Amazon Prime Perks & Benefits You Need to Know
By Paula Bennett
Unless you‘ve been living off the grid for years, you already know Amazon Prime. It‘s the paid subscription service offered by Amazon that offers tons of perks for its customers. You probably know it for the free shipping, but did you know there’s a lot more to Prime membership than shipping benefits?
Not a Prime member yet? You’re in luck. Amazon offers a 30-day free trial so you can test out Prime before coughing up the annual fee.
Then, learn about the Amazon Prime benefits you’re missing out on.
Deals
Amazon Prime members get access to a lot of exclusive deals throughout the year. The biggest deals are the daily Lightning Deals and Amazon’s annual Prime Day event.
Lightning Deals
Amazon’s Lightning Deals are deep discounts on specific items that are available for a short period of time. Although these deals are available to all Amazon customers, members enjoy Prime early access.
You’ll find these discounts throughout the site while shopping normally, but you can browse all the live deals together under Today’s Deals.
Prime Day
Amazon’s Prime Day is the midsummer version of Black Friday for online shoppers that’s only accessible to Amazon Prime members. The two-day shopping event gives discounts on items across every department. It’s the perfect chance to start holiday shopping or snag the Alexa Echo or Fire Tablet you’ve been eyeing for yourself.
This year, Amazon Prime Day was from July 12th to 13th. Since then, they announced a sequel sale as a precursor to the Black Friday season on October 11th and 12th. This sale will essentially be a second Amazon Prime Day with steep deals across all categories.
Shipping
One of the first selling points for an Amazon Prime membership was the free two-day shipping. For most of us, the membership fee is quickly covered within a few orders.
Recently, Amazon started offering same-day two-hour delivery and next-day delivery to subscribers in select cities. If you’re lucky enough to be in one of those areas, you can get your Amazon items within just a few hours.
There are two other shipping options Amazon Prime members have access to.
Amazon Day
The Amazon Day shipping option lets you choose which day of the week all of your packages from different retailers get delivered. Using this option lets you get all of your deliveries on one-day instead of multiple deliveries throughout the week.
No-Rush Rewards
If you choose Amazon’s Free No-Rush Shipping option, Amazon will give you credit toward electronic purchases. You’ll get your items a few days later, but you can put the rewards you earn toward video, e-book, or game purchases.
Amazon Fresh
Amazon’s online grocery delivery service is free to use if you have a Prime membership. Although delivery isn’t available in all areas, you may find a pickup location near you. The service is through Whole Foods, so you’ll have the same selection online as you would going into the store.
In addition to free access to Amazon Fresh, you’ll also get deals in-store at Whole Foods Market. So, if you like to shop in-store, don’t forget to scan your Amazon app, available on iOS and Android devices, at check-out to apply Prime-exclusive coupons to your whole cart.
If you were familiar with Prime Now, Amazon Fresh is essentially the replacement for same-day grocery delivery.
Entertainment
Amazon First Reads
At the start of each month, all Prime members will get to choose a free e-book from a pre-selected list of titles as part of Amazon’s First Reads program. The titles offered are always new releases, so it’s a great chance to discover a new author.
Prime Reading
In addition to Amazon First Reads, you also have access to a full library of ebooks available for free only to Prime members through Prime Reading. This Amazon Prime perk offers more than 2,500 books and magazines as part of your Prime membership that are available on your Kindle or through the Kindle app.
If you’d rather listen to audiobooks, a la Audible, you’re in luck. Some books on Prime Reading offer audible narration too just like Audible. Wondering what to read with all these options? Catch up on the hot titles from 2021.
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Prime Gaming
Amazon Prime members also have access to Amazon’s online gaming service. If you or someone in your house likes video games, Prime Gaming gives you access to free games, in-game content, and a subscription to a Twitch channel, which is Amazon’s video-game streaming service.
If you’re not familiar with Twitch, it’s not actually all gaming content either. Streamers cover a huge variety of topics including live music, hobbies, or even just chatting. Prime Gaming gives you one free channel subscription a month which gives monetary support to a streamer of your choice and unlocks subscriber perks.
Prime Video
Just like Netflix, Amazon’s video streaming service, Prime Video, gives you access to a library of popular TV shows and movies and all of the Amazon original shows and movies that aren’t available anywhere else.
Some shows, by Showtime, Starz, or HBO, will require those specific subscriptions at an additional fee.
Amazon Prime Music
Prime Music gives you access to ad-free music streaming like Spotify or Apple Music do. Amazon Music Prime, as it’s officially called, includes two million songs, podcasts, and over a thousand playlists curated by Amazon.
For a larger selection, you‘ll have to upgrade to Amazon Music Unlimited. Unlimited ups the library of music to a whopping 75 million songs including more new releases. Prime members can upgrade to Amazon Music Unlimited for $8.99/monthly or $79/annually while non-Prime members pay $9.99/monthly.
Amazon Kids+
Formerly known as Amazon FreeTime, Amazon Kids+ provides thousands of books, videos, games, and apps that are 100% kid-friendly. Prime Members can get a 40% discount on the monthly subscription cost of Kids+.
Extras
Prime Wardrobe – Try Before You Buy
A newer feature that Amazon offers Prime members is Try Before You Buy, which is great if you can’t always get to the store to try new clothes on. Amazon lets you choose up to six clothing items to try on at home. Then, you return whatever you don’t like and get charged for the pieces you keep.
We love using Amazon Wardrobe for event shopping especially when we want to consider several options side by side with a high-return rate.
Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card
If you’re a frequent Amazon shopper, a Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card will get you a bit more out of your membership. Each time you use the credit card at Amazon or Whole Foods Market, you’ll receive 5% cash back on your purchase. All other purchases will give you a minimum of 1% cashback.
Registry Welcome Box (Baby)
If you’ve got a new addition coming to the family soon, you can set up a baby registry on Amazon and get a free registry welcome box. All you have to do is complete 60% of your registry checklist and have at least $10 in registry purchases.
Prime Photos
Amazon offers all Prime members unlimited photo storage. Amazon Photos allows you to back up your photos, so you can free up your phone, camera, or computer to make room for more.
If you’re currently juggling a bunch of thumb drives, this is the digital storage upgrade you need.
Key by Amazon
In certain areas, you can get your packages delivered into your garage, home, or vehicle with Key by Amazon.
If you‘re often plundered by porch pirates, this is the solution. Check the availability of Key in your area on Amazon’s website.
If you want to share all these benefits with the whole family, look at Amazon Household, sometimes called Amazon Family. With Household, you can create separate accounts for two adults, four teens, and four children. Adults each have a separate account, teens have a unique login to shop and stream without the privacy of an adult account, and children can stream family-friendly content without shopping.
If your young adult would rather have their own Prime account entirely (or you run out of adult accounts), point them to Amazon Prime Student for a discounted membership fee during school.
A Prime membership is an obvious choice if you order from Amazon on a regular basis, but to truly maximize your benefits, take advantage of every Amazon Prime perk they offer. Then, even if you order a bit less, it’s still worth it.
The above content may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, Finer Things earns from qualifying purchases. When you click and shop, we receive a small commission to support our writers.
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