Amazon Increasing the Price of its Prime Membership to $139 per Year (From $119), But Here’s How to Keep the Lower Price for at Least One More Year

Amazon is increasing the price of its Prime membership to $139 per year, up $20 from its current $119 charge.

Amazon Prime Price Increases

The $139 annual charge will begin February 18, 2022, for new Prime members.

Existing Prime members will be charged the $139 price if their membership renews on or after March 25, 2022.

Monthly Prime membership pricing is also increasing from its current level of $12.99 per month to $14.99 per month.

Prime Student pricing will increase from $59 per year to $69 per year (or monthly $6.49 to $7.49).

And the EBT membership charge will rise to $6.99 per month from its current $5.99 per month.

How to Lock In the $119 Price

Amazon offers a Gift of Prime membership that allows you to purchase a Prime membership now at current pricing ($119) and give that “gift” to yourself to extend a Prime membership for one more year at the $119 price.

Gift of Prime membership pricing will increase to the $139 price point on February 18, 2022, so you’ll want to buy prior to that date.

Gift of Prime memberships never expire, so if your current Prime membership doesn’t end for another few months – or more – you can hold it until your current membership ends and then apply the Gift of Prime membership to your Amazon account.

The easiest way to ensure you won’t get charged the increased Prime membership price is to cancel your current Prime membership now. Canceling now will not end your Prime membership immediately, you’ll still have access to Prime through the renewal date associated with your current membership.

You can cancel on the Prime Membership page under the Manage Membership tab.

It’ll take a few pages to get to the actual language stating your Prime membership benefits will continue through your current renewal date, so don’t worry clicking cancel will end your account right then. Here’s a screenshot of part of the last page to illustrate.

So, canceling now will allow your current Prime membership to continue through your renewal date, but will ensure you won’t be automatically charged the new Prime membership price.

Once your current Prime membership ends, apply the Gift of Prime membership to your Amazon account and you’ll have Prime for one more year at the $119 price.

There are reports that you can purchase multiple Gift of Prime memberships at $119 and lock in that price for multiple years. That, however, would take some very good record keeping (need to keep the Gift of Prime emails/claim codes for multiple years to apply at appropriate times) and the funds to upfront the multiple-year $119 charges.

And, for multiple Gift of Prime purchases, you’ll need to change the delivery date or use a different email address as the Gift recipient. Technically, you can only buy one Gift of Prime membership at a time. Those tweaks should bypass that restriction.

For some, saving that $20 per year for multiple years might be worth it. For others, it’s way too much effort and upfront money.

You can purchase a Gift of Prime membership at the link below.

Gift of Prime Membership Page Link

Gift of Prime

Here are a few things of which to be aware regarding Gift of Prime.

• You’ll receive an email with the Gift of Prime claim code included. Applying that code will activate the Gift of Prime membership.
• Tax will be charged – as it is on any Prime membership – on the Gift of Prime purchase. So, it won’t be $119 exactly for most purchases.
• You can convert a Gift of Prime membership into an Amazon gift card balance if you decide you don’t want to use it to continue a Prime membership. A good option if you go forward with multiple Gift of Prime purchases and then change your mind. Check the bottom of the Gift of Prime email for language/link stating, “…you’ll be able to exchange your Prime gift for an Amazon.com Gift Card. Click here.”

Wrap Up

Amazon is increasing its Prime membership fee from $119 per year to $139.

New membership pricing begins February 18, 2022, and renewals will be charged the $139 price starting March 25, 2022.

But, there is a way to lock in the $119 pricing for another year – or more – if you want.

A Gift of Prime purchase prior to February 19, 2022, will make that happen. Just follow the steps listed in the post and you can save that $20 for something else.

What do you think, is the Gift of Prime purchase worth it to avoid the $20 price increase?

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