggravation! We were attracted to this seat because it looked nice and comfortable, the price was affordable, and it was recommended by my Baby Bargains book and Consumer Reports for safety. We had heard some minor complaints from other parents about the straps on this car seat twisting, but we figured that would be a minor nuisance to pay for the benefits we would get from this seat. We severely underestimated the complaints about this seat, however.

Overview

This car seat is classified as a convertible seat, meaning it converts from a rear-facing infant seat to a forward facing infant/toddler seat. This car seat also grows with your child to become a belt-positioning booster seat once your child outgrows the regular forward-facing car seat. The minimum weight requirement to use this seat for rear-facing infants is 5 pounds. While this may seem like an attractive selling feature for this car seat, new parents need to consider the convenience factor associated with transporting an infant. This unit remains buckled into your car, and is not part of a travel system. A travel system normally consists of a car seat/carrier with handles for carrying the unit, a base that the car seat snaps into, and a stroller or stroller frame. The benefit of the travel system is the base, because the base is what is secured in your car, and you can attach and remove the infant and car seat easily, without waking the baby in most cases. When using the Costco Alpha Omega Elite, you need to carry the baby to and from the car seat and can disturb a sleeping baby much more easily. In addition, the car seat components of most travel systems have a much lower maximum weight, typically 26 pounds. The Costco Alpha Omega Elite, on the other hand, can hold up to 100 pounds. Although the Costco comes with infant headrests and supports (to be discussed later), I found that the travel system car seat is much more supportive of a newborn’s tiny frame. For these reasons, I did not use the car seat rear facing until my sons outgrew their infant car seat around the age of 5 months.

This car seat features a 5 point harness, which is much safer from the older 3 point harnesses. This means the child’s arms go though the harness, and the harness connects at your child’s chest via a plastic buckle (points 1 and 2 are the straps above your child’s shoulders, and points 3 and 4 are the straps under their arms – near the waist). The straps then connect to a 5th point which is between the child’s legs. You can tighten or loosen the straps. This is accomplished by pulling on a strap between the child’s legs to tighten, or by pushing in a lever and then pulling from the top 4 points area to loosen. This sounds easy enough in theory, but in practice it is somewhat difficult to do, especially once the straps start twisting. I do not know why or how the straps twist, but they do, and it is so aggravating! Once they start twisting, it is impossible to get them straight again. This leads to complications later as you try to tighten or loosen the straps, because the twisted parts get stuck as you adjust the slack on the car seat. I have taken apart this car seat multiple times, but once fixed the straps quickly twist again. I cannot stress enough how annoying this has become!

Comfort

The car seat seems to be comfortable for older infants and toddlers (as I stated above, I did not use this seat until my infant outgrew his travel system car seat). The cloth fabric is soft and feels almost like velvet. I was slightly concerned that the black fabric would absorb too much heat in direct sunlight, making the seat too warm on sunny days, but this has not been the case.

There car seat comes with two armrests, which my child does not use currently. You can opt to turn the armrests up, like you would do for airplane armrests which are not in use. There is also a head pillow which velcros on to the top of the car seat. The pillow is pretty plush and soft, but I have found if my son falls asleep with the pillow in place, then his head will fall forward. If, however, I have removed the pillow, then his head will lie straight back on the car seat, which I think makes for a more comfortable sleeping position.

In addition, there are other infant head supports that make for a more snug fit for younger babies. These supports are attached via Velcro, and are easily removable. One of the supports is an insert which is in the shape of an upside down “U”, designed to cradle a baby’s head to keep it from rolling to the side. The other inserts are pillows which attach to the sides of the car seat, providing a more comfortable resting spot in case the baby’s head does roll to the side.

There are also strap covers, which are a nice touch for kids of all ages. These are small pieces of padded fabric which surround the car seat straps and keep them from digging into your child’s neck. They are also attached via Velcro, so they can also be removed as needed.

Finally, the car seat has two shoulder strap positions, so you can adjust the strap height as your child gets older. This is better both from a safety perspective, and a comfort one. Unfortunately, you must remove the car seat from the car in order to do this, but considering you will probably only make this adjustment once, it is not a big deal.

Convenience

Some of the more attractive features of this model include:
1) The fact that it is easy to clean. All of the pillows and inserts are attached via Velcro, and they are easily removed. It is also relatively easy to remove and reattach the car seat cover itself, and it can go through the washing machine (I air-dried mine to be safe)
2) The cupholder! If it were not for this cupholder, I would suspect many a cup would have been hurled at my head or dropped onto the floor. I did not think a young toddler would understand the concept of the cupholder, but he has and it has worked wonders for us.

Safety

As previously mentioned, this car seat features a 5-point harness. In addition, it has LATCH, and can attach to any car using LATCH tethers. You need to check with the owner’s manual for your vehicle to determine whether you have LATCH. If you do not have latch, you can also secure this car seat via the seatbelt. Instructions for both are relatively clear and easy to follow. The initial set up took us about an hour, but as first time parents we were intimidated by the process and certainly took our time. When we later removed the seats to clean our the cars, it took only a few minutes to set them back up securely as they were.

Conclusion

The Costco Alpha Omega Elite is truly an example of “you get what you pay for”. It does seem to have some attractive features, namely the fact that it can be used basically from birth to 100 pounds if you’d like, the fact that it appears to be comfortable, and the fact that you seem to get a lot of features for a very fair price. However, in reality while those benefits do exist, there is one big negative that will haunt you on a daily basis! Looking back, I wish I paid more for a Britax, or for the Evenflo I purchased for my second son. While these models were more expensive, I would have forgone the daily aggravation of those twisting straps, and the long term investment would have been well worth it. Perhaps when my son converts to using this as a belt-positioning booster I will have more positive things to say about the Costco Alpha Omega Elite, but for the infant and toddler years, I cannot recommend this car seat.





Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 99.99
Age Range of Child: 12 to 36 Months