Update 12/2/19: I believe today is the last day for this deal (not 100%, but I’d be surprised if it was available after Cyber Monday)
Update 12/1/19: Deal might be able to be made better by going through a portal. For example Ibotta is offering a $20 Amazon gift card for new prime sign ups. According to this comment it’s tracking, but they don’t have the gift card yet (takes up to 45 days). Might as well try though if you’re going to buy anyway.
The Offer
Direct Link to offer (affiliate link)
- Amazon is running a special 10% discount on ‘Gift of Prime’ membership. Instead of $119, it’s just $107.
This deal is valid for current Amazon Prime members only.
The Fine Print
- This limited-time offer is only available to Prime members while promotional supplies last, 1 per customer and account.
- Prime Video customers can take advantage of this offer if they sign up for a full Prime membership.
- This offer may not be combined with other offers, is non-transferable, and may not be sold. Amazon reserves the right to modify or cancel the offer at any time.
- On the day you choose, Amazon will send an email with redemption instructions to your special someone.
- They can also exchange this gift membership for an Amazon.com gift card worth the amount of the original purchase price plus applicable taxes.
- This gift membership will not automatically renew, and can not be combined with any other promotional offers.
Our Verdict
Even existing Prime members can buy one or more of these ‘Gift of Prime’ memberships and use them for future years. Just turn off the auto-renew on your Prime membership and after your Prime membership expires apply the Gift of Prime to your account. Just cancel the membership (‘End Membership’) and you’ll remain a member until the year is up, but it won’t auto-renew. Then, wait until after your current membership expires, and apply the Gift of Prime.
You can buy now and lock in the savings for the next few years. You can even schedule the Gift of Prime to come the day before so you won’t forget it exists.
These ‘Gift of Prime’ memberships can be converted into gift cards, as stated in the terms, so you don’t have anything to lose by buying these up (other than the mental hassle); if you don’t end up needing it, you can convert it to an Amazon gift card. Or the person you buy the Gift of Prime for can convert it to an Amazon gift card if they don’t want it. Even the sales tax gets paid back to you in the form of gift card.
All this is especially interesting for someone who is anyway floating a large Amazon gift card balance since these Gift of Prime memberships can be purchased with your gift card balance, and you won’t be tying up any new money into Amazon. (In fact, this is even a useful way to ‘unlink’ funds from your Amazon gift card balance to put it into someone else’s balance.)
The terms limit this to one per member, but you can buy one at a time for as many as you’d like. If you have a home address in a state which doesn’t charge tax, make sure that your default Amazon address is to the tax-free state and you won’t pay tax on the purchase.
Readers note that some cashback sites offer a bonus $15-$20 Amazon gift card for signing up for Prime through their links. I don’t know if it’ll work on Gift of Prime, I’d think not, but seems like some people have had success in the past; not sure if it’s still coded that way or not.
Hat tip to Dansdeals
Not sure where to post this so moderator(s) – please move as you see fit.
We set our Amazon Prime to auto-expire/non-renew status as of Jan 17.
Couple days later, we see an offer to renew Prime for Annual Plan $99.
That is a discount as far a normal $119 fee so we set it to renew at $99.
Also confirmed in live Chat that this will be charged.
trustworthy affiliate pumping sites like this are a rare gem on the internets of predation
+ clearly mark EACH affiliate link
+ mark deals expired timely
– 3rd party ads
– 3rd party toolkit
kudos you for honesty. boo for injuring users’ privacy rights for profit. adblocking is here to stay.
It’s difficult to mark each link, we usually just write once “affiliate links in this post” or something like that. We try marking Expired. Ads are our primary revenue source, we’re okay with those who adblock. I don’t know what 3rd party toolkit is.
Deal is now dead, as predicted
I’ll mark it as Expired, thanks
“wait until after your current membership expires, and apply the Gift of Prime.”
The last time I tried this the Prime membership fee increased between buying the ‘gift of Prime’ and my existing membership ending. When trying to apply the gift (clicking the link in the email to ‘apply the Gift’) the value was converted automatically to a gift card and added to my gift card balance, and I then had to pay the new Prime rate (and of course Amazon had my money in the interim). So this technique might or might not work as a hedge against future price inceases, depending on how Amazon feel at the time. Just mentioning it.
Thanks for this DP. It’s a shame that amazon doesn’t honor the gift of prime if the price increases.
I don’t know if it would have been honored if the gift had been sent to a third party (otherwise it would be pretty bad PR). But they would have known that I was the original purchaser.
Why does my prime say “Annual $99” plan, I thought it was $119? Or is that just saying that’s what the plan was before the price hike? Kind of confusing 🙂
I tried adding a Delaware shipping address as the default but it was still trying to charge tax. Contacted Amazon and I’m waiting to hear back.
You’d probably have to change your whole profile, shipping and billing. But doing that is pretty much considered tax evasion.
If you’re planning to convert this to Amazon gift cards, you may end up swallowing the sales tax. Prime membership is taxable (at least in NY), while gift cards aren’t.
“Even the sales tax gets paid back to you in the form of gift card.”
I bought the deal, I went to my account memberships and subscriptions to ‘end membership’ preemptively (ends 12/12) and I see Amazon showing Prime Plan Best Value Annual $99 listed to the left of the renewal date. This is better than the deal obviously. Anyone else seeing $99 showing as their upcoming renewal price?
I saw it on an account I set up that was set not to auto renew. But it’s not correct. It will change to $119.
Hope this lasts until I get to ShopRite to pick up a GC…
It did last, but ShopRite doesn’t sell Amazon GCs. Whoops.
Does anyone know if this counts towards the “Spend 200/300/500” promo? https://www.doctorofcredit.com/today-only-get-up-to-60-amazon-credit-when-spending-200-500-in-amazon-app/
Expired
Edit: oops, just saw that your comment was from the 29th. Ignore me