Amazon Prime credit card quandary

[Sojourner]

You only have to sign up once, yet get rewards every year. There is no annual fee. Why are you comparing with a 2% card and looking at one year?

I'm comparing the AMZN Prime card with my Citi DoubleCash 2% card because what I'm interested in is the additional cash back I'd get from using the AMZN card. And with my household Amazon spending in the $2,000/year range, the extra cash back I'd get is only about $60/year. I know it's a "set it and forget it" system with no annual fees, but still, it's quite a small amount of money in the grand scheme of things. I typically only sign up for cards that give much higher cash rewards/bonuses. Obviously, I do realize that it's an ongoing cash back situation, so looking at only one year isn't valid. But still... I would barely have even gotten $200 in additional cash back by the year 2024 if I sign up and start using it this month!

Are you including the annual Amazon Prime fee in your calculations? The Prime fee is to cover free fast shipping, prime video, a few other perks - it's not a credit card annual fee.

Not exactly sure what you mean. I realize the Prime fee is for Prime services like free shipping, etc., and is not the Prime credit card annual fee. The Prime subscription AF doesn't figure into my calculations, since it's a sunk cost.

Considering you've probably spent more effort thinking about it and posting and discussing your quandary here than it takes to sign up for the card, I'm not sure what your "is it worth bothering" level is.

Fair point, although I was mostly using this specific "quandary" scenario to ask how others determine whether or not a rewards CC is worth getting. You seem to be in the "totally worth it" camp when it comes to the Prime CC, so let me ask you this. If you already had a card giving 2% cash back on all purchases (like the Citi DoubleCash), would you sign up for and use the Amazon Prime card if, instead of 5% cash back, it gave only 2.5% cash back? If you spent $3,000/year at Amazon, that 2.5% would net you an additional $15/year over the Citi CC. What amount of cash back is too low, in your opinion, to be worth getting and using a new CC? That's what I'm really asking in this thread.

 

[tb001]

One trick I use to optimize rewards is to use gifts cards. I have a Blue Cash Preferred Amex that pays 6% for grocery store purchases. I buy Amazon, Ebay and gasoline gift cards when anticipating a bigger purchase to net the 6% "grocery" category rewards. I have thought about getting an Amazon card, but I like keeping my credit card count down to 3.

Ohhh, that’s an interesting idea.

 

[Cobra9777]

...I do have a lot of staples via subscribe/save delivered monthly...

I love subscribe and save. I have about 30 items on the monthly list, but I "skip" most of it, that we don't need. So we usually end up getting about 5-10 items per month for the full discount. Mostly household staples like paper items, cleaning supplies, some food items. I sometimes add an item, like a laser toner cartridge, for the 15%. I then remove it as soon as I receive it. Some items get 20%, like our dog food. That, combined with the 5% cash back from the Chase card is a great deal. It does take some effort to watch pricing and maintain the list every month. But the result is 20-25% off. Plus they deliver it to my doorstep, which saves gas, time, etc.

On average, we spend about $700/mo at Amazon. That's $8,400/yr. So the additional cash back, versus using our Fidelity 2% card, is $252/yr ($8,400 * .03). Well worth the one-time investment of 10 minutes to apply.

 

[Cobra9777]

One trick I use to optimize rewards is to use gifts cards. I have a Blue Cash Preferred Amex that pays 6% for grocery store purchases. I buy Amazon, Ebay and gasoline gift cards when anticipating a bigger purchase to net the 6% "grocery" category rewards. I have thought about getting an Amazon card, but I like keeping my credit card count down to 3.

I've done the gift card thing as well. Usually at Kroger because they also give 2X (and sometimes 4X) fuel points on gift card purchases. I use an old grandfathered AMEX Blue Cash that gives 5% on groceries, gas, and drug stores with no annual fee.

So a $250 gift card purchase at Kroger gets $12.50 (5%) cash back, plus 1000 fuel points, which equates to $1/gal off, up to 35 gallons. Total benefit is $47.50 or 19% of the $250. With 2X fuel points, it's still a respectable 12%. But either way, to get the whole benefit, you have to purchase 35 gallons at one time. Easy for me with a Suburban and a 5-gallon can.

 

[CaliKid]

Odds are you will keep spending more and more on Amazon!

 

[audreyh1]

I admit we send considerably more on Amazon. Heck, this last statement was over $1,100 and earned over $60 in rewards. It’s more typically around half that, but still, it adds up annually.

 

[MrsHaloFIRE]

I bum prime off my sibling but I still use am amazon card on there and get 3pct caahback as a nonprime member. Win-win. No prime fees, slightly higher cashbavk than my best card (however 5pct cashback on amazon purchases on discover card start soon. You gave to sign up for ut on the discover website(

 

[bada bing]

I've done the gift card thing as well. Usually at Kroger because they also give 2X (and sometimes 4X) fuel points on gift card purchases. I use an old grandfathered AMEX Blue Cash that gives 5% on groceries, gas, and drug stores with no annual fee.

So a $250 gift card purchase at Kroger gets $12.50 (5%) cash back, plus 1000 fuel points, which equates to $1/gal off, up to 35 gallons. Total benefit is $47.50 or 19% of the $250. With 2X fuel points, it's still a respectable 12%. But either way, to get the whole benefit, you have to purchase 35 gallons at one time. Easy for me with a Suburban and a 5-gallon can.

Yeah, the credit card rewards are only part of the advantage. I shop Safeway when I'm buying gift cards. Safeway has a fill-up rebate on Chevron gas that I think goes up to $.25/gal based on total purchase since last redemption. They also give 1 Alaska Air mile per $2 spent and I use Alaska Airlines a lot. So overall, the purchase of gift cards probably nets out $.10 - $.12 per dollar. If I'm planning a several $100 Amazon purchase, it is well worth picking up gift cards to pay for it.

Credit card rewards can be a rabbit hole I don't want to fall too deep into though. I have an arbitrary limit of 3 credit card accounts, although I know there is a diminishing advantage to adding more cards.

 

[jollystomper]

General question on the Amazon card. What credit line amount are they extending to folks?

I have the chase Amazon Prime card, credit limit of $12K.

In addition to the 5% back on Amazon and Whole Foods, it also gives an automatic 2% back on restaurants, gas stations, and drug stores.

We have done the "buy gift cards at grocery stores" trick there. The majority of gifts we give for the holidays are gift cards. We always buy them at grocery stores. Sometimes we have gotten more luck when our other Chase Card gives us back 5% on grocery store purchases in December.

 

[Dave J]

For all those enjoying gift cards with 5% rewards , Amazon sells many including Lowes , a bunch of restaurants, Sling ect. Don't have to make a trip to grocery store to score 5% rewards. They used to rotate restaurant cards as a deal of the day , $50 card for $40. Then you get 5% off the 40 you spend, but I have not been seeing(or using) those type cards since Covid.

 

[FireFool]

General question on the Amazon card. What credit line amount are they extending to folks?

Mine is $25k, not that I will ever spend anywhere near that amount. Typically I only have $100 to $200 per month of charges, excepting if I make large gift purchases. I have it set up for autopay and I exclusively use it for amazon purchases. The 12 entries a year I make in balancing/reconciling my checkbook is worth the extra 3% I'm getting over my everyday Citi DoubleCash CC. The only downside in using it the way I do is you see how much money you're actually spending/directing to Jeff Bezos.

edit: one of the reasons I'm more o.k. with having the amazon card is that I don't need to carry it around in my wallet since I exclusively use it for amazon on-line purchases (we don't shop Whole Foods). I have backed off on optimizing rebate cards where I have to think to hard about which card in my wallet optimizes the rewards this quarter for a particular purchase. For our everyday cards we've narrowed down to carrying the CostCo card to use for Costco, gas, restaurants and travel and the Citi DoubleCash for everything else. It got to annoying and not worth the brain bandwidth to optimize rotating quarterly categories for our Discover and Chase Freedom cards.

 

[samm]

I let my Prime membership lapse.

Result: I spend far less $$.

I think Prime is a scam to make people buy more than they need.

 

[audreyh1]

There are two cards. One is an Amazon VISA issued by Chase. This is a regular credit card that has some other reward categories. It has normal credit limits. There is also an Amazon Store card issued by Synchrony. This is for purchases through Amazon and has lower credit limits.

We switched from the Chase card to the Amazon Store card years ago because they were offering a better cash reward to Prime members. Then after a couple of years Chase matched it.

 

[jazz4cash]

General question on the Amazon card. What credit line amount are they extending to folks?

My limit is $7500 and my avg spend is <$500

 

[Katsmeow]

I do have the Amazon card and is one of 3 cards that I primarily use (Amex -- most spending, Prime Visa -- Amazon and where Amex isn't accepted), Apple (mostly for situations where I get more cash back on it than the other cards or I want to use Apple Pay).

I do have a couple of other cards I don't use that often, but I use them periodically to keep them active in case I need/want to cancel a card or have some other reason to want to have them available.

My limit on my Prime Visa card (the one from Chase) is $10,000.

 

[sakowitzm]

I do a fair amount of activity on Amazon Prime, exclusively using the 5% back credit card. I average about $250/month.

But....

I never ever use it for anything OTHER THAN on amazon.com. I don't carry the card in my wallet, in fact it's been sitting in a kitchen drawer since the day I received it. So every amazon purchase goes right on the card, and when the bill comes I know it has only amazon purchases. And then the 5% just comes right off the billed amount the next month.

 

[seraphim]

We pay everything on Amazon prime card - all bills on autopay. About $4000 a month. We get around 3% back on average. Fun money.

 

[rayvt]

You can do a lot of juggling.
Amazon Prime card is 5% at Amazon and 3% on everything else until 11/11/2020.

BAC Preferred Platinum level is 5.25% for bonus category. Main ones are gas and online purchases, pick one.
BUT...you can have 2 (or more) cards and have a different bonus category for each. (Plus they give you a $100 or $200 signup bonus for new card.)
We have one set to gas and another set to online shopping.

 

[Dave J]

You can do a lot of juggling.
Amazon Prime card is 5% at Amazon and 3% on everything else until 11/11/2020.

You must be lucky to be getting 3% on everything else until 11/11/2020. The offer they sent me just bumped me up to 2% on everything else. Anyone else get 3% offer, or just 2% like me? It was worded funny, and I thought it was 3% until I read it a couple more times.

 

[Rosedala]

Hello, I see here a lot of VERY SMART PEOPLE!

I heard Amex cards aren't accepted in many places, anyone knows why? I'd love to get the 6% - is it only for grocery stores AND year round? Or like Chase, changing merchant categories quarterly? The latter is a bother, no? I opened a checking acct. at Citibank, and ordered that 2% card but….they declined it, yet my Credit Score is 815 Excellent just received today. To know the reason, I'd have to jump through many hoops as it happens nowadays by phone, so I'll cancel my account lol!

As to Amazon, I tried Prime for a few months but I don't buy enough to make it worth, I am alone, rarely need fast shipping, don’t have time to watch videos unless I need them, etc. Items are mostly overpriced, a difference of up to $6!!! I buy at Whole Foods but have to walk too much to find their Prime items which are only few. One item I wanted to buy didn't look good compared to the same non-Prime. I will discontinue it. Someone said they also give 5% on purchases. Anybody knows how?

As to Gift Cards, when I buy them would I get 5% or near, on them? And then I could pay with them when I purchase items and get another percentage on top? Must I pay with the Gift Cards in the same store? Or in any other store, etc.? Do the Gift Cards have a deadline?

Any ideas anyone on my 3 paragraphs above? Thank you!

P.S. As to small groceries (not supermarkets), I'm never sure if a CC covers them. Asking them didn't help. Did anyone here ever wonder it?

 

[KarenF]

General question on the Amazon card. What credit line amount are they extending to folks?

My Amazon Prime credit limit is $21,200. Kind of a random amount haha.

 

[hotwired]

Another thought

We have used the city cards a couple of times when they have their $500 or $500,000 point promos. I usually grab them in September or October in order to buy gift cards for Christmas presents.

However we have used the Chase ultimate rewards card in combination with the Chase Sapphire reserve for years and wouldn't look back. That's our core and here's why.

first the Chase ultimate rewards gives you 1% back on most things but has these 5% promos every quarter period for example Home Depot and groceries, or gas and all wireless things like cable, internet, cell phone. We earn most of our points with this card because we also have a 29 unit apartment rental business and all expenses, or at least most expenses flow through that. Then the Chase Sapphire reserve costs 450 bucks a year period but we immediately get a $300 travel credit each year and we spend that and then some easily.

Then, all travel and dining is worth three points, everything else is one point.

For a kicker, if using the chase portal for travel, they give you a fifty percent bonus on your points, so for example our sign-up bonus of 100,000 points was worth 1500 bucks in plane tickets.

Now, because travel came to a standstill, they decided to give a 50% points bonus to all dining, home improvement stores, and groceries. We had about $10,000 worth of points saved up and so all of our groceries, entertainment and Home Depot purchases from July 1st to September 30th have been 100% paid for by points. I can't tell you how amazing that feels.

Just some perspective. I have also considered going with that Amazon card you talk about, in fact mine currently will give me $125 plus 5% but I don't want to use up my chips and I'm holding out for at least a $500 sign up bonus on something.

 

[Time2]

I got myself the Amazon Prime Visa card 2 months ago and received a $100 gift card.
The 5% cash back on purchases is great.

I haven't seen that deal. The one I see is a $60 credit to purchases. I have seen it at $70 once or twice.
Two questions; What is the difference between the Amazon Store card and the Chase Amazon VISA card?
What credit bureau do these cards use, I need to unfreeze my credit.

 

[hotwired]

Biz vs. regular

I haven't seen that deal. The one I see is a $60 credit to purchases. I have seen it at $70 once or twice.
Two questions; What is the difference between the Amazon Store card and the Chase Amazon VISA card?
What credit bureau do these cards use, I need to unfreeze my credit.

I think the $125 bonus I mentioned is for the Amazon BUSINESS Amex, Not a Chase. My bad. (That's an innocuous neologism meaning "my mistake")

 

[cathy63]

You must be lucky to be getting 3% on everything else until 11/11/2020. The offer they sent me just bumped me up to 2% on everything else. Anyone else get 3% offer, or just 2% like me? It was worded funny, and I thought it was 3% until I read it a couple more times.

There were several different deals that were offered. Some people (me) didn't get any offer, others got 5%, 3% or 2% on everything.