Amazon Prime - is it worth it?

Did you subscribe to Amazon Prime several years ago to get free 2-day shipping on orders? I did and loved it!   It was worth every bit of  my $79/year subscription fee in 2014.  I didn't even flinch too much in 2018 when the annual fee increased to $119/year because by then I not only was using Amazon Prime for free shipping but I was also enjoying some of its other services - Prime Reading, Prime Video, and Amazon Photos for free  photo storage. If you are a subscriber, you've probably heard that your next renewal will find you paying $139/year. Is it worth it?

I've decided we will renew our subscription.  But, if you are unsure about renewing or even wondering if you should subscribe for the first time, you may want to take a look at Clark Howard's quiz, "Is Amazon Prime Worth It for You?" -  https://clark.com/shopping-retail/amazon-prime-worth-it-quiz/ 

To take full advantage of an Amazon Prime account, familiarize yourself with all the services that are included in addition to the free shipping.  These are four that I use most often:
1) Prime Reading: Get unlimited access on any device to more than a thousand eBooks, magazines and more. Also each month Prime members can download one editors' pick for free and it is yours to keep.
2) Prime Video: Amazon has exclusive content as well as popular movies and TV shows, all at no extra cost.  These can be watched on any device.
3) Amazon Music Prime: Over 2 million songs, ad-free, and millions of podcasts are included with your membership.
4) Amazon Photos:  Store and backup your photos, full-resolution and unlimited.  Using the Amazon Photos app, once the photos are uploaded they can be used on any device.  Video uploads are limited to 5 GB.

There are many many more services you can enjoy as an Amazon Prime subscriber, and I'd encourage you to take a look at this page:  https://www.amazon.com/primeinsider/about  

Note:   You may have found the "free two-day shipping" to be more like 4 or 5 days in the past year or so, but I believe that may not have been totally Amazon's fault.  It has been discouraging, however, in the past three weeks I have noticed the items that I've ordered have indeed been delivered within the two days.  Hopefully, that will continue!

And, one last important tip if you shop on Amazon- 

Amazon Smile:  You don't have to subscribe to Amazon Prime to sign up for Amazon Smile. Each time you make a purchase on Amazon, .5% of your purchase total can go to a charity or organization of your choice if you use smile.amazon.com to shop. You get to select the charity, and many of your local organizations and charities will appear in the list.  At any time you can change the charity for your donations.  Presently, .5% of our purchases are going to our granddaughters' school in Pennsylvania, and that school has received almost $1000 from Amazon Smile since November from Amazon purchases made by families and supporters.  You can read more about Amazon Smile here:  https://smile.amazon.com/charity/smile/about?_encoding=UTF8&ref_=smi_se_rspo_laas_aas

So, on this Tech Tip Twosday, maybe take some time to familiarize yourself with Amazon Prime to decide if it works for you.  Speaking of Twosday (2-22-22), I saw yesterday that the remaining days of this month are all palindromes - dates read the same forward as backwards!  (2-23-22, 2-24-22, 2-25-22, etc.)  Very cool, for a math nerd like me!  :-)

Jeline

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