Amazon.com Store Card Now Earns 5% Cash Back On All Amazon Purchases

Last year we told you that Amazon was experimenting with their Chase Amazon card and offering 5% cash back on all Amazon.com purchases. It looks like they’ve decided to roll out this feature to their Amazon Store Card. It’s important to remember that this card can only be used for Amazon purchases, it cannot be used at any other stores.

5% Cash Back On All Amazon Purchases

There are a couple of important things to note about this 5% cash back:

  • This benefit is only available on the Amazon Prime Store Card. To get upgraded to this card simply follow these steps:
    • If you’re already a prime member simply go to www.amazon.com/storecard and click upgrade now.
    • If you’re not already a prime member, simply sign up and your card will be upgrade to the Amazon Prime Store Card
  • Eligible Amazon Prime Members may include, in Amazon’s sole discretion: Amazon Prime (excluding invited guests of an Amazon Prime account), Amazon Prime Fresh, Amazon Mom, Amazon Student and trial memberships of Amazon Prime
  • 5% cash back is received in the form of a statement credit
  • This 5% cash back cannot be combined with any financing offers (you’ll be able to select which benefit you’d prefer if both are available to you). You can choose this during check out, if you don’t make a choice you’ll go to the default option and you’ll automatically go to the default option if you use 1-click check out. The default options will be:
    • If you signed up before March 16th, 2015: Financing offer
    • If you signed up on or after March 16th, 2015: 5% offer
  • You can change your default by logging in to ww.amazon.com/storecard, select the radio button and then your desired option
  • Amazon reserves the right to discontinue or alter the terms of this benefit at any time and may replace the “5% back” statement credit benefit with a “5% back” rewards benefit that may be redeemed on Amazon.com as early as 2016

amazon store 5 percent

About The Card

I doubt many of you will be familiar with this card, so I thought I’d explain some benefits to you:

  • No annual fee
  • Sign up bonus of $10 upon approval
  • Card is issued by Synchrony Bank. It’s not possible to get the shopping cart trick to work for this product (so applying will result in a hard pull). Synchrony exclusively pulls TransUnion from my experience (and what I’ve seen in the credit pull database)
  • Promotional financing is available (have to pick between this and the 5% statement credit back):
    • 6 months special financing on any purchase totaling $149 or more
    • 12 months special financing on any purchase totaling $599 or more
    • 24 months special financing on select Amazon-sold items
    • 12 equal monthly payments on select amazon-sold items
    • 24 equal monthly payments on select amazon-sold items

Our Thoughts

The deal breaker for me is the fact that there is really no sign up bonus. I usually don’t care about TransUnion pulls, but I’ve been racking up a few of them applying for whacky cards that I wanted to know more about for the blog. It’s actually already possible to get 5% cash back year round on bookstores as well. Amazon.com codes as a bookstore, so all you need to do is purchase Amazon.com giftcards using a credit card that earns 5% cash back or more at bookstores (like the Sallie Mae from Barclaycard which also earns 5% cash back at grocery stores and at gas stations).

The other way you can get 5% cash back or more for Amazon.com purchases is by purchasing gift cards at other stores. Amazon is one of the most common gift cards, so have a look at the full list of cards that earn 5%+ cash back and then find a matching store that sells Amazon gift cards.

The one positive to this is that it should mean Chase & Discover will have to step up their game on their 5% rotating category cards (Chase Freedom & Discover it) as a lot of people find value in 5% cash back on Amazon purchases for the 4th quarter.

The only thing to keep in mind is that it looks like Amazon/Synchrony are ready to change this from 5% cash back to 5% store credit at the drop of a hat, which shouldn’t be an issue for most people but it’s something to keep in mind.

I found this update while doing research for another post which will be live tomorrow. What are your thoughts on this new offering from Amazon? Will you use a TransUnion pull applying for it? Let me know in the comments.

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Tim
Tim (@guest_612804)
July 4, 2018 11:30

Update on this. They are now offering a $40 sign up bonus. The 5% is now statement or store credit, w/ the option to forgo the credit for some no interest financing.

Anonymous
Anonymous (@guest_408631)
May 20, 2017 13:28

Does the card earn 5% when purchasing gift cards through Amazon?
Does the card earn 5% even reloading Amazon balance?

Matt C
Matt C (@guest_373331)
March 20, 2017 11:02

Does anybody have any data or best practices regarding credit limit increases with the Store Card?

Chuck
Editor
Chuck(@chucksithe)
March 20, 2017 13:30

I think Synchrony is good about giving increases, even automatically sometimes.

Nicole L
Nicole L (@guest_292212)
September 6, 2016 11:37

If I choose the 5% as default, do I still get the option of the special financing (when applicable)?

Digitalpop
Digitalpop (@guest_109756)
April 27, 2015 09:58

Just wanted to share… spoke with Amazon.com chat customer service today, and they elaborated that the Amazon.com store card will be changing to 5% back in Amazon.com credit as opposed to 5% back in statement credit as of April 29, 2015… in two days!

Just wanted to alert others, in case anyone applies today and is suddenly shocked by the change two days later.

PD
PD (@guest_89397)
March 17, 2015 19:08

Does this card offer extended warranty or services like that? An additional 3% cash back (5% – 2%) does not seem to be worth it for giving up an extra piece of mind especially you are buying electronics and appliances.

Vdebs
Vdebs (@guest_89186)
March 17, 2015 11:06

This would be more awesome if it was the Chase card. I have both though from years ago. I’m curious if this is in build up to a Synchrony issued CC for Amazon, seeing as Chase has been ignoring the Amazon card for some time now.

Thanks for the heads up Doc! This could be useful.

Bill
Bill (@guest_89022)
March 17, 2015 06:02

I already took the HP for the Amazon store card a few years ago. What this change raises for me is the question of whether Chase is getting ready to toss their Amazon co-branded cards aside?

chasingthepoints
chasingthepoints (@guest_89104)
March 17, 2015 08:47

I could see that – the Chase Amazon card has been watering down the last 2 years