Amazon Prime Member Discounts

Discounts as Whole Food Markets

On Wednesday, July 27th, Amazon Prime members will begin receiving an additional perk… discounts at Whole Food Markets and Whole Foods 365 stores.  Amazon Prime members will receive an additional 10% discount on most sale items and Prime member-only deals at Whole Foods.  Also, Amazon is expanding its Prime Now grocery delivery program to additional cities throughout 2018.  Currently, Prime Now delivery is available in Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Richmond, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco and Virginia Beach.

Additional benefits as an Amazon Prime Member

Most Amazon Prime members are aware of the free two-day shipping (or better) benefit they receive but if you are an Amazon Prime member are you aware of the following benefits:

• Prime Video offers streaming of movies, tv shows and original content similar to Netflix for Prime members.  The best part is that some movies can be downloaded to your phone or tablet for “offline” viewing.  As a parent, this is one of my favorite features as a Prime member.  It is great to download a few kid movies and shows for my daughter to watch in the care while on trips.  The best part is that she is not using our data because the movies are saved on her I-Pad from Amazon Prime Video.
• Free release-date delivery (receive a new book or tech item on the very day it is released)
• Prime Now (free 2 hour grocery delivery where Prime Now is available)
• Free grocery and household item delivery via Prime Pantry
• Alexa deals:  if you own an Alexa-compatible device, just ask “Alexa, what are your deals?” and you will hear a list of Prime-exclusive deals available.
• Restaurant delivery:  currently only offered in 30 US cities (Prime Now markets) but Prime subscribers get free restaurant delivery in those cities.
• Limited music streaming:  this features offers over 2 million tracks that can be listened to on demand or downloaded to your phone or tablet.  This is NOT Amazon Music Unlimited which offers a larger music library but at an extra cost.
• Unlimited photo storage:  Prime members receive unlimited cloud storage for photos.  You also receive 5GB of storage for documents and videos.  You can use the Amazon Drive app on your device to access this storage feature from your phone or tablet.
• Early access to lightning deals:  you get access 30 minutes ahead of time to nonsubscribers for amazon lightning deals that run for a limited time and while supplies last.
• One free e-book per month:  if you are a Kindle/Fire tablet owner, you get one free e-book rental per month through the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.
• One free e-book per month through the Kindle First program.
• Free books and magazines:  each month I use this feature to electronically flip through some of my favorite magazines for free.  Sure, it isn’t as fun as flipping actually pages but our household has saved money from this feature and we have less magazine clutter on our coffee table.
• Free Washington Post:  if you didn’t know by now, Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO is the owner of the Washington Post.  Therefore, as an Amazon Prime member you can get a six-month free digital subscription with a $3.99 monthly rate going forward if you wish to keep the subscription.
• Free audiobooks:  unlimited access to a selection of audiobooks.  You cannot download the books though… this is limited to streaming only so you may want to make sure you are connected to Wi-Fi before using this feature.
• Kindle FreeTime Unlimited:  this is a subscription serviced designed for children ages 3-12.  It houses kid-friendly apps, e-books, games, movies, TV shows etc.  The price is $2.99 for one child or $6.99 for up to four children per month.  As a parent, the extra $2.99 per month we pay for our daughter to have access to Kindle FreeTime Unlimited is worth it because we know the content is kid-friendly and it allows her to use her tablet on her own.  Also, this feature allows parents to control how long their child uses the app so that you can limit their screen time.

The cost to become an Amazon Prime member is $119 per year or $39 per month.  This can be quite costly unless you are order through Amazon frequently for convenience like my household and use some of the added feature benefits as referenced above.  If you are an Amazon Prime member, you can share the shipping benefits with up to four additionally family members living in your household.