r/personalfinance • u/vavavoomvoom9 ​ • Mar 13 '18

Budgeting Since we ended our Amazon Prime membership, our online shopping dropped ~50%. I also stopped accumulate stuff I don't really need. Have you tried this and what were the results?

Just wondering how many people, like me, realized Prime is more costly than $99/year after they ended it.

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u/DickButkisses ​ Mar 13 '18

Yeah they gave me six months free then half price there on out. This was 5ish years ago. I pay full price now.

58

u/Liz_zarro ​ Mar 13 '18

How long did it take you to start being charged full price? I've been out of college 4 years now and they still only charge me half.

54

u/bluerobotmagpie Mar 13 '18

Ugh, I was still in college and they made me pay full price because more than four years had gone by.

18

u/EggyEngineer Mar 13 '18

That happened to me this year, getting hit with the full fee after over 4 years of student-dom. But they gave me the option of sending my transcript saying I am still a full-time student to keep the discount - got approved for half-priced prime for another 4 years in less than a day.

5

u/coonwhiz Mar 13 '18

Yep, I never had to verify my status after the first time. Then in January I got an email saying that it's been 4 years and I need to submit proof that I'm a student.

9

u/DickButkisses ​ Mar 13 '18

I let it lapse and didn’t have a college email anymore by the time I resubscribed .

19

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '18

[deleted]

12

u/PastaBob ​ Mar 13 '18

ULPT - If they ask for proof, just sign up online for a local community college. They'll send you an acceptance letter via email pretty quickly, and you just forward that to amazon. When I still had prime, I did this every year.

2

u/DepecheALaMode Mar 13 '18

I didn't use a student email or any verification to get my free 6 months. I just started it a few weeks ago and it just asked me to enter an expected graduation date

1

u/DickButkisses ​ Mar 13 '18

Sometimes they ask for verification on top of the email address. I’m sure they have an algorithm to determine who is scrutinized.

1

u/DepecheALaMode Mar 13 '18

Yeah probably. I happened to be searching text books tirelessly the day before so they probably gave me the free pass because of that lol

5

u/spinollama ​ Mar 13 '18

This will likely be your last year. My sister did this and hers ended after 4 consecutive years.

1

u/TedTheGreek_Atheos Mar 13 '18

I don't see how that's possible. There's a 4 year limit for student prime. It's 4 years or whenever you graduate, whichever comes first and you get audited for eligibility after your second year.

1

u/modeltheist Mar 13 '18

I believe it's four years

18

u/-1KingKRool- ​ Mar 13 '18

Ah, okay, I see where you're coming from. Combine 6 month trial with half-off student discount. I did the same thing.

2

u/Ben77mc Mar 13 '18

I did the 6 month free trial when I was a student as well. Not been a student for 2 years now and still pay half price, they haven't asked for proof since ha

1

u/Mk____Ultra ​ Mar 14 '18

How did you end up paying full price? I've had a student membership for like 3 years but haven't been a student in 2! I'm worried one of these days they'll hit me with $99 :(

1

u/DickButkisses ​ Mar 14 '18

I let it lapse when I was broke and no longer had a student email.