Update: The price of Prime membership will increase tomorrow to $139, this is your last chance to purchase the Gift Of Prime here and lock in the current lower price!
In 2014 Amazon was charging $79 for Prime membership and said that they believed they could charge up to $119 per year. At the time they only raised it to $99, but then on 5/11/18 the cost of Prime membership for new members climbed to $119 per year.
Amazon is back again with a price increase and starting 2/18/22 a year of Prime Membership will be $139 per year.
Existing members will be able to renew until 3/25, but renewals on 3/26 will also go up to $139 per year.
Monthly Prime members will have to pay $14.99 per month, instead of the current $12.99 per month.
You can join Amazon Prime now for $119 here with a free trial.
Want to lock in $119 Prime membership for future years?
I locked in several years of $79 Prime membership back in 2014 and then again in 2018 for $119 and they continue to work perfectly. This method provides also provides a hedge even if Amazon decides to raise the price of Prime again in the future. Here’s how to do it:
You can buy $119 Prime Gift Memberships here.Ā You can buy as many as youād like, but youāll have to buy them one at a time.
Tax on Amazon Prime Memberships is collected based on whether yourĀ default address is in one of these states. You can buy Prime Gift Memberships with Amazon gift cards, so if you have Amazon gift cards and have an address in a state without tax on a Prime Membership (such as Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, or Virginia) you can use that as your default address for an Amazon Prime Gift Membership and avoid paying tax on the membership.
You can use yourĀ Ink Business CashĀ® Credit CardĀ card and get 5 Chase Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent by buying Amazon gift cards at Office Max/Depot or Staples.Ā You should have until 3/25 to buy Amazon gift cards and lock in Prime Gift Memberships at the $119 rate. Of course you don’t need to use a gift card to lock this in, but that way you’ll earn 5 Chase Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent and can avoid paying taxes on Prime membership.
You can have Prime Gift Memberships emailed to you or a friend. Just select to have it sent now and you can file the gift memberships away in a folder in your email. There is no limit to how many Prime Gift Memberships that you can buy.Ā They will always be good for a full year of Prime, no matter what the price for Prime is when they are used, and they will never expire!
When you send yourself a gift year of Prime you will get an email with a special link that instantly gives a year of Prime to whatever account opens the special link. If you click on the link and have an active Prime membership it will ask you if you want to convert the membership into a gift card for the amount paid for the Prime gift membership.Ā If you paid tax for the Prime Gift then you will also get the tax back as a gift card.
You need to click on the link after your Prime membership expires in order to use it for another year of Prime.
A regular Prime membership is set to auto-renew. To use the Prime Gift Membership, you will need to set your Prime not to auto-renew.
Here are instructions that worked in 2018 and still work today:
To do so, click on this link and click on “Manage Membership” then select āDo not continueā or select “End Membership and Benefits”
Confirm that you want to end your benefits at the end of your membership that you have already paid for:
You will get a confirmation that your Prime membership will end on a future date:
After that date, just click on the Prime Gift Membership link in your email to enroll in another year of Prime at the $99 $119 price that you locked in!
Decide that you no longer want Prime? You can convert the amount you paid back into an Amazon gift card by scrolling to the bottom of the email and locating the link in this paragraph:
You canĀ buy as many gifts of PrimeĀ as you want.Ā You can use it for yourself or give it as a gift in the future to anyone else.
If you have gift card funds locked in one Amazon account and you want to transfer the funds to someone else you can buy Prime gift subscriptions with your gift cards and send them the gift to another Prime account! That other account can then turn the gift membership back into gift cards in their account.
Note that if you are grandfatheredĀ into the old Prime sharing system you canāt use this workaround as it requires letting your old Prime expire before enrolling again. Under new Prime sharing rules you can only share Prime with 1 other person and payment details are shared as well between those accounts. Though under the new system Prime benefits likeĀ Amazon FamilyĀ and Prime Video are usable by both accounts.
Amazon PrimeĀ member benefits include:
- Exclusive accessĀ to discounted deals.
- FreeĀ 2 day shippingĀ on all Amazon orders
- Free shipping on all orders fromĀ Woot
- FreeĀ instant video streaming
- FreeĀ Prime music
- Kindle lending library
- FreeĀ full-res unlmited photo storageĀ in the cloud.
- Prime pantryĀ access
- 30 minuteĀ priority access to lightning and Black Friday deals
- Access to exclusive sales likeĀ Prime Day, and other Prime member only sales.
- Prime TwitchĀ Video Game Benefits
- If you have Amazon Prime youĀ can selectĀ āFREE No-Rush ShippingāĀ when making an order and youāll get a bonus such as a $1 Amazon eBooks, digital music and videos credit, a $3 Amazon.com credit, a $5.99 Prime Pantry credit, a $20 Amazon Home Services credit, etc.Ā You can view your no-rush credits here.
- Amazon Prime members can opt intoĀ Amazon FamilyĀ where youāll also get up toĀ 20% off subscription orders of diapersĀ andĀ 15% off to complete unordered items from a baby registry.
- Several times per year Amazon Prime membersĀ can getĀ free magazine subscriptions.
- Prime members also get access toĀ Amazon PrintsĀ for inexpensive photo and photobook printing with free shipping.
- WithĀ Prime ReadingĀ you canĀ browse the full version thousands of books and magazines free of chargeĀ from your smartphone, tablet, or Kindle via the Kindle app.
- Prime members who make a wedding registry can evenĀ save 20% off items that werenāt purchased off their registry!
How many years of $119 Prime membership will you lock in?
Amazon offers free shipping with $35+ orders or get free next-day shipping on all orders with a free trial of Amazon Prime. Prime members can share benefits with a Household member here, allowing them to double up on Amazon Prime promos!Ā A 6 month trial and discounted Prime membership is available with Amazon Student. EBT/Medicaid Cardholders canĀ save on Prime Membership here.
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83 Comments On "Only 6 Hours Left To Save On Amazon Prime! Amazon Prime Going Up To $139 Per Year, But Here’s How You Can Lock In The $119 Rate For Future Years!"
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The price of the monthly Prime membership will increase to $14.99/month, and the price of the annual Prime membership will increase to $139/year.
For Prime Student members, the price of the monthly membership will increase to $7.49/month, and the price of the annual membership will increase to $69/year.
For qualify EBT and government assistance recipients, the price of membership will increase to $6.99/month.
Are you able to lock in the EBT rate?
Great trick that works great! Thanks Dan
what about discounted rate for medicaid and EBT cardholders?
More than couple of years out, $20 of savings is a pretty low rate of return.
It won’t stay at $139 forever.
Correct goes up every few years.
My $79 Prime gifts are still appreciating in value…
You’d have done better with BTC
Or by going into a casino and betting on red.
In 2018 did you mean you locked in more years at $99?
And thanks for sharing. I took advantage back then and am still enjoying the $99 yearly price.
This requires laying out the money now, when prime shipping speed became much slowerā¦
Did it? over the past 2 years it has increased for me. i get 75%+ of items in 1 day
Since corona I’ve also seen a siginificant slowdown. NJ
Faster than ever in CLE.
I agree. I live in NJ and it also seems really slow compared to what they used to do. I had 4 orders delayed in 2 weeks. I complained to Amazon and they gave me a credit, so I guess that’s the upside of delays.
Blame the Lakewood post office.
When corona initially kicked in, the delivery times slowed. Now, they’re very fast.
What about again student? Any change to that?
If you have an older Prime family membership, doesn’t this method knock out some family benefits?
1 Problem: Even though they don’t technically expire, if you hold the gift cards for too long, they will probably be subject to escheat, which means they’re cancelled and the balance sent to the state Unclaimed Funds Dept for you to collect it. Each state has different laws of the timing of this from 1yr, 3,5,10 years…
And then you collect it from the state and get your cash back – so what’s the problem?
You don’t gain by buying 100 of these.. Bec you can only save it for 1,3,5,10 years
Right, you don’t gain, but you also don’t lose the principal. This isn’t like a coupon that expires and becomes worthless.
Most states charge a small fee to claim it
This is getting ridiculous.Honestly not sure if Iāll even keep prime. How high does the price have to get before itās not worth it anymore? $199?
Not surprising considering the rampant inflation these days š
How can I change my default address l, if I still need to use the billing address of my cc which is in a tax state?
Sounds like a great hedge for Amazonā¦ free loan for a few years. Could of put that few $79 gift cards in Amazon stock in 2014 and your kids would have free prime š
Por que no los dos?
Vhameivin yavin
My grandfathered shared plan is too good to let go. With my 3 ‘family’ members it costs me roughly $30 a year. Thanks for that tip way back!!
i have a grandfathered account too but no one to share it with. how do you find your ‘family ‘ members
Same here, I forgot who my family members are that I shared my plan with, and there is no way to find them.
Is there a way for a grandfathered plan to see it’s actual members?
Great trick as always, thanks Dan, however I still think leveraging your money is better then to save the extra 20 dollars a year, take all the money that you would lay out now to buy membership gift cards and put it into an s&p500 which rises an average of 8% a year youāll be making way more then the 20 bucks u save a year!
This is guaranteed and tax free
No. Simple math really. if you put the $120 into S&P500 you’ll make $9.60. Whereas if you put the $120 into amazon prime, you’ll make $20 (assuming you’d be buying amazon prime anyway). So double the return, and no risk.
But that is only 1 year, clearly if you are only doing this for next year then buying the prime membership is better than investing that money. However the recommendation is to buy multiple years of prime membership. So you have to layout the money now, let’s say you did 3 years, following your $9.60 return that would now be $28.80 per year, 5 years would be $48.
Basically if you want to buy 2 years or less than go for it, else your better off just investing that money and pay yearly for prime at the higher price.
1. Income is taxable, so that has to be backed out.
2. This is no risk.
3. Amazon has been raising the price by $20 every 4 years.
it’s actually more than that because of compound returns, so you certainly shouldn’t do this for the next 10 years running. But even if you did 2-3 years, you’re basically at the same point you are now (and you’re even better off if they raise the price again, remember dan is now up $50 a year, which would mean about 4 years of stock market returns)
Past results might not be indicative of the future, especially now.
how about people that are getting it for 5.99 a month bec they are students or have EBT?
What about student membership?
Recently I received ebt cards for my children due to covid, I used the card info to get prime for 5.99/month.
How long do they give it for?
Even after the card expires?
Any downside to letting prime expire before reupping? Do you lose subscriptions or order history?
Lol you don’t lose order history.
do you have to use the prime membership to the email that is sent? meaning can I buy it now and send it to my email and then decide if I want to use it on my account or give to a friend.. etc.. thanks!
Annual Prime membership price increases from $119 to $139.
The monthly Prime membership price will change from $12.99 to $14.99.
Prime Student price is also increasing from $59/year to $69/year, or monthly from $6.49 to $7.49.
The EBT price goes up from $5.99/month to $6.99/month.
From DoC
Does this work even if you have one of those older accounts where you could have up to five members, before they made the household rule? Thanks!
DO NOT do this on an old, grandfathered account. You will lose the “family” benefit!
I should have some $79s still laying around somewhere.
I let my Prime run out as it is not really economical any more. I also find that I generally spend far less without it, and think more than twice before hitting that āorderā button. What I do now is, whenever I need something that is less than the $25 free-shipping threshold, I add it to my cart and when my order meets the minimum I have them ship it.
What really bothered me was the fact that even with Prime, many items still had a minimum for shipping, so the whole purpose was basically defeated. So in the post where you wrote āFree 2 day shipping on all Amazon ordersā, you should really add an asterisk to the āall*ā.
prices in cart can change
Hi and thanks for this info. I tried several times to pay for the gift membership with a gift card (selected: Your available balance
Use your $646.10 gift card balance
Use $119.00 of your $228.10 gift card balance) and I keep getting this message:
Important Message
There was a problem with some of the items in your order (see below for more information):
Amazon Prime (One Year Membership)
Amazon Prime (One Year Membership) is not available for you to purchase because you have selected an ineligible payment method. Please delete the item to continue
PLEASE ADVISE. Thank you!
Same problem and they are charging me tax
I have a maryland address and it shows that it wants to charge me tax…
Can I buy the membership with a giftcard?
I not longer believe Prime is worth the money you pay. Of the last 10 orders I placed through Amazon Prime, with Prime delivery, seven have com in past the promised delivery date. The last 4 items were delayed late in the same day. When I call Amazon customer service I get a foreign call center that frustrates me even more. They can give no explanation as to why the orders are delayed and usually offer no compensation. As for the Prime Video, there are only a few things worth watching. Prime is no longer a good value. I will be canceling Prime, Music, and Kindle Unlimited. Hello Walmart.
If I cancel auto renew and let my Prime membership lapse before restarting it with my $119 “gift membership”, will I lose all my 10 years of previous Amazon order history?
No, your amazon account will stay, and your order history will be just fine.
Anyone know if an EBT membership can be shared with one other adult (who is not EBT), like a regular prime membership?
Does cancelling for membership also mess up your returns or any other benefits?
Is there any downside to cancelling my membership?
I have a ton of photos stored on Amazon Photos that I get free with Prime. If I let Prie expire, will I lose those photos when I let the current Prime lapse until I reinstate the new Prime? Thanks
So grandfathered accounts (prime split between 4 ppl) cannot buy giftcards to lock in the price??
I signed up with an address in one of the tax free states and it looked like it went through…I received a confirmation email with the order number but no gift email saying congrats on the yearly membership….and when I checked my order it says processing….Its been like that for an hour now…Anyone else have that issue? You think Amazon caught on?
nevermind ..I just received the welcome email…weird it took an hour to arrive though…
@Dan why not just change to a new email every 30 days and use the free 30 day trial? Cheaper than the $79 rate…
just tried- won’t let me add more then 1 membership to my cart!
post addresses this and says you have to buy one at a time
It keeps tell me Amazon Prime (One Year Membership) is not available for you to purchase because you are either a Prime member or you are buying Prime with 1-Click ordering. Please delete this item to continue.
Is anybody NOT being charged tax in Maryland??
I”m being charged tax, it looks like there’s no way around it
Doesn’t seem to work. I got the following message:
Amazon Prime (One Year Membership) is not available for you to purchase because you are either a Prime member or you are buying Prime with 1-Click ordering. Please delete this item to continue.
I was able to buy a gift of membership with an amazon gift card a few minutes ago. It still works.
Does this trick work if I am currently non-prime and buy this gift of prime in case I decide to sign up?
Also will the exchange Prime gift to Amazon GC work if I decide later not to sign up?
TIA
It won’t let me:
“Amazon Prime (One Year Membership) is not available for you to purchase because you are either a Prime member or you are buying Prime with 1-Click ordering. Please delete this item to continue.”
For all those who had the same error message as I did stating that it was not available to purchase as I already have an account, I figured out that to buy I had to check off the box that says I’m getting it as a gift for someone.
Question I have is that the terms state, “the gift membership does not automatically renew and is not eligible for promotional offers.” What promotional offers are they talking about?
It did not ask if I wanted to convert my membership. It just gave me a gift card in the amount. Really annoyed
Dan- price in link is showing 139 for me, how is it that I have until 3/25?
Tried this, Amazon didn’t verify most of the purchases & flagged my account for suspicious activity, then closed my account
Contacted them multiple times & keep responding that my account was closed due to suspicious activity. Won’t give me a refund for the remainder of my current subscription year
Try writing to jeff@amazon.com
Well, apparently they changed the 3/25/22 deadline for existing Prime members to get it at $119. I’m trying to buy the gift of Prime today and it’s $139. š Guess I’ll go back to automatically renewing.
Oops, now I see I misinterpreted the dates – 3/25 is the deadline for renewing at $119, not purchasing the gift of Prime. [face palm]
Thank you for considering the Gift of Prime. This feature is no longer available. Please see our Amazon gift cards, which can be used to purchase Prime as well as millions of other items on Amazon.
I bought the gift of prime in Feb 2022 – I imagine I used it already but want to be sure I did, how do I check if I used it or not?
Thanks!