Amazon Prime - $20 increase to $99.

shrike4242

shrike4242

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Surprised no one has brought this up yet:

Dear Shrike4242,

We are writing to provide you advance notice that the price of your Prime membership will be increasing. The annual rate will be $99 when your membership renews on December 14th, 2014.

Even as fuel and transportation costs have increased, the price of Prime has remained the same for nine years. Since 2005, the number of items eligible for unlimited free Two-Day Shipping has grown from one million to over 20 million. We also added unlimited access to over 40,000 movies and TV episodes with Prime Instant Video and a selection of over 500,000 books to borrow from the Kindle Owners' Lending Library.

For more information about your Prime membership, visit our Prime membership page.

Sincerely,

The Amazon Prime Team
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Time to let the complaining commence.

Personally, I get enough use out of the shipping component on a regular basis that the video streaming is just a bonus and it's something I'm still going to keep when it renews at $20 more.

EDIT:

Some additional items of note:

Here's one way to lock in one additional year at $79:

If your current Prime membership is scheduled to expire on or after April 17th, and therefore would auto-renew at the $99 price, you can effectively lock in the $79 price by taking the following steps:

(1) Look up your Prime expiration date. (Let's say yours is May 15th.)

(2) Purchase a Prime Gift Membership here:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/prime/pipeline/prime_gifting_landing

Set the delivery date as the date after your membership expires (in this case, May 16, 2014).

Enter your own e-mail address as the gift recipient. It is okay if this is the exact e-mail address already associated with your Amazon Prime account.

Place order (total will be $79).

(3) Turn off your Prime auto-renew. (End membership - at expiration)

(4) On the day after your membership expires, you will receive an e-mail from Amazon with the gift membership. Follow the instructions to apply it to your account.

This is a pretty straightforward way to save $20.
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HOW TO CANCEL AMAZON PRIME AUTO RENEW:

Go to Manage Prime Membership [amazon.com].
Review the renewal date listed on the left-hand side of the page.

If you currently have an Amazon Prime free trial, click Do Not Continue .
If you currently have a paid Amazon Prime membership, click End Membership .

Turn off your renewal using the link below the renewal date.

Note: Your membership will expire at the end of the current period. It will NOT end before your current paid subscription is over, nor can you cancel it early for a refund.
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I think it's a reasonable bump, but that's coming from a cag. Not sure how the average consumer will view this. At least it wasn't over $100 like some people were fearing.
 
There's just so many things that I purchase with Prime attached to it, new and used, so I don't mind the increase since I split the cost with my family anyways, and they all use it just as much as I do.

It's only another $5 to me technically, so what the hay.

 
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Donut2922 said:
I think it's a reasonable bump, but that's coming from a cag. Not sure how the average consumer will view this. At least it wasn't over $100 like some people were fearing.
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If it had gone up to $119 instead of $99, would you have kept it for another year? I still would have, with as much as I buy on Amazon.

I have a Prime account for work purposes and it's been invaluable to be able to next-day ship something for a reasonable cost, no matter what the item is. That, and the 2-day shipping without additional charges under Prime has also been quite valuable.

I know they do audit use of Prime, since I had an issue with my work Prime account where I had to order a large number of webcams for a work project, all with different ship-to addresses. I received an email mentioning about the TOS of Prime, replied back with an explanation, went back and forth another time, and everything was OK.

I would expect Amazon to be auditing it closer with the price increase since their profits are miniscule even at double-digit billions in revenue.

 
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shrike4242 said:
If it had gone up to $119 instead of $99, would you have kept it for another year? I still would have, with as much as I buy on Amazon.

I have a Prime account for work purposes and it's been invaluable to be able to next-day ship something for a reasonable cost, no matter what the item is. That, and the 2-day shipping without additional charges under Prime has also been quite valuable.

I know they do audit use of Prime, since I had an issue with my work Prime account where I had to order a large number of webcams for a work project, all with different ship-to addresses. I received an email mentioning about the TOS of Prime, replied back with an explanation, went back and forth another time, and everything was OK.

I would expect Amazon to be auditing it closer with the price increase since their profits are miniscule even at double-digit billions in revenue.
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I'd still keep it, but doesn't mean I have to like it.

 
Final nail in the coffin for me with Amazon.  I've shifted most of my business to B&M stores now anyway.

Might have been more receptive had they not fucked up so badly with Bravely Default CEs.

 
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I wouldn't mind the increase so much if they did away with those add on items that can't even be purchased with paid shipping if you spend under $25. They claim those items are too cost prohibitive to ship on their own yet many times even when added to a more expensive order they still ship everything separate.

 
Still well worth it for me.  Honestly the price could have doubled and it still would have been worth it for the free shipping alone for me and on top of that I use their streaming service a ton.  $99 seems like it should still be worth it for most people that have it already.

 
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Can't expect it to stay $79 forever, especially since postage has gone up every year across all major carriers----but I agree with Shrike. I'd like to see Amazon be more diligent with how they go about looking for abuse.

Maybe they should also create two tiers of prime too---one level for people that use it occasionally (5-10 shipments a month) and once that use it regularly (20+ shipments a month).

 
GBAstar said:
Can't expect it to stay $79 forever, especially since postage has gone up every year across all major carriers----but I agree with Shrike. I'd like to see Amazon be more diligent with how they go about looking for abuse.

Maybe they should also create two tiers of prime too---one level for people that use it occasionally (5-10 shipments a month) and once that use it regularly (20+ shipments a month).
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I'd prefer them to make a "no video" version of Prime, like it used to be, only for businesses, that wasn't the $99. Only would include the shipping component and not the video streaming or the Kindle book rental.

 
shrike4242 said:
If it had gone up to $119 instead of $99, would you have kept it for another year? I still would have, with as much as I buy on Amazon.

I have a Prime account for work purposes and it's been invaluable to be able to next-day ship something for a reasonable cost, no matter what the item is. That, and the 2-day shipping without additional charges under Prime has also been quite valuable.

I know they do audit use of Prime, since I had an issue with my work Prime account where I had to order a large number of webcams for a work project, all with different ship-to addresses. I received an email mentioning about the TOS of Prime, replied back with an explanation, went back and forth another time, and everything was OK.

I would expect Amazon to be auditing it closer with the price increase since their profits are miniscule even at double-digit billions in revenue.
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A couple of years ago before I got on CAG, I would have said "no." I shopped on Amazon but not with a great amount of frequency. Now that I pick up cheap gaming options via the AWD thread often, I would do it without hesitation. The number of orders coupled with the standard $4 shipping cost since it's not practical to check out with the $35 cart total everytime, makes it justifiable at $100 for me. I'm not even much of a streaming user of their Prime video service either.

$100 is still a considerable payment for the average consumer. My parents balked at $80 so when they read about the increase they are going to just flip their lid.

I too am curious if Amazon Prime audits are going to become more common than they are now.
 
I've been sharing my friend's Prime account for a few years now but I think I might have to go ahead and get my own. Currently have Netflix but there's enough overlap with Prime video that I figure I'll cancel Netflix after I finish marathoning Clone Wars. The main tipping point for me is I just now figured out how to pay for Prime using Amazon credit (add a gift subscription to your cart and it'll use whatever credit you have just like normal).

 
Donut2922 said:
Thanks! Didn't know about the gift trick to redeem AMZ credit for Prime.
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I think that's going to be awfully popular with people in the AMZ trade-in thread, methinks.

I just did the gift subscription process for my personal Prime account and the work Prime account, so locked in for another year @ $79 for each of them.

Donut2922 said:
A couple of years ago before I got on CAG, I would have said "no." I shopped on Amazon but not with a great amount of frequency. Now that I pick up cheap gaming options via the AWD thread often, I would do it without hesitation. The number of orders coupled with the standard $4 shipping cost since it's not practical to check out with the $35 cart total everytime, makes it justifiable at $100 for me. I'm not even much of a streaming user of their Prime video service either.

$100 is still a considerable payment for the average consumer. My parents balked at $80 so when they read about the increase they are going to just flip their lid.

I too am curious if Amazon Prime audits are going to become more common than they are now.
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I'm hoping they will, since I know there's more than a few business out there that are likely using Amazon as their shipping warehouse for their customers, which is a violation of the TOS for Prime. That's what they directed at me when they were asking questions about my work's Prime account when they sent me the email about apparent TOS violations.

 
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I'm not going to be renewing my Prime. The $20 increase is just the final nail in the coffin... I have had so many issues with them in the past year or so, mostly with CEs arriving damaged due to their shit packaging and the whole "add on item" is complete shit. I get they'd lose money on it with 2-day but at least give people free 3-5 day option.  

Prime video is pointless to me since most of the free videos are garbage and I'm pretty much against digital purchases. 

 
I was under the impression that amazon students were allowed only 1 year of prime for 50% off? After my first year of student prime expired, I switched to my fiance's account who was able to get the 50% student discount. Considering her prime expires next month, I decided to consider renewing prime on my old account and I was offered the 50% student discount again. (I renewed and checked my c.c. statement which indeed shows a $39.99 + tax charge).

 
TheShepherdSauce said:
I was under the impression that amazon students were allowed only 1 year of prime for 50% off? After my first year of student prime expired, I switched to my fiance's account who was able to get the 50% student discount. Considering her prime expires next month, I decided to consider renewing prime on my old account and I was offered the 50% student discount again. (I renewed and checked my c.c. statement which indeed shows a $39.99 + tax charge).
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My first year of Prime Student was free, but I was offered it at 50% off after that. That was back in 2010, though.
 
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