Update, 1/9/2025: Amazon has sent out an email saying that these Gifts of Prime must be redeemed by 2/5/25. If they are not redeemed by then, they will be converted into Gift card for the amount originally paid and sent via email on 2/7/25.
That’s an unfortunate development for people who locked up years of discounted Prime. The company no longer sells Gifts of Prime, so I guess it’s not a surprise that they are looking to fully close the program. You can try selling your extra gift of Prime on DDF here.
Update, 2/17/2022: 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!
Originally posted on 2/3/2022:
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. You can buy as many as you’d like, but you’ll have to buy them one at a time.
Tax on Amazon Prime Memberships is collected based on whether your 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 your Ink Business Cash® Credit Card card and get 5 Chase Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent by buying Amazon gift cards at Office Max/Depot or Staples. 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. 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. 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 “Do not continue” 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 can buy as many gifts of Prime as you want. 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 grandfathered into the old Prime sharing system you can’t 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 like Amazon Family and Prime Video are usable by both accounts.
Amazon Prime member benefits include:
How many years of $119 Prime membership will you lock in?
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