Amazon Prime For $72 Tomorrow Only

[DonInKansas]

Just got off the chat with Prime and can verify new customers only. My Prime is up in a week but they extended me another month for asking about the promotion. I might just kill mine and have my wife buy it under her email.

 

[LurkerLito]

Bought a gift of prime and then sent it to myself. As long as I don't redeem it while I have a prime subscription active it should work. So I disabled the auto renew option. I guess I'll find out in March if it worked.

Interesting note, people said Amazon charged sales tax for Prime memberships but when I bought the gift card version of prime they didn't charge me sales tax. So if you get charged tax in your state, you might still want to disable autorenew and buy a gift card for prime to save on sales tax.

 

[leeleatherwood]

That means you paid MORE than it would have otherwise cost you for their free shipping, which for most people is 3-day ground shipping. As I said, you don't save a single penny, you're paying more for faster shipping, not FREE shipping. The shipping is already FREE for anything prime.

And BTW, it was only $3.99 because the package was lightweight and small. You used to be able to upgrade to next day shipping for a flat fee, but now if you do it for something big and heavy you'll see its a huge upgrade fee.

Sorry, you are wrong.

Add up the costs of 2-day shipping without prime, you will realize that it quickly pays for itself.

I value the 2 day shipping, as UPS is garbage and takes 5 days for ground shipping even from the same state. I now buy most of my products from Amazon because of the 2-day shipping I get, even if the item costs up to $10 more its still worth it because 2-day shipping at most other sites would cost more than that, hell at some sites standard ground shipping costs over $10.

Also, the overnight package was not lightwieght and small, it was 2x R9 290's, the box they came in was at least 18"x24"x18". $3.99 to upgrade to overnight was a steal.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Sorry, you are wrong.

Add up the costs of 2-day shipping without prime, you will realize that it quickly pays for itself.

And who says you need 2-day shipping on everything?

Free 2-day shipping with amazon prime, is free standard shipping without amazon prime. You are paying money to get things faster is all, so unless you would always order 2 day shipping because you actually wanted it faster you're not really saving money.

 

[leeleatherwood]

And who says you need 2-day shipping on everything?

Free 2-day shipping with amazon prime, is free standard shipping without amazon prime. You are paying money to get things faster is all, so unless you would always order 2 day shipping because you actually wanted it faster you're not really saving money.

I would order everything 2-day shipping if I could afford to. I would also order everything overnight if I could afford it.

The fact is, it is cost prohibitive at most sites, at Amazon it is not.

Standard shipping sucks, especially when its through UPS.

 

[BroHamBone]

Just got off the chat with Prime and can verify new customers only. My Prime is up in a week but they extended me another month for asking about the promotion. I might just kill mine and have my wife buy it under her email.

Bought this last night from slick. There is an explanation on how CURRENT USERS can take hold of this deal.

Purchase a Gift Membership, email it to yourself, end your membership on the last day of its service, then start a new prime membership with the $72 gift.

http://slickdeals.net/f/7616776-1-year-amazon-prime-membership-72-new-members-only

"In order to avoid the auto renewal of Prime (which is the default option) at the end of your year of prime and so you can use the gift membership you bought for $72 you need to do the following:

Go to "Your account” and then select the sixth option down – “Your Prime Membership”. On the left sidebar, you’ll see an option to end your membership. The first time you click, it does not end immediately, it gives you more options. The options were something like, “Continue membership”, “get a reminder 3 days before membership ends” and “end membership”. Again – if you click on “end membership” it does not actually end your membership right away, as you might expect, instead, it gives you the option to either cancel immediately, or have it cancel on the annual renewal date. Chose 2nd option so your Prime will be cancelled at the end of your year of service. The next day after that happens use your gift Prime membership. Hope it helps! mannyaguilar"

 

[BroHamBone]

You can't even buy an Echo as far as I know, you have to request to buy one. They check how often you review and if your reviews are all positive, and if so they send it to you. If you have a history of moderate and some negative reviews, they won't even sell it to you.

....I applied to opt in back in November. I bought it this January and is scheduled to ship in a couple months. I dont know if they are back ordered now or what.

Anyway, I think i've only reviewed a handful of times on products.

 

[Ducman69]

So yea, for $100, I'll take free 2 Day shipping and super cheap next day shipping.

As long as you aren't perpetrating the idea that you are getting free shipping, like you would otherwise pay for it.

Anything that has a "prime" tag on it, is already free shipping. Period. In most of the country, ground shipping (which is whats free) arrives in 3-business days. You're paying $100 to get it one day faster in the mail.

So if you order on Monday, you would have gotten it Thursday, but you pay $100 and you get it on Wednesday instead. For 99% of things people buy, the one day really makes no difference.

My problem though was that Amazon decided it needed to reduce its shipping costs. So at first they were going to actually create their OWN shipping company; buy trucks, distribution centers, hire drivers, the whole works and operate at cost. But this was right when USPS was bankrupt since they had an obsolete business model with everyone now doing e-billing or email and so forth and rarely sending letters anymore. So Amazon thinks, WOOHOO match made in heaven! USPS has massive excess capacity and no business, so we'll lowball them and use USPS in two ways:
1) A new cheaper shipping option where its technically 2-day prime via FedEx or UPS, but they just drop it at the post office, and the post office takes it the last mile
2) Just use USPS outright, especially if there is a warehouse nearby.

Problem is that USPS has no remote concept of customer service, and the employees have a government public sector type of attitude about work. So yes FedEx or UPS shipped it to your post office for two days, but it can sit at the post office however long USPS feels like. Worse yet, in many places while UPS and FedEX will leave a package on your doorstep, USPS will only deliver to community mailboxes.

So if your package doesn't fit in your mailbox they will do one of the following:
1) Leave it on top of the community mailbox in open view of the street with a bungie cord on it begging to be stolen
2) Fold the package in half (even if it says FRAGILE in red on it like the fat bitch did to me) and cram it in the mailbox (surely with a Ace Ventura "like a glove" self-satisfied smile)
3) Leaving a failed delivery notification in your mailbox with in caps written all over it "TOO HEAVY" or "TOO BIG", so you have to drive to the post office, wait in line 30 mins, pick up your package, and hand carry it down the steps back to the parking lot to your car, and drive home... yes, this has happened to three packages to me this month alone.

But, but, but, you get prime streaming! Ooooh! Yeah, until you realize that 99% of the prime streaming FREE movies have 1-star ratings (that's why they don't let you sort by rating, you'd notice they are almost all horrible with only 2-3 5-star rated in the entire library), and if you want to watch your favorite TV show, not a problem as long as you don't mind say watching Season 2 of Grimm, instead of the episode that released last week... for that you have to pay.

So, yeah, I know I always acted like I was sucking Amazon's D in the past praising them left and right, I absolutely will not be renewing my Prime subscription.

 

[Ducman69]

....I applied to opt in back in November. I bought it this January and is scheduled to ship in a couple months. I dont know if they are back ordered now or what.

Anyway, I think i've only reviewed a handful of times on products.

I review quite a lot, but I have as many 1-star reviews as 5-star reviews, because if something sucks then people have a right to know. So my request went into "expired" the two times I tried. Googled and heard that as the explanation as to why they are being restrictive in who they sell to, as they don't want any negative reviews online.

 

[leeleatherwood]

Prime streaming does suck, honestly its horrible.

Everything worth watching they want you to rent for $2.99, $3.99 or sometimes even $4.99.

 

[LurkerLito]

As long as you aren't perpetrating the idea that you are getting free shipping, like you would otherwise pay for it.

Anything that has a "prime" tag on it, is already free shipping. Period. In most of the country, ground shipping (which is whats free) arrives in 3-business days. You're paying $100 to get it one day faster in the mail.

So if you order on Monday, you would have gotten it Thursday, but you pay $100 and you get it on Wednesday instead. For 99% of things people buy, the one day really makes no difference.

My problem though was that Amazon decided it needed to reduce its shipping costs. So at first they were going to actually create their OWN shipping company; buy trucks, distribution centers, hire drivers, the whole works and operate at cost. But this was right when USPS was bankrupt since they had an obsolete business model with everyone now doing e-billing or email and so forth and rarely sending letters anymore. So Amazon thinks, WOOHOO match made in heaven! USPS has massive excess capacity and no business, so we'll lowball them and use USPS in two ways:
1) A new cheaper shipping option where its technically 2-day prime via FedEx or UPS, but they just drop it at the post office, and the post office takes it the last mile
2) Just use USPS outright, especially if there is a warehouse nearby.

No you aren't paying to just get a package a day earlier, you are paying $100 to get it earlier and not have to make a purchase of minimum $35 for it to ship free. This all depends on what you are ordering from Amazon. For me it's worth it because I order things that are usually under $20 most of the time. When Amazon shipped stuff for a min of $25 for free shipping then Prime was something I was on the fence about but now that it is $35 min it made it an easy thing to justify. Yeah the streaming isn't as good as say Netflix, but that for me is just a minor secondary useful feature and I don't use it all that often. The added other things like Kindle Firsts which gives me a $5 book for free each month is well worth keeping Prime active. By my estimate I save at least $44 from the last renewal when using the new price, but since the last renewal was only $79 I actually saved $65 in shipping costs alone or approx $320 or so dollars if I bought everything with free shipping @ $35 per order.

As far as USPS is concerned for me I have only had one issue with USPS delivering late, but it really wasn't their fault (snow storm delayed everything). But everything Prime shipped to me 2 Day for free arrived in 2 days even on Sunday. So if you had issues with your USPS packages not arriving in 2 Days with prime it's more than likely your local USPS branch that is the issue.

 

[caddys83]

I had USPS deliver my amazon package across the street and I had their amazon package that same day. Dafaq USPS!!!

 

[Ducman69]

By my estimate I save at least $44 from the last renewal when using the new price, but since the last renewal was only $79 I actually saved $65 in shipping costs alone or approx $320 or so dollars if I bought everything with free shipping @ $35 per order.

What the heck are you talking about? You didn't save any money, you spent $100 extra to have your items sooner (or in some cases to split orders up). But I call bullshit, because they removed Prime shipping from almost all low dollar items, and made them "add on items" instead.

 

[username00]

But Duncan,

I want to buy this keyboard and get free shipping. It says to get free shipping, I need to purchase a total of $35 of products. I do not want to purchase another $18 worth of products. There is no way around this. I want free shipping but I don't get it unless I spend another $18 at Amazon. I have NOTHING I need to buy, so this $18 would likely be some junk I would never use. Add up how many times I'd have to do this in a year, it sounds like you are trying to rip me off. No thanks. I pay under $100 for free shipping, without being required to buy another $18 worth of shit. This lasts for an entire year, on nearly 85% of what I order. I like to opt for 2 day shipping when I have the funds, this gives me it for free. Your logic is flawed and you are wrong. Give it up.

 

[username00]

I also spend more than $50 shipping on Christmas gifts alone, the year before getting prime. It adds up fast. Ever buy anything large? Plan on paying $75+ for shipping.

 

[Flogger23m]

But Duncan,

I want to buy this keyboard and get free shipping. It says to get free shipping, I need to purchase a total of $35 of products. I do not want to purchase another $18 worth of products. There is no way around this. I want free shipping but I don't get it unless I spend another $18 at Amazon. I have NOTHING I need to buy, so this $18 would likely be some junk I would never use. Add up how many times I'd have to do this in a year, it sounds like you are trying to rip me off. No thanks. I pay under $100 for free shipping, without being required to buy another $18 worth of shit. This lasts for an entire year, on nearly 85% of what I order. I like to opt for 2 day shipping when I have the funds, this gives me it for free. Your logic is flawed and you are wrong. Give it up.

This. It varies. It isn't free shipping because you pay $100. But you might end up saving money, depending on your buying habits. For me, I buy expensive items infrequently. Prime makes no sense for me.

Also, remember you get to stream movies to. This may or may not be of value to some people. While I wouldn't pay to stream movies by itself, I have used it before when I had trials. When you make a lot of small purchases, a free video or three sweetens the deal.

 

[nilepez]

I talked with chat.

I was told that it was for new members currently but I asked if it was possible if I bought the Amazon prime as a gift and then used it on my account once my membership runs out (it ends in early Feb.).

The chat rep said that they were not sure about that and offered me $5 amazon promotional code for my trouble.

So I am going to use it to buy the Prime gift and hope that it wil work once my prime runs out next month.

Unless it has to be used by a certain date, I'd think you could send yourself one for next month, and another one for late next year.

Worst case scenario, you use a different email address/account.

 

[nilepez]

This has happened to me twice. Both times I got an extra month of prime.

Hmm..I wonder if I could have gotten a 2nd free month of prime...guess I'll never know.

 

[nilepez]

Prime is indeed $72 and if I sign up for the Amazon Prime Credit Card, I'll get an $70 Gift Card bringing my total cost for the year to $2.

However the Amazon card has higher interest and less rewards than my current CC I use...

Fortunately, you don't have to use the Amazon card. Take the cash, and cancel the card after a few months.

 

[Ducman69]

But Duncan,

I want to buy this keyboard and get free shipping.

Then for that very specific case, buy it on NewEgg for the exact same price. A good example BTW of how Amazon seems to be getting away from selling themselves these days, with lots of the site just being a reseller. You can't buy that keyboard from Amazon directly if you wanted to.

 

[Ducman69]

I also spend more than $50 shipping on Christmas gifts alone, the year before getting prime. It adds up fast. Ever buy anything large? Plan on paying $75+ for shipping.

Again, anything that says "prime" on it, is free shipping. This cat tree costs $52.99 shipped to your house regardless of whether or not you paid $100 for prime. 99% chance you don't have prime you get it UPS ground in 3-days. If you do have prime, you get it UPS in 2-days.

Now, if you say "well, my cat might murder my children in their sleep if I don't have the cat tree by Tuesday, so I HAVE to use 2-day shipping", then valid point. If that happens often enough, you may have saved money.

 

[nilepez]

Sorry, you are wrong.

Add up the costs of 2-day shipping without prime, you will realize that it quickly pays for itself.

I value the 2 day shipping, as UPS is garbage and takes 5 days for ground shipping even from the same state. I now buy most of my products from Amazon because of the 2-day shipping I get, even if the item costs up to $10 more its still worth it because 2-day shipping at most other sites would cost more than that, hell at some sites standard ground shipping costs over $10.

Also, the overnight package was not lightwieght and small, it was 2x R9 290's, the box they came in was at least 18"x24"x18". $3.99 to upgrade to overnight was a steal.

I'm not a fan of UPS, but before they started sitting on non-prime orders, I'd almost every order in 1-3 days. If you're in the same state (and don't live in the middle of nowhere within that state), ground is next day. In fact, in most cases adjacent states are next day too. Most of the stuff I got via prime was USPS, which is 2-3 days throughout the country.

Finally, is only real if you need the product within 2 days or you regularly make orders for less than $35. And FWIW, the reason it went to $35 was to push more people to buying prime. It was very easy to buy 1 or 2 things and hit $25. I have to search longer to find things for $35. The end result for Amazon is I buy less from them....their loss.

 

[nilepez]

I would order everything 2-day shipping if I could afford to. I would also order everything overnight if I could afford it.

The fact is, it is cost prohibitive at most sites, at Amazon it is not.

Standard shipping sucks, especially when its through UPS.

Ground shipping is pretty fast, assuming Amazon sends it from the closest hub (and in most cases they do).

One of their warehouses in KY, and here's the map of places UPS will hit in 2 days:

But if you're not in the 2-3 day range, there's a lot of others.

The reason ground shipping sucks is because Amazon sits on your order for 2-3 days. Once they ship it, it's generally there in 1-3 days. There was a time when Amazon was consistently faster than 3rd party sellers. I now find 3rd party sellers are consistently faster than Amazon.

UPS still sucks donkey balls (for so many reasons), but their ground shipping is generally about as fast as the map shows. Of course there are times where UPS will get the package to the local warehouse early and then sit on it for a day, but it's not as bad as what Amazon does.

 

[leeleatherwood]

Ground shipping is pretty fast, assuming Amazon sends it from the closest hub (and in most cases they do).

One of their warehouses in KY, and here's the map of places UPS will hit in 2 days:

But if you're not in the 2-3 day range, there's a lot of others.

The reason ground shipping sucks is because Amazon sits on your order for 2-3 days. Once they ship it, it's generally there in 1-3 days. There was a time when Amazon was consistently faster than 3rd party sellers. I now find 3rd party sellers are consistently faster than Amazon.

UPS still sucks donkey balls (for so many reasons), but their ground shipping is generally about as fast as the map shows. Of course there are times where UPS will get the package to the local warehouse early and then sit on it for a day, but it's not as bad as what Amazon does.

That map is a blatant lie.

UPS sits on shipping, its a fact. They will take their sweet ass time (5 days) to ship a package from Houston to El Paso, which are both in TX.

 

[ekul78]

We don't have to have Netflix anymore for the kids with the Amazon Prime Streaming , and occasionally watch some movie all together for free on the PS3 for family movie night. Pays for itself right there.

I can get a 75lb heavy bag next day air delivery for 3.99 , Sunday delivery on something I decide I wanted on a Saturday , for free on tons of items.

We've been Prime members since 08 , and it's been more than worth it. With Prime , we rarely buy anything at a store , saving on tax , and get ridiculously good customer service. I'm a sys engineer who does work on the side for clients who want work done at their homes that I know from the business side.

I've probably ordered 100 or so laptops and built 50 or so desktops from parts from Amazon , combined with tons of other items , and they've never once given me grief for returns, Going through 7 monitors once , crosshipped , with no charge , and they gave me 3 months extra prime member ship for that grief on that incident.

You have a package one day late and contact them and they bump your Prime membership by a month.

Mine has been free for a year now from the sheer amount of items I order and have had a day slip here or there.

I've seen people gripe here and there at times about returns or something with Amazon , and it must be they take care of the Prime members better , because I've sent back a full setup of parts from a rig I built that kept having issues , got sick of troubleshooting , and broke it down. I had already trashed half the boxes. Literally sent an EVO 212 cooler back loose in a cardboard box with no screws or packaging along with other parts in same state and got full refund , plus 10 credit and bump to my Prime membership.

Newegg next day shipping a 32 inch monitor ? 60 bucks.

Prime ? 3.99 (and often its free next day because I've got a massive Amazon warehouse within 100 miles so 2 day get it there next for free).


I've just never once had a bad experience with Amazon , because when they have screwed up soemthing , I call up and they immediately take care of it above and beyond.

Wow you are a nightmare customer.

 

[Sparky]

That link takes me no where I can see $72.
I click give the gift of Prime and it says $99.
Steve posted on Saturday January 24, 2015 saying tomorrow it will be $72 which is Sunday/today.
what am I missing?

 

[MacLeod]

I'll hold out for a $8/month option for video only. I don't buy anywhere near enough to make Prime worth it for the shipping and they only have a couple things on video that Netflix doesn't. I had it last year and let it cancel cause I just wasn't using it enough.

 

[Kmical]

That link takes me no where I can see $72.
I click give the gift of Prime and it says $99.
Steve posted on Saturday January 24, 2015 saying tomorrow it will be $72 which is Sunday/today.
what am I missing?

It was a one-day only promo, and that day was 1/24 (Saturday).

 

[Sparky]

http://hardocp.com/news/2015/01/24/amazon_prime_for_72_tomorrow_only#.VMVaOC6-30w
It clearly says saturday.
Maybe in the future you should give the date instead of saying tomorrow.
Thanks Steve

 

[Deleted member 88227]

That link takes me no where I can see $72.
I click give the gift of Prime and it says $99.
Steve posted on Saturday January 24, 2015 saying tomorrow it will be $72 which is Sunday/today.
what am I missing?

Steve posted on 01-23-2015 which was Friday, not Saturday.

 

[nilepez]

That map is a blatant lie.

UPS sits on shipping, its a fact. They will take their sweet ass time (5 days) to ship a package from Houston to El Paso, which are both in TX.

I actually think that's more incompetence than policy. I know the Dallas warehouse is notorious for misplacing items. They lost a $1000 denon receiver, so they had to pay for another one and then shipped the original one months later. I had several times where it sat there until I called them.

With that said, on average, it's pretty fast. I have a package I ordered on Thursday it reached UPS in KY on Friday and will arrive on Tuesday (which is 3 business days...I don't count the time it took the retailer to get the box to them).

I can promise you that some Amazon Prime UPS shipments were sent to me via UPS ground, because Amazon knew it'd arrive in 2 days. Hell I've done that, though I generally use FedEx (because UPS loses shit).

 

[disemboweler]

Again, anything that says "prime" on it, is free shipping. This cat tree costs $52.99 shipped to your house regardless of whether or not you paid $100 for prime. 99% chance you don't have prime you get it UPS ground in 3-days. If you do have prime, you get it UPS in 2-days.

Now, if you say "well, my cat might murder my children in their sleep if I don't have the cat tree by Tuesday, so I HAVE to use 2-day shipping", then valid point. If that happens often enough, you may have saved money.

Give it up, dude. Prime has so many benefits beyond the free/faster shipping. Music? Streaming? Pantry? Pantry alone makes it SO worth it. The items they stock, while not a huge selection, end up being cheaper than WALMART (after the $5.99 giant box shipping fee) - and I'm paying $6 a week to get many of my heavy groceries delivered to my door for less than walmart charges me. Prime is SO WORTH IT if you know how to take advantage of it.