Amazon’s Versatile Prime Gift Option: Lock In Prime For As Many Years As You Want, Convert It Back Into Gift Cards, Transfer Locked Gift Cards To Others

Any way to do this with $39 student membership rate?

@Anon:
No.
This will work for Amazon Prime or Amazon Mom only.

Dan, how did you confirm that the codes never expire if unused? Or are you thinking that worse case, you get your money back if the codes don’t work?

@Mike B:
I bought it myself to test it out and there is no deadline or expiration for it.
It’s basically the same as their email gift card that I’ve used many times which also never expires, it just stays valid until you apply it to your account.

What did just make more sense to keep turning an American Express card that gives you free Amazon Prime? Doesn’t that make more sense? What do you think Dan?

Dan, if u don’t mind me asking, how many are u buying? How safe would you say that amazon will be around in ten years? In 20?

Think this will become a reselling issue? Or are they locked to the gifted email address?

If you are not the main holder of the prime account, can you get the gc?

@Dan: Well that makes me think that if the cost of prime remains higher (and maybe goes up again) and you have many subscriptions that you can afford to sit on, you could send them to other people for a reimbursement that could be financially beneficial for someone and whomever I they send the subscription to. If you get what I’m saying……

@Steven:
Those promotions are ending anyway, it’s already gone from the Platinum card.
And officially it’s only for a new application anyway.

@Mike B:
Amazon has been around for as long as the world wide web and I don’t see them going anywhere.

I have a number of Amazon gift cards lying around still from various promotions and will probably get at least 10.
Nothing to lose, I can always change them right back into gift cards again!

@am:
Interesting question. I’m not sure.

@James:
Lol, you lost me.

@Dan can I buy multiple memberships in one order or should I make seperate orders for each membership?

@Dan:
Not sure if you are being sarcastic or not, but I think James is talking about selling Prime memberships in the future once it goes up even more.

So u need to pay upfront for a bunch of years of prime, correct?

Dan. I saw in a cvs tonight an American Express card called serve. It had no fee and you can load as much as you want into it as a credit card purchase (probably really had $500 limit). Is there a way to recycle this money and pay off my credit card bill??

i just bought one! when i click the link will i have a choice to chose amazon mom?

in for 4 so far. if i can get to staples tomorrow to buy more gift cards, i’ll get some more.
thanks dan. not sure yet my strategy/ what i’ll do with them but it’s a no lose- at worst i’ll convert them back to gift cards. brilliant dan. way to figure out the system. love the way you figured out how to transfer gift card balances using this as well. thanks again.

Cool!

If i buy the prime gift subscription, how can i use it for amazon mom if i have now amazon prime?

Great options.

amazon has not been around as long as the WWW 😉

@ima danner:
I don’t think it will matter.

@Mike B:
For a $20 spread there’s not much profit but when it goes up again I suppose.

@chaya:
Correct.

@Ari:
See DDF.

@ng:
Sure, any Prime member can opt into Mom.

@thanks dan/big fan:
Enjoy!

@Heshl:
Just opt into Amazon Mom.

@tivoboy:
Close enough 😉

That’s an awesome return on your money! It’s 25% for the first year. But to buy 10 you are investing like 800$ and over 10 years you save 200$ over 10 years that’s an annual return of only 2.5% so I would recommend buying 1 or 2 but more than that seems like a waste of money.

@Dan capital investment strategies inc.:
First of all your math is off.

You can’t look at it as saving $200 over 10 years as each year you would otherwise pay for Prime. I.E. you wouldn’t have the money in your pocket to use elsewhere for 10 years as assuming you buy prime next year the total would be $99 less, in 2 years the total would be $198 less, etc.
So it’s way more than 2.5% no matter how you slice it.

2nd of all Amazon will surely raise the price again within 10 years.

3rd of all if you already have Amazon gift cards (such as those bought 33% off or from office supply stores) then you don’t earn any return on those anyway, may as well change them into Prime today and always have the option to convert back into gift cards.

4th of all because you have that backwards convertibility option you aren’t locking up funds like you would in an investment, you can always take them out for anything Amazon sells.

So yes, 1 or 2 years is obviously incredible, but longer than that makes sense as well.

Does the reduced Prime fee for amazon students last forever or is there a limit on the # of years you get the discounted prime rate with student? Considering locking in a few years at $79 today but if my $49 rate will continue for years it’s obviously not worth it.

Ok dan,
I thnk we would like to hire you as our investment strategist.

You just blew me away. I agree with most of what you said but you forgot about the compounding interest. Anyway, our firm still feels that 1-2 years is a good investment. More than that we can find you better investments for your money. 🙂

Do I need to buy them one at a time ?
Can I send them all to the same email address ?

Dan, do you know for sure that these gift cards will lock in the rate? Perhaps when someone tried to apply one after today it will tell him that his gift is only good for $79 and he needs to pay the $20 difference.

On the other hand, perhaps it would work in our favor where we try to redeem for a gift card tomorrow and instead of getting $79 credit we get $99!

@sruly:
You should be able to buy more than 1 at a time.
You can send to the same email.

@Josh:
The gift email just says to click on the link for a free year of Prime. It’s works to make it free when you click on that, not a $79 discount.

Would be really funny if it started giving out $99 discounts. Had that in the back of my mind but wasn’t about to say it outright 😉

Can I send it to my email account and use it for my amazon account? Or must it be to someone else’s email?

@David:
You can send it to yourself.

Great, Thanks Dan, got one year! Will see what the internet shipping/movie landscape looks like a year from now.

Dan,
If you have amazon student can you lock in for $39.00?

@Dan, Why not end today really, buy at 79, so you lock in 79 until 3/18/2015, and then proceed as Dan outlined?

@Dan: Thanks,
It wont let me add more then 1 to my cart.
Did you check out with more then 1 at a time ?

@Anonymous:
I did 1 at a time.

@Dan: Thanks

Hey dad, I think your original post recommended sending the gift prime the day after your current subscription is set to renew. I think you’re now saying to just send it right away. Any reason for the different advice?

@when to send:

Is this Rafi or Talia? These kids just grow up so darn quick 😀

Anyway if you’re just doing 1 year you may as well have it sent in a year from now when your Prime expires.

If you’re buying a whole bunch (like I talk about in this post) then you’ll probably be better off getting them all now and filing them away in a folder.

No big deal either way.

Ha! sorry *dan, not dad!

im pretty sure the answer is no, but just to clarify; if i dont have prime and never plan on getting prime…. is there anyway for me to still move money (gift card funds) thats in one acct to a diff one…..

@yaks:
Only if the different account has prime.

How do you switch from prime to mom?

how would you transfer the prime gift subscription, to amazon gift cards?

@ben:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/mom/signup/info?ie=UTF8&refcust=I6V6HXCZLKZN6PIHHB22ULR5KY&ref_type=generic

@lev:
Read the post.

Thanks Dan,
In x 11

@sruly:
Nice!
I’m in for 10.

Dan, my prime says “On April 10, 2014, you will be charged $79 for another year of Prime.”

Does that mean I locked in the prime price at $79, or will it say $99 tomorrow?

if amazon took me away my prime account can i also get it with this gift card?

does the student rate have the same advantages as regular prime?

In x 4

Thanks Dan!

Trying to buy multiple subscriptions, but it says its restricted to one. Did I miss something?

Dan,
I think that thinking about saving 20 bucks on prime in 10 years from now is nuts! I’m sure prime won’t be around by then and it’s just so rediculous to think about prime in 10 years from now. The world is changing do fast. You think amazon prime will be relevant?

@Fred:
There’s nothing to lose, I can always convert them into $79 gift cards.

Besides I’m using gift cards to pay for the $79 prime!

And who knows, maybe these prime gifts will wind up working for free Amazon Drone 😀
Or maybe they will be convertible to $99 gift cards. Lots of possible upside, no downside at all.

It seems that under current rules you should convert every amazon gift card into prime today. The only real downside is that amazon can stop you from converting prime into gc in the future.

@al613:
Amazon clearly states at the time of purchase (see FAQ) that it can be converted into a gift card.

I can’t imagine they would even try to finagle out of that, their customer service is amazing.

@Dan: 10 years is a long time to relay on present cs…

@Dan: I personally bought 8. Would buy more if not this consideration.

Fair enough, but I’m perfectly comfortable sitting on 10.
If they do stop converting for whatever reason, odds are that they’ll let us know and give the chance to convert it then.

In for 5

ok dan,
you got me sold!

the only question i have is, if I’m an additional user on someone else’s prime account, can i still convert it to a gift card?

@ dan it’s not letting me check it out on mobile device ?!!!

I bought 3 Prime gifts billed to the same address and emailed to the same recipient. For two of them, Amazon charged me tax, and for the third they didn’t charge tax.
Strange….

Ended up getting 7 at the last minute. Thanks Dan!

I was an additional user on someone else’s prime account, had still 6 months to go, but i still bought one year of prime gift membership, i have accidentally redeemed it to my account, guess what, i lost the 6 months of the invited prime membership i still had, and i didn’t have the option to convert it back to a gift card either, only to redeem it to my account, so now i got the primary holder of my own prime membership, i called amazon complaining about the 6 months i lost, they claimed at first that there is nothing they can do, since it has been redeemed already, and prime membership is not refundable, to make a long story short, at the end, they gave me promoninal credit of $39.80 [$79 / 12 * 6 = 39.50] applied to my account, so i can use it next time a buy something from amazon.com
Took one shot for the team!!!
P.S. I have now a few empty slots for whoever is interested and didn’t have the chance to got it at the lower price.

so are the gift cards worth 79 or 99?

If you have a child in college can get this for $49 for 4 years as long as child is in school. Who would know they aren’t .Im signed up for $49 for 4 years again. When my son went to college it was free.

@fred

I just checked and they are now charging $99 to gift a prime sub.

I tried adding one of the ones I bought and it only offered me a $79 giftcard, nit $99. Obviously I didn’t go through with it and will be saving it for later.

Anyone apply one of these to their account after it went up to 99 to confirm it still gave a year of prime? Any one share their prime and let it expire to apply one of these prime gift codes? I want to know if I will have to reinvite everyone.

Dan,

Is there any downside to getting rid of a membership for 2 years to end the current one and use the link to start a new one?