Amazon.com store credit card (5% rewards)

[kaneohe]

Anyone have experience with this card? The 5% rewards credited monthly is interesting. The negative reviews online posted by some are a warning but perhaps they are posted by know-nothings who got tripped up by something.
There are also things about a $15 charge to talk to a rep
about the account.

Intend to use only for purchases, pay off monthly. Prefer paper statements.

 

[REWahoo]

Who is the card issuer -Chase?

 

[EvrClrx311]

These kinds of rewards programs are not too difficult to rank when you get all of the figures. It's simple math. In general the more hyped a rewards program (hence the more advertising that went into it) the more likely it is to have hidden fees associated. Usually this is in restricting the level of rewards, or categorizing where you have to spend money to get the reward. I've seen some who make you hit a limit before you reward kicks in also.

I've always stuck with the AmEx Blue Cash from about a decade ago. They keep trying to get me to switch over to their newer card, but I won't bite because whenever I do the math in excel it's less back overall for what I purchase.

 

[EvrClrx311]

Just did a Google search for the card you're referring to, sounds good. Can't argue with 5% off Amazon purchases, as long as it's paid off every month... like you said.

Should You Get the Amazon Prime Store Card? [Time.com]
http://time.com/money/3970639/amazon-prime-store-credit-card/

 

[kaneohe]

Who is the card issuer -Chase?

no, Chase is the issuer of the 3% Amazon card. Synchrony is the issuer of
the 5% Amazon.com store card.

not too impressed by the toll free number so far.....called to ask questions about DW's new card and as expected , they wanted DW to authorize speaking to me ....told them to wait while I got her and when she got there some 10 secs later, they were gone. Called again and after she answered their question, they were gone before I could talk to them. Both times had to listen to some seemingly endless message which I couldn't short-circuit by pushing 0.

 

[Sunset]

Just did a Google search for the card you're referring to, sounds good. Can't argue with 5% off Amazon purchases, as long as it's paid off every month... like you said.

Should You Get the Amazon Prime Store Card? [Time.com]
Amazon Prime Store Card: Should You Get the New Credit Card?

And you have to be an Amazon Prime member or there is no 5% off.

So for someone like me, that does not have Amazon Prime that is a $100 cost per year. Then I'd have to spend $2,000 at Amazon to earn back that $100 cost.

Not worth it to me.

 

[EvrClrx311]

And you have to be an Amazon Prime member or there is no 5% off.

So for someone like me, that does not have Amazon Prime that is a $100 cost per year. Then I'd have to spend $2,000 at Amazon to earn back that $100 cost.

Not worth it to me.

Yep, the people who would be greatly disappointed are those who are roped into spending a few thousand a year at Amazon who otherwise wouldn't have. I have had a prime account for a couple years now, because I love the video streaming service. To me its worth it alone (compared to paying other providers that $8 a month). However, I only purchase maybe $800-1000 a year from amazon, usually all of my holiday shopping. So getting another card/account to save $50 a year probably isn't worth it to me.

 

[bobandsherry]

The banks infrastructure seems a bit dated. Had problem getting authenticated for online account. Without that you can't pay your bill. They authentication platform wanted to send a text message or place a call to me when I tried to register my account. Failed at placing a call to my phone number, despite several attempts I never received a call. Tried to send text, my home phone will accept texts, but that failed to even try to send text.

Had to call customer service, they acknowledged there have been lots of problems for a while with the authentication process. They sent me a verification code and then had to get me in the backdoor (their words) to my account. I was finally able to set online account up but it then failed to log me in. CSR said this is also a known problem (egads), close my browser and try to login again. I was then successful. Not the type of experience I would expect. But to save 5% I'll put up with some inconvenience.

 

[bobandsherry]

And you have to be an Amazon Prime member or there is no 5% off.

So for someone like me, that does not have Amazon Prime that is a $100 cost per year. Then I'd have to spend $2,000 at Amazon to earn back that $100 cost.

Not worth it to me.

If you look there are occasionally opportunities to get for less. Sometimes as a sale (they recently offered for $73). They also offered 1 year Prime with purchase of their Amazon Fire Phone. Managed to buy phone for $139 and sell for $159. Kept Prime for myself and made $10 on phone after shipping cost. I did this for 3 phones. I've got three years of Prime and made $30, plus I was already on a special price of $69 for year of Prime. Total of 4 years for $30 out of pocket and a little of my time.

 

[kaneohe]

The banks infrastructure seems a bit dated. Had problem getting authenticated for online account. Without that you can't pay your bill. They authentication platform wanted to send a text message or place a call to me when I tried to register my account. Failed at placing a call to my phone number, despite several attempts I never received a call. Tried to send text, my home phone will accept texts, but that failed to even try to send text.

Had to call customer service, they acknowledged there have been lots of problems for a while with the authentication process. They sent me a verification code and then had to get me in the backdoor (their words) to my account. I was finally able to set online account up but it then failed to log me in. CSR said this is also a known problem (egads), close my browser and try to login again. I was then successful. Not the type of experience I would expect. But to save 5% I'll put up with some inconvenience.

sorry for your horror story experience......forgot to mention, don't care (actually don't want) online connection. Want a paper statement and some way to pay by phone or autopay but can't get thru (so far) to a meaningful human experience with another human. DW has prime already so incremental cost for this was -20....she accepted AMZN bribe to get the card.

 

[dallas27]

We use amazon with the 5% card, 0 complaints. It mostly offsets taxes for us.

Especially great for large purchases like 4k tv's


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum

 

[rodi]

Since I already have prime AND shop on amazon for an amazing variety of stuff it was a no brainer.

We use prime's free shipping, streaming video, streaming music, etc.

I've only had the card a short period - but love the 5% back.

 

[kaneohe]

Hopefully getting better. After the 2 initial contacts w/ the card reps who told me they knew nothing and to call Amazon Payments and the contact w/ the Amazon payments rep who said she knew nothing and to call the card reps, I managed to squeeze a contact number for the US customer service from a sympathetic "normal" (meaning foreign) customer service rep.

Worked twice in a row......first from the guy who told me he would e-mail an
autopay authorization letter which never came; then from the gal who told me that form is not e-mailed but is sent snail mail in about a week. My experience is that the ones who are wrong are nearly always the guys so I'm believing her. In the meantime, supposedly I can pay by automated phone.....anyone ever done that?

All this learning for an estimated (based on last yr spending) 2% extra over the regular Amazon card = $32. Have to think about it as free fun or else you'd go crazy.

 

[audreyh1]

Yes, works well for us. We were already prime members.

Only complaint is downloading transactions - can't import their QFX format without errors. QIF works OK but poor documentation of charges imparted to the Chase cards.

 

[audreyh1]

Who is the card issuer -Chase?

No, Synchrony Bank. And it's just a store card, not a general credit card.

 

[audreyh1]

These kinds of rewards programs are not too difficult to rank when you get all of the figures. It's simple math. In general the more hyped a rewards program (hence the more advertising that went into it) the more likely it is to have hidden fees associated. Usually this is in restricting the level of rewards, or categorizing where you have to spend money to get the reward. I've seen some who make you hit a limit before you reward kicks in also.

I've always stuck with the AmEx Blue Cash from about a decade ago. They keep trying to get me to switch over to their newer card, but I won't bite because whenever I do the math in excel it's less back overall for what I purchase.

It's a straight 5% credit back on the statement, no fees.

 

[Katsmeow]

I have this card. I use my Amex Blue Cash Preferred card for most things but the 5% here was too good since I use Amazon a lot.

 

[kaneohe]

Is the 5% credited monthly on a current basis (at the end of the month on monthly statement) like most Chase cards (which this is not) or is it delayed
like the Costco AMEX one? Did the 5% rewards come automatically or did you have to do something to activate it? TIA

 

[rodi]

Is the 5% credited monthly on a current basis (at the end of the month on monthly statement) like most Chase cards (which this is not) or is it delayed
like the Costco AMEX one? Did the 5% rewards come automatically or did you have to do something to activate it? TIA

I've only had it for 1.5 months. The rewards were a credited to my account at the time of the statement. I did not have to do anything to activate the rewards.

 

[audreyh1]

Is the 5% credited monthly on a current basis (at the end of the month on monthly statement) like most Chase cards (which this is not) or is it delayed
like the Costco AMEX one? Did the 5% rewards come automatically or did you have to do something to activate it? TIA

Credited each statement based on the purchases in the same statement. Automatic.

 

[kaneohe]

Thanks, rodi and audreyh1, for your experiences.

 

[Sarah in SC]

I have this card and use it whenever there isn't a better deal going (ie the Chase Freedom one around Christmas).

I do a fair bit of credit card mileage/points/rewards and the one thing I don't think gets stressed enough is the good warranty policies of some of the better cards. I have learned the hard way to make purchases of things that are expensive or potentially likely to break, with my Chase premium cards like the Sapphire. They double the manufacturer's warranty. So, when I bought yet another component for my automatic gate opener (a keypad, this time), I made sure it was with a Chase card. Fast forward 13 months, one month after the manufacturer's warranty ended, and the thing goes kaput. It is super easy to file for the warranty replacement, and I got my check for $40 within about 5 weeks. The store cards don't usually offer this protection.

 

[RetireAge50]

We use the Amazon store card no problems. 5% statement credit each month and paid automatically. No annual fees or purchase tiers. I do not really care about customer service since I never call them.

 

[kaneohe]

Back again......thought this was a done deal but evidently not. I thought I had a card and DW had her own. Then I just read somewhere that only 1 of us is the Prime member and eligible for the 5% rewards even tho both of us are eligible for Prime shipping. There is a chart that came w/ DW's card that compares the features of the Amazon.com store card and the Amazon Prime store card. Only one has the 5% rewards and I just noticed that only my card (Prime) has the 5% rewards feature. DW has the .com store card
(not Prime).

The other card only has deferred payment plans with no interest but if you forget to pay you get hit w/ big interest charges. I wonder if this a sneaky way to trick people into paying those charges and the source of online complaints ...........we never got a statement for DW's recent purchase although supposedly it was supposed to come in the mail......and payment date is tomorrow.

Can someone verify that only 1 person in the household can get the Prime card
(the Prime member)? Can the other person in the household use the Prime members card for Amazon purchases.

 

[audreyh1]

Back again......thought this was a done deal but evidently not. I thought I had a card and DW had her own. Then I just read somewhere that only 1 of us is the Prime member and eligible for the 5% rewards even tho both of us are eligible for Prime shipping. There is a chart that came w/ DW's card that compares the features of the Amazon.com store card and the Amazon Prime store card. Only one has the 5% rewards and I just noticed that only my card (Prime) has the 5% rewards feature. DW has the .com store card
(not Prime).

The other card only has deferred payment plans with no interest but if you forget to pay you get hit w/ big interest charges. I wonder if this a sneaky way to trick people into paying those charges and the source of online complaints ...........we never got a statement for DW's recent purchase although supposedly it was supposed to come in the mail......and payment date is tomorrow.

Can someone verify that only 1 person in the household can get the Prime card
(the Prime member)? Can the other person in the household use the Prime members card for Amazon purchases.

Just have your wife add your card number to her account. That's what DH does. And we both get the discount. We checked with an initial purchase, otherwise he would have stayed with his 3% Amazon chase card.

We just have the one Amazon store card for the prime member, me.