There is a small side benefit to Amazon Chase Visa... No FTF on a Visa... Know a lot of folks here have travel cards and such but I do not, so I occasionally pull it out when i anticipate an FTF.....
@Anonymous wrote:
@digitek wrote:Crazy thing about the Amazon card...it never had any kind of Price Protection on it. Thought it was glaringly absent from a card that is for mostly spending at one online retailer.
Amazon has such good return policy that I didn't really think much about it =D
You have to be careful with Amazon returns. Many stories online about customers and their family members being banned from Amazon after making too many returns.
So don't make that many returns 
.
I have used Prime for years before I got the card: if you aren't making your prime fee back on shipping charges alone realistically this isn't a card for you anyway as your Amazon spend probably doesn't justify it... but if you use Amazon for a lot (and I do, and Prime Video, and I've just recently started a trial for Prime Pantry and I went down the whole Alexa rabbit hole recently trying to smarten up my home) this card is an absolute no-brainer.
Extra rewards for a service I'd pay for regardless? Yes please!
@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:I actually applied for this card and was denied on initial and recon for it but I'm actually glad i ddin't get the card as I did further math on it and the 5% cash back required a lot of Amazon spend to break even to see positive value.
To qualify for the 5% you have to have Amazon prime which will eventually be $120 per year for everyone at some point. Which is $12 per month. This is basically an AF (with far more benefits then you would get on most AF cards). But when you do the math on the cash back to break even to begin to see posting value.
(Numbers are rounded up and don't take into account you'll probably get 5% back charging Prime and Prime Fresh to the same card. Difference would be small here)
Prime = $120/y Prime = $120/y (assuming you pay yearly as monthly is more expensive. You can break this number down to $10/m)
Minimum Amazon Spend to Match AF= $2400/y | $200/m
If you can match that Amazon and Whole Foods spend above then its worth getting the card as you'll basically get Prime for free. The addition of Whole Foods makes it a lot easier if you spend a lot there monthly (Which isn't hard to do considering the prices)
But lets say your thinking of adding Prime Fresh to the mix to push more spend. Prime fresh is around $15 per month and $180 per year. And you have to have Prime to even get Prime Fresh.
Prime = $120/y (assuming you pay yearly as monthly is more expensive. You can break this number down to $10/m)
Prime Fresh = $180/y ($15 per month as there isn't a yearly option to pay)
Total Amazon Fees = $300/y
Minimum Amazon Spend to Match AF= $6000/y | $500/m
I believe I have my math right (feel free to double check). The only way to gain from this card is to have that much Amazon spend required or use this as your main card and run everything through it. If doing that you should be able to hit the 2% bonus at times and the 1% on everything else and it should add up in volume to break event.
To me this seems like a card you either have as your daily driver for everything or you spend A LOT at Amazon and Whole Foods to see positive gains from it. But most may have other cards with better value in its rewards system to earn more. I think for most hat are in that boat the Store Card (which I have( is the better option as it has the promotional deferred interest financing options which could come in handy.
It really depends how you set things up. Your analysis is more or less "Is it worth getting Amazon Prime so I can get 5% on this card?" whereas I think many of the interested people already have Amazon Prime, and then getting this is clearly worthwhile.
But even with your approach, I think the spend number is too small. With Prime, the card gets an extra 2% over the non-prime version, so you would need an Amazon spend of $6000 a year to make up the AF (and $4000 per year if your alternative was a generic 2% card, in which case you get 3% more with prime)
And now to throw another wrench into the works: you get a $70 Amazon GC for signing up, so your first year Prime is only $49. You'd still have to spend $2450 a year to make up for the $49 over the non-prime version.
However, I actually think the "real" math is much more complicated than that for one simple reason: Prime offers unlimited free 2-day shipping without any restrictions whatsoever.
For non-Prime members, you have to buy over $50 worth of stuff at a time to get free ground (5 day) shipping. Obviously if you're good at buying in bulk/batch buying then it's not a problem, but I often have issues with trying to fill a $50 cart, especially if it's just one or two things I need semi-urgently. That $49 "AF" can and will very quickly get eclipsed by any shipping charges that you'll rack up without the Prime membership. So for me, paying $49 for the Prime membership (first year) is a no-brainer.
Second year onwards it definitely gets harder to justify the $119 if you're not a frequent Amazon shopper. But if you have the Uber visa and can swipe $5000 through it in a year, you get a $50 credit towards "eligible digital subscriptions", Amazon Prime being one of them. At $69 a year, I think it's a lot easier to stomach. As someone who buys way too much from Amazon, I'd still get Prime anyway even if this card didn't exist, so I don't really see the $119 as an "AF". The card is really just an extra bonus.
@Anonymous wrote:
@digitek wrote:Crazy thing about the Amazon card...it never had any kind of Price Protection on it. Thought it was glaringly absent from a card that is for mostly spending at one online retailer.
Amazon has such good return policy that I didn't really think much about it =D
You have to be careful with Amazon returns. Many stories online about customers and their family members being banned from Amazon after making too many returns.
Yeah I've read all those horror stories but there's definitely more to each than they're willing to share.
For reference, I finally received a thinly veiled warning from "cis@amazon.com" after a string of successive returns day after day for a week, some bought with 1-day shipping no less. (I bought a bunch of computer fans but they all either had noise or balance issues) They invited me to write back to them detailing the issues I had, since they were concerned I wasn't happy with my Amazon experience. I wrote a 1000 word essay back and they were satisfied, but the lady did say "perhaps in the future you ought to make your computer setup less complicated" LOL.
Bottom line is they don't ban you out of the blue for "too many returns" for no good reason.
