Amazon prime price hike

loughman

I cancelled my prime a/c and then re-applied to get £79/yr but could only get 30 days free trial then it hikes to £95/yr on 15th Sept. Any idea how to just get the £79 deal before this Sunday?

giraffe69

This article https://www.techadvisor.com/article/745760/how-to-avoid-the-amazon-prime-price-hike.html suggests how to do it. Was cancelling before it was sorted the root cause of the problem?

I wonder what the minimum % increase to justify calling something a "hike" is?

Bigphil1474

20% is definitely a hike. 

mjm3346

Bigphil1474 said:

20% is definitely a hike. 

Hardly when inflation is around 10%, it was about 8 years at the old price and the monthly charge is just under a 13% increase- so even with the price rise  now since the price last changed this still amounts to a decrease in real terms.  
Using an inflation checker for 2014 to 2022 the £7.99 monthly fee would need to be nearly £9.80 and the annual one almost £98  just to have stood still. 

Bigphil1474

(Softly) you're forgetting the benefits that Amazon is getting from Prime Members - customer loyalty, increased sales etc. They offer Prime for a reason, so the cost of membership to us isn't the total value to Amazon. It's not like buying a box of widgets for £79 which are going up to £95 because the cost of materials, production, and handling have increased. 

It's still a 20% rise this year, which is definitely a hike, and makes the annual payment less attractive as well as it was previously basically buy a year pass and it includes 2 free months (compared to monthly cost), it's now less than 1.5 months. If companies want to keep prices stable for years then suddenly increase them, that's up to them, but doesn't mean it isn't a hike.

Neil_Jones

It must also be remembered Amazon "hiked" the Prime price in 2014 from £49 to £79, which was a 64% increase, though that was justified by the purchase of Lovefilm and the subsequent relaunch of Prime Video and the additional of everything you now get included in that price.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/02/21/amazon-prime-prices-increase-abroad/5696307/

But of course £95 was what it worked out to if you paid monthly before (near enough) so...  swings and roundabouts.

Abbafan1972

I was on a monthly plan for £7.99 and have just switched my account to annual for £79, renewing on 24/08/23 at the new price of £95.  I will get a refund of £3 or other, as I haven't had a complete month. 

Seeing this thread reminded me to do it. 

Flubbubble

This hack worked! I tried to subscribe today for £79 but the website only offered a month's free trial and then annual subscription at the new higher price (the increase being a lot more than the value of the free month). I asked the chat advisor/bot what to do and they said start the free trial and immediately ask them to cancel it. I did this and then wasn't eligible for the free trial so was able to get a year's subscription for £79.

Incidentally my wife cancelled her subscription today which was due for renewal next May. The website implies that you can only end your benefits when the renewal falls due, but she asked the advisor/bot to cancel it immediately and provide a refund. They did so and say they are refunding her whole £79 - thank you Amazon.

SimonStapes

As a FYI, the MSE article seemed to say that you couldn't switch from the monthly plan to the annual plan until the current month had finished (in my case this would be after the price hike).  However I looked at my Prime account in the app and was able to easily change the plan to an annual one (for £79, renewable at £95 in a years time) even though my current month hadn't expired yet.  I was also refunded the unused portion of the current month on my monthly plan.
Thanks.

B0bbyEwing

Oh dear. I just came to look about sorting this & had a see when the price goes up.

Yesterday.

Oh well. haha. Typical me.