There’s WAY More to Amazon Prime Than Just Free Shipping!

Get the most out of your Amazon Prime benefits that will save you money!

Just think, Sam’s Club and Costco Memberships are not uncommon, and we pay for them each year. Why do we think differently about Amazon? You shouldn’t.

In fact, almost everything you would think you’d get the best buy from a Big Box Warehouse Store, you can find less expensive on Amazon. (And you don’t have to lug it home… it arrives in a nice neat FREE BOX for your kids to play in for days!)

But I like to make sure I can justify the cost of anything that we pay a membership to be a part of.

So I decided to really see if we get the most out of our Prime Membership, and I found some very surprising Amazon Prime benefits I think you might be missing also!

Free Shipping Gets Even BETTER! How About Within 2-Hours or Same-Day? (Yes, for Free!)

As if 2-Day Free Shipping wasn’t good enough? With Prime Now, you get free two-hour delivery or a predetermined (chosen by you) scheduled delivery on over 10,000 items, from groceries to electronics and more.

This is available in eligible zip codes only. And you must use the App to place your order.

NOTE: When I did this, I felt obligated to tip the driver. And there is a note when you check out that suggests a $5 delivery tip. Keep that in mind when you are trying to save money. It’s free shipping… but I consider that a $5 delivery fee {even though you’ll probably never see the delivery person. They just leave your package at your front door as usual}

This service is available seven days a week most days of the year. (Limited availability on certain holidays and high-volume shopping days such as Black Friday and Prime Day).

I’ve done this several times and there was no need to give the delivery person a tip. They simply dropped the items off just like UPS normally does and left the items at my doorstep.

NOTE: Same-Day delivery is not available on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.

Sharing Your Prime Account

Now this is tricky, you see, when Amazon raised its annual rate to $99 per year, they must’ve seen a drop in members, and then noticed an increase in people shipping to lots of places not their own “home address” because they created a feature called “Amazon Household” and when you sign up for it, you (and ONE other adult person living in your same household) is allowed to receive all the Amazon Prime benefits, not just 2-day free shipping.

They can enjoy Prime video, unlimited photo storage with Prime Photos, free Kindle books, unlimited audio with Audible Channels, and more.

And another Amazon Prime benefits is that you can’t see the other adult’s purchase history or order information, so you can buy gifts for each other (and keep it secret).

However, this is only offered for one adult, and up to four children living in your own household.

Otherwise, you’ll need to share your account the prior way everyone’s always been doing it, by sharing your login information. That means you give your Mom your login and she can enter her own debit card to pay for whatever she is buying and have her items shipped to her own address.

When you do this, Amazon does not give them any of the other Prime Perks mentioned below (such as unlimited photo storage, kindle books, and audible channels). Essentially, they can only utilize the 2-day free shipping.

Remember, sharing logins can be dangerous because you also share all the saved credit/debit cards and someone could easily charge your card for their products. I’ve had that happen plenty of times. But Amazon allows an unlimited number of mailing addresses as well as storing an unlimited number of credit/debit cards. So you just need to be wise and share your login sparingly, only with close people you truly trust.

To get started creating your Amazon Household, select “Add an Adult” under the “Setup your Household now” banner. The other adult will need to verify the existing Amazon account or create a new account and that’s it! Easy peasy!

Get A Free Month Of Prime When Your Order Is Late

Did you know that if you order an item that has Prime shipping, and you don’t get it within the two days promised (when it says “guaranteed delivery by x/xx/xx”, you can contact Amazon’s customer service center and you will get some form of compensation?

Usually, this is an extra month of Prime for free. However, others have received a credit to use or a gift card.

Enjoy One Free {Pre-Released} Book Every Month (And Borrow Another Free One Too!)

In order to be able to download and enjoy every book published on Kindle, you would need to join the “Kindle Unlimited” program, which costs an extra $9.99 per month. 

But for Prime Members, they give you one FREE book every month just for being you! It’s called the “Amazon First Reads” program (formerly known as Kindle First) and you get to choose one of six early access, Editor’s Picks books, for several genres. Just go to the Prime Reading Area here and download the “editor’s pick” in the category that most interests you! You can make your selection any time during the month, and you get to keep the downloaded copy.

You can also Borrow Books in the Kindle Lending Library for FREE! It works kinda like borrowing from a regular library, you can select up to 10 books, magazines, comics and more. This is different than the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library because you do not have to have a Kindle to read them. The items can be read on any device that has the Kindle App installed.

Store Your Photos At No Cost {Finally Clear Them Off Your Cell Phone!}

This is a HUGE perk to get the most out of your Prime Membership! Most members are unaware of it… and they need to use it!

As a Prime member, you have access to Amazon Cloud Drive where you can store UNLIMITED photos for free!

You can then access your photos anywhere (even across multiple devices) using an app. Plus, it has a “smart” feature that identifies things in your photos such as the “beach” or a certain date so it makes it really easy to search.

You can also store videos and other files up to 5GB as well. I connected this to my computer so I could save all my photos there. And in seconds it even backed up my entire computer! Woah!

So here’s the cool part, by using that Amazon Prime Photos App, you can sync your phone to automatically backup your photos and then delete them off your phone making your phone always able to run fast as lightning! And you can always get to them by simply opening up the app! Score!

Watch TV Shows And Movies For Free

Amazon Video has tens of thousands of TV Series and Movies plus all the platform’s original content that Prime members have access to for free. It works very similar to Netflix.

You can choose TV shows or movies and stream it to your device.

I was slightly disillusioned that not all the TV shows and movies offered on Amazon are free for Prime Members, it is a selection of most of them, but you have to filter the selection by “Prime” so that you don’t accidentally decide you want to watch one that will end up costing you something.

The nice thing is that you can access multiple movies from multiple devices as well as download them to watch offline later (say when you know you’ll be headed on a road trip).

It IS a perk, that’s for sure, especially if you cut the cable cord like we did. Especially if you like to watch whole TV series like my family does!

Listen to Free Music (Cancel That Spotify Subscription!)

Part of your Prime Membership means you get to listen to over 2 million songs on Amazon Music with no ads, unlimited skips and offline playback! If you have a Spotify subscription you might even be able to save that monthly expense and cancel it!

It’s available to play on all your devices – smartphone, tablet, PC/Mac, tablet, Fire TV, and Amazon Echo. But only one device at a time. (That means if everyone in your family wants to listen to something different at the same time, then you’ll need to upgrade to one of their other higher plans.)

Free Access to Audible Channels

You also get the most out of your Amazon Prime membership with access to Audible Channels, a $60/year value, for free.

Audible Channels includes unlimited listening to original audio series and playlists handcrafted for every interest.

Simply download the free Audible app and sign in with your Amazon Prime membership to start listening.

Score Free Amazon Credits

Who doesn’t want FREE money?!! I sure do! Well, Prime members can get digital content (free songs) and other credits (that’s the money part) by choosing the free “no-rush” shipping option at checkout!

That means your items arrive to you in about a week, instead of 2 days. I’ve received a $3 credit to use for digital purchases such as music, videos, and even eBooks! And then recently, they offered $5.99 credit to use on anything in the “Prime Pantry” (their food area). That was a no-brainer option because I could certainly wait to receive my extra phone charger cords (still get free shipping) and get a $6 credit to use later! Score!

Note: you won’t earn the credits until after the item you’ve purchased has been shipped to you, but the credits don’t expire. You can check your Amazon Free Shipping “credit” balance by going here. 

Although that is a crazy good perk, there are ways to get FREE money when you choose slower shipping, watch tons of free tv shows and movies to keep you entertained (especially if you travel with little ones), wonderful way to make your phone run more efficiently by backing up your photos and all with the Amazon Prime benefits of sharing the shipping (and photos) with some of your family!

And you know when the BEST time to try Amazon is? During the holidays! You can test it out for 30 days free and then set up an alarm on your calendar 29 days from now to decide if it will be worth it for you over the coming year. Because I’ve also figured out a few good ways to save on Amazon WITHOUT having Prime too!

Your Turn: Comment below and let me know how you get the most out of your Prime Membership!

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