7 ms·
Amazon Prime’s latest perk is a new Rewards Visa Card with 5% back
- dlbucci 10y ago* on Amazon purchases Looks like a neat deal to me, but it's a bit weird to say there's no annual fee when you need to have a Prime membership...
- klank 10y agoDo you take umbrage with "free shipping" being used to describe shipping with a Prime membership?
- Someone1234 10y agoI do. But in general I think "free" has lost all coherent meaning in modern English. It is used as a synonym of "included." When someone says "free" (at the cost of $100/year) I just roll my eyes in my head. With the card however, it is a decent card with or without prime membership however since you get 3% without Prime which is still mucher higher cash back than competitive offers.
- Someone1234 10y agoTrue. But 3% even without Prime on Amazon.com which isn't shabby.
- logician76 10y agoYou need to spend $3333 to earn back the Prime membership for 3% cashback, or $2000 for 5% cashback, not an amount I may reach every year..
- bluehawk 10y agoIt's common for cards to have a roughly $99 yearly fee that gives you nothing other than the ability to have the card. It's a stretch, but I don't think it's dishonest to say the card is free* . *With an Amazon Prime membership.
- nommm-nommm 10y agoNot really extremely common, it's extremely easy to find good cards without annual fees. The annual fees are usually for the more "prime" cards that give you more benefits and rewards. Even so, the point was it's misleading at best to require something that has an annual fee as a condition to get the best rewards then claim the card has no annual fee.
- bengunnink 10y agoIt's not really an annual fee, though. You're paying for a product with Amazon prime -- besides free movies, photos, shipping, etc, you can now get a special card with no annual fee _just for having it_.
- mikeash 10y agoYeah, super misleading headline. I'd sign up in an instant if it was as described, but don't really care if it's just Amazon purchases.
- Havoc 10y agoWas excited for a while...but US only. I need UK...
- netinstructions 10y agoThere's already the 'Amazon.com Store Card` which offers 5% back on purchases at Amazon.com. It can only be used for Amazon.com purchases. There's also the 'Amazon Rewards Visa Card' which offers 2% back at gas stations, drugstores and restaurants (all other purchases are 1% back). So unless I'm mistaken, this just looks like it combines both benefits into one card.
- ghaff 10y agoIt also adds no foreign transaction fees which is common on Chase affinity cards with a fee but wasn't the case with the original non-Prime Amazon card. (Which is a fairly significant benefit if you travel internationally and don't already use a card with that benefit.)
- Someone1234 10y agoNo foreign transaction fees is always appreciated. I never travel without it these days. I will add that typically this perk does NOT apply to foreign ATM cash withdrawals. Only to regular purchases made with the card. Taking out cash using a credit card is always an expensive proposition, doubly so abroad.
- ghaff 10y agoRight. And in many cases, it's considered doing a cash advance which turns on the interest fee machine. A few years ago, my dad got hit by this much to his surprise even though he's been a huge traveler forever. I use my regular ATM card to get cash. There's still a (relatively high) fee but it's still probably better than the currency exchange places and, at least in Western Europe, I don't need cash that often any longer.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago>I use my regular ATM card to get cash. There's still a (relatively high) fee Are you in the US? If so there's no reason to pay any fees. Get a Fidelity Cash Management Account and/or a Charles Schwab Investor Checking Account. Both are free without any minimum balance requirements. Neither charge a currency conversion fee and both reimburse all ATM fees. Personally, I use Fidelity. I couldn't be happier with their products (I also have an IRA and credit card with them) and service. I'm not affiliated, just a happy customer.
- ChristianGeek 10y ago15% interest rate with perfect credit? Not even remotely interested.
- lutorm 10y agoYou actually carry a balance on your credit cards?
- gorkemyurt 10y agodepends on how you use your credit card. You can get the 5% cash back and if pay everything in full on time you shouldn't even care about the interest rate.
- snuxoll 10y agoHell, 5% cash back even lets you break even for a couple months worth of interest if you are floating balances.
- johnnyo 10y agoIf you are paying interest on your credit cards, you are doing it wrong.
- ghaff 10y agoThis is hardly anything new. You get a card with usurious interest rates for not paying completely on time if you want cashback/etc. benefits. You get a card with slightly less usurious interest rates and very limited benefits if you want to carry a a balance.
- mikecke 10y agoHow do you have perfect credit if you're not paying your balances in full?
- p0rkbelly 10y agoTo maintain 'perfect' (which I doubt is 100% perfect) you just have to make your payments on time. It is okay to carry a balance. In fact, I remember my credit went up higher after paying off a balance I was carrying when I typically paid in full every month...
- jbredeche 10y agoIf only it could be used for AWS expenses!
- maxxxxx 10y agoIt can't? Isn't this a regular credit card now?
- snug 10y agoYou don't get 5% cash back.
- morgante 10y agoEdit: nevermind
- lfittl 10y agoNo, you can't, unless I'm missing something: https://www.americanexpress.com/us/content/rewards-info/business.html https://www.americanexpress.com/us/content/rewards-info/busi...
- morgante 10y agoInteresting, they must have changed the list. I definitely used to get the 3x for AWS purchases.
- kenjackson 10y agoFrom reading the reviews of the card it sounds like you get charged interest if you don't pay off the full balance each month. That is, it's not the statement bill you need to pay off, but the current balance. Which seems hard to track for a lot of people like me who use their credit card several times per day. I'd do more research before using this card.
- fooey 10y agoThat's how all credit cards work? Personally, I pay off my 2 credit cards on every other Monday just to make sure I never carry a balance
- ghaff 10y agoNo. And I'm skeptical it's the case here. You get a CC statement and have to pay the amount on that statement after some number of days. The claim is that you have to pay the instantaneous current balance on the due date--which I doubt.
- fooey 10y agoI've had an Amazon card forevers, I've never had paid any interest on it
- ghaff 10y agoI have had one for a long time as well. As well as other Chase cards. Hence my skepticism that there's some very non-standard gotcha embedded in here--especially if they're transitioning current Prime members who are also cardholders.
- ikeboy 10y agoThat's almost all credit cards. They aren't in the business of lending money for free.
- 10y ago
- Thriptic 10y agoI see this is a Chase card. Can these points be transferred to ultimate rewards?
- ghaff 10y agoDon't think so. But it's 1:1 (well 1:100) to Amazon credit which most of the Ultimate Rewards aren't any longer. (Bizarrely, I have a card I can cash out at a higher value in cash than in Amazon credit these days.)
- Thriptic 10y agoYeah I just got off the phone with Chase. You cannot transfer to Ultimate Rewards.
- mmanfrin 10y agoIt would be a stupid good deal if they could -- because this coupled with the Sapphire Reserve means you'd effectively get back 7.5% from Amazon in the form of travel purchases (as CSR holders get 1.5x pointvalue when redeeming points for travel).
- vinay427 10y agoYou could easily get the equivalent of more than 1.5 c/p if you used 1:1 mile transfers and booked flights carefully. Southwest values its points at around 1.7 if I recall correctly, and most that don't have fixed rates are higher.
- ghaff 10y agoValuing mileage and hotel points is tough. The rule of thumb used to be 2 cents per mile but programs have been degraded sufficiently that it's probably lower now. In practice, I find that the things that give me the most theoretical bang for the buck are things like first class international travel or room upgrades that I wouldn't have necessarily paid face cash value for. And travel rewards often require longer term planning than I find I can easily do. I get a lot of miles and hotel points anyway so I usually end up taking the very fungible 1 cent per dollar spent when I have the choice.
- autoreleasepool 10y agoI'm sorry to be the one to say it, but this is an advertisement.
- closeparen 10y ago5% is well outside the norm for what credit cards will give you back. So I think this is an interesting story about the economics of online payments, and how Amazon is positioning itself in the marketplace.
- vinay427 10y agoNot on specific categories or stores. See Discover, Chase Freedom, and the US Bank product I forgot the name of if you live in the US. This is interesting from a market standpoint, but it is directly advertising a paid product in the process.
- xpose2000 10y agoAwesome update for existing Visa Amazon Chase card holders. Their Store Card already offered 5% back, so it's nice that everybody gets the new rate now. A bit weird that we have to verify the card to get the 5% back... you'd think the fact that I've been using it for years would be enough verification. In any case, don't forget to verify! Go to Your Account -> Manage Payment Options Then type in your full credit card number and click on verify and rewards will change to 5%.
- branchless 10y agoWhere do you think this free money comes from? Jpm covers it??
- fooey 10y agoI just checked mine and it was already updated to 5%
- joshstrange 10y agoNice! I already had the Amazon Prime Rewards Signature Visa card which I used exclusively for Amazon purchases and I just logged into my Amazon account and looked at my payment methods and it's already updated to say 5% instead of the previous 3%.