Amazon Prime increasing annual fee to $119

[Which Roger]

I'd pay $120 just to watch 'Bosch" on Amazon Video!

+1. Nobody is cooler than Bosch!

 

[Which Roger]

No brainer. It's a 3-for-1: Shipping, video, music. Surprised that nobody else has mentioned Prime Music. Zillions of stations, playlists, and albums available at no additional cost.

 

[dvalley]

I've been an Amazon customer since 1999 and buy pretty much everything on Amazon these days (after price checking on ebay and such too). However at $120 I'm not sure- are we getting a 20% increase in benefit/improvement to justify the cost hike?

Oh and Prime movie and music selection while has somewhat improved it's far lagging behind Netflix and say Pandora or even YouTube. In fact, as a technical minded person I find myself watching YouTube way more than anything else but when it's family TV time it's always Netflix.

Again, free shipping, video and music have all been there so what new benefit are we supposed to get for the 20% increase? I could see 5% to offset the operating cost due to inflation but 20%?

Personally I'll likely be dropping it this time around and hopefully as a side benefit it'll slow down my impulse buying habits too lol

 

[gauss]

I bailed the last time they increased pricing. I was on the fence prior to that but typically let it renew each year. On Ebay many/most sellers offer free shipping, so not sure what the value in Amazon Prime is for me.

I hate the idea of prepaying for something that I may not use, or getting locked into something because I prepaid. To do otherwise is playing into their hands IMHO.

Not compatible with my LBYM/ER mantra -- ie paying a fee to encourage more consumption of stuff.

Wasn't their a scene in Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn regarding whitewashing a fence that is analogous?

-gauss

 

[Scrapr]

Gonzo. Sort of. I have told my story several times but I have 2 accounts there. One prime that I can't access. One non Prime. I have been so pi**ed at them I'm using E bay almost excluisively.

Now i will have to find out how to stop my renewal. ugh

plus I think AMZN is getting too much market share. Too big to fail banks anyone? Sooner or later they will (are) do something nefarious. I have heard the employee culture is "not good"

don't worry it's just me Don Quixote tilting at windmills. Or as Rick says in casablanca We don't amount to a hill of beans in this world

 

[bUU]

I could see 5% to offset the operating cost due to inflation but 20%?

This is exactly the misapprehension that I referred to above. It's the first increase in four years.

Would you prefer a system of annual increases instead? If reactions are shaped by misapprehension like this then we can surely expect to see a change to annual increases.

 

[97guns]

I just bought 2 items last night with prime pricing, got free shipping for a $25 order and got every benefit a paying member would have gotten, I wouldn’t be using any video or book stuff

 

[MichaelB]

Oh yeah, the 5% store card is also for prime members only, isn't it? So that's a 3% benefit over my regular 2% back. I'll have to do the math on my purchases, but that goes a long way toward the $119. So I'll probably keep it.

5% at Whole Foods as well.

Calling this a 20% increase is misleading since it is the first increase in four years. Adjusted for inflation, Prime costs roughly the same now as it did in 2014, and offers so much more than it did then. I'm surprised they waited as long as they did to apply this increase.

The 20% is math. Actually, it's 20.2%. Nothing misleading about that.

 

[dvalley]

This is exactly the misapprehension that I referred to above. It's the first increase in four years.

Would you prefer a system of annual increases instead? If reactions are shaped by misapprehension like this then we can surely expect to see a change to annual increases.

Huh? Avg inflation since 2014 has been 1.13% per year. So the math works out to be: $100 in 2014 → $104.50 in 2018 NOT $120

And the movies, music, free shipping have been the same benefits all along. What more am I getting for the 20% hike?

 

[calmloki]

We'll be keeping it - Amazon music gets the occasional workout at our house and the tv is great - the new LOTR is going to cost them a huge chunk of change, and then there is what it will cost for Bezos to run in the next election..

Amazon is also kinda a shopping Wikipedia for me - the up/down direction switch on a ceiling fan wasn't working and I wanted a new one. Found different versions of the switch and what it was called, looked at different pictures of it and different costs, then searched elsewhere and with free shipping included by the seller saved $4 vs. Prime.

 

[easysurfer]

If the fees continue to rise in the future, to get my money's worth, might have to learn about this playlist thing.

 

[dvalley]

Hmm, here's what my Prime settings show, when is this hike supposed to go in effect?

Next Payment:
On September 04, 2018, you will be charged $99.00 for a year of Prime.

 

[Sojourner]

Yes, free standard, over $35 (though that does change sometimes). It's slow standard though, they often don't actually ship the item for a week.

Actually, the free shipping threshold is currently $25. It had gone as high as $49, but Amazon lowered it back down to $25 last summer in a competitive move with Walmart.

For me, being able to get stuff from Amazon within two days of ordering and not pay any shipping charges is a luxury that I don't really feel is worth the $119 price. I tend to place around one (or fewer) Amazon orders each month, and 90% of the time I don't need the item(s) in two days. I've done the 30-day free trial of Prime and did enjoy watching some of the video, however. Goliath, starring Billy Bob Thornton, was terrific.

 

[easysurfer]

Hmm, here's what my Prime settings show, when is this hike supposed to go in effect?

Next Payment:
On September 04, 2018, you will be charged $99.00 for a year of Prime.

Should expect the hike at next renewal time.

My renewal is slotted for July 8th.

I'm not too worried. Will just have to add an extra $1.67/month to my monthly budget when budget time comes around .

 

[Hermit]

It took me over a year to get Amazon trained to not use USPS. I don't have time to play shipping games every time I order something, so I will just stick with Amazon. A trip into town always takes most of the day so ordering is a real time saver.

 

[W2R]

I'm keeping Amazon Prime!!! I use it mostly for shipping and very little else. It might be cheaper not to have it, but I don't care because it makes shopping there so much more fun for me. I am also keeping my Amazon Prime Visa. If I want to save $20/year, I can drop something else instead.

Blow that Dough.

 

[MichaelB]

This year they started giving back 5% on Whole Foods purchases with the Amazon CC.. That's a benefit worth more than $20 if you were previously getting 2% back on another card and spend more than $675 in a year (rounded).

 

[W2R]

Hmm, here's what my Prime settings show, when is this hike supposed to go in effect?

Next Payment:
On September 04, 2018, you will be charged $99.00 for a year of Prime.

Mine says,
On October 29, 2018, you will be charged $99.00 for a year of Prime.

My guess is that some flunkie has to change a lot of these to say $119, and just hasn't done it yet.

 

[W2R]

This year they started giving back 5% on Whole Foods purchases. That's a benefit worth more than $20 if you were previously getting 2% back on another card and spend more than $675 in a year (rounded).

Good point! And also, I get lots of rewards from my Amazon Prime Visa card, which is my only credit card these days.

 

[dvalley]

I just ordered something on walmart.com it was cheaper than anywhere else and when I selected slower delivery (by just 2 days!) they gave me an additional discount of $8, which was a nice unexpected surprise.

Amazon has a big market share but they're no longer the only game in town if you want to save money. As I said earlier after being a long time member I will drop Prime but continue to be an Amazon shopper (where you get free shipping on most items anyway). The only thing I'm giving up is the 2-day free shipping which is a nice luxury but I can wait an extra 2 days on most things and put my $120 towards mo-stuff. Movies, music, I already have better sources for those.

 

[bUU]

5% at Whole Foods as well.

The 20% is math. Actually, it's 20.2%. Nothing misleading about that.

Math can be misleading if it is incomplete. It's 22% over four years .

Huh?

I didn't comment about what you posted. Perhaps you meant to quote some other post? What I posted is what I just posted again.

 

[MichaelB]

Math can be misleading if it is incomplete. It's 22% over four years .

Not sure what you mean by "complete", but if you want to look at average annualized rate of increase, you might consider staring in 2005, when A*Prime was introduced (@$79).

 

[bUU]

But then you get into the equivocating factors of the services added and enhanced since then.

 

[dvalley]

I didn't comment about what you posted. Perhaps you meant to quote some other post? What I posted is what I just posted again.

Post #31 on the previous page.

 

[MichaelB]

But then you get into the equivocating factors of the services added and enhanced since then.

This is getting pointless, so I'll let you have the last word.