Amazon raising the price of Prime to $139

@mike808 is that offer restricted to new subscribers only, or can it be applied to renewals of existing memberships?
It says exchange for gift card value of existing members, but can you just wait until expiration before applying it?

@slidedealer @RedOak @lisagd
Anyone can buy them and you can send them to anyone with an email. Even yourself. hint. hint.
Save it until you’re ready to use it. The email has a one-time code that is good for one year subscription to Prime.

The catch is it can’t be used if you already have Prime. If you already have Prime active, it converts into an Amazon gift card for the amount paid (not the current price of a Prime subscription).

That’s why you have to turn off auto-renew (which Amazon has made damned near fucking impossible). So you have to actively cancel it completely. Like the last day or two of your subscription.

I had mine auto-renew so I had to cancel and get a refund to clear before I could apply my code.

@lisagd @mike808 @slidedealer

That’s why you have to turn off auto-renew (which Amazon has made damned near fucking impossible).

Yep - several years ago there used to be an “Auto-renew” checkbox you could uncheck.

Now we contact Amazon Customer Service to kill auto-renew immediately after we renew. No need to remember later.

@heartny
It’s not like the prices at Whole Foods Paycheck Newage aren’t already ridiculous.

It also works as below if you call and insist that the rep turn off auto-renew. I think there is less risk just outright canceling before the auto-renew than walking a clueless rep through a hidden “feature” Amazon very clearly wants to make unavailable, unpublished, and difficult on purpose. I’d rather not risk the rando rep I’m dealing with didn’t screw something else up and I get charged anyway.

BTW, if you pay annually and cancel, the pro-rated remainder goes to an Amazon GC. You’re not getting a refund. That’s why I cancel on the last day (or two) before it expires.

For devices, they just switch off the prime stuff - they’re still logged into your account. So no big deal there.

Our annual renewal date used to be September. Now it is May. Simply by going off Prime until we needed it each year.

We find Amazon prices are generally not that competitive in our already competitive local retail market. So we buy on Amazon very selectively. And then binge whatever might be interesting on Prime video before letting it lapse.

Bosch is over.

With this price hike, it will only likely cause us to further delay renewal this cycle. And who knows perhaps not renew at all!

@RedOak
Ozark 4 Part 2 wont be released until May to qualify it for next year’s Emmys. Julia Garner deserves the Emmy for her scene in the finale of part 1. Here’s a Jimmy Fallon interview she did on youtube and its the clip. No spoilers in the interview.

@RedOak Also the new Jack Reacher series looks interesting, and there’s more Jack Ryan coming. The pandemic threw production for a loop globally and I think we’re still in the gap from that. I do like the “channels” features and we’ve been binging on the recent “99¢/mo for 2 months” offers (canceling before the end or paying for a third month if we’re still binge-ing – 23 seasons of Silent Witness on BritBox is a lot of binge-ing.

@mike808 @RedOak I signed up for a few of those 99 cent channels. There are a couple I’ll probably keep, but I haven’t looked into how to cancel the rest. Do you know if you can do it in Prime Video on the TV, or do I need to find the place to do it on the website?

@lisagd @mike808 @RedOak I did find how to turn off auto-renew for those 99 cent channels once but it is nearly impossible to find. I usually just contact support and they turn it off. Much easier imo.

@RedOak I used to buy from Amazon blindly until a few months ago, when they black listed my account for some mysterious reason, about standards for reviews or something. I started looking on eBay and other sources and did find that Amazon was no longer the invariable best deal they used to be.
Curtailed my purchases from them and only get some things from them sporadically now.
It was a good thing they flagged me, as they turned out, or else I’d still be assuming they see the defacto best option.

@fjp999 @mike808 @RedOak I’ve called their customer service a couple times expecting to spend hours on hold, but I was pleasantly surprised to get through right away or have them call the number I left almost immediately. The people knew what they were doing, too.

@mike808 @RedOak On that video, scream is right around the 2 minute mark. I sort of hate-watch Ozark because I love the actors but the plot is very… meh? Anyway, when I saw that scene with Julia Garner I thought “the whole show is worth it”.

@lisagd @mike808

I signed up for a few of those 99 cent channels.

We too have tried those out. However, it is worth watching for promo deals on those “channels” outside of Prime Video.

The benefit being, if you sign up directly with the provider, you have more direct flexibility in how you stream since it does not require Prime. (Of course if you like having all the content come thru Prime…)

Example Case: Paramount+ recently did a direct $0 for two month deal. We had little interest in Paramount/CBS except for ‘Yellowstone’ + its prequel ‘1883’.

The “new” Star Trek series on Paramount, ‘Discovery’& ‘Picard’, while they have some true “Star Trekness” to them, pull you out of the moment with three defects littered throughout… 1) Too many quaint colloquialisms from today that feel completely out of place for the future; 2) Too much time spent on casual, familiar interactions and not enough on “serious” Star Trek content; and 3) Woke saturation beyond what is necessary to make the point.

BTW, don’t sign up for Paramount+ thinking you’ll see a single ‘Yellowstone’ episode even tho it is their property. Unlike HBO & Disney, who have been clawing back their DRM from licensees, Paramount appears to believe they can make more money by selling the exclusive streaming rights to NBC. Or you could pay for cable TV and the Paramount cable TV channel.

@lisagd @RedOak You can only turn off channel subscriptions from the web. You can’t from an app.

@fuzzmanmatt And it’s just as vital.

@gnafuthemeh I’m debating on whether The Boys are worth it or not for me.

@gnafuthemeh Same here. We’re paying for Prime Video, really. And it’s competitive with Netflix. We have both and a Tivo Roamio OTA with apps for both.

We also have a Silicon Dust HD Homerun Quattro with DVR (I’m a Kickstarter and they’ve honored the free guide subscription so far (4+ years)) that feeds into MCEBuddy to strip ads and convert to H.265/HEVC in MKV files for Plex to serve up around the house, including the Tivo (has a Plex app).

@gnafuthemeh Upload was really good too. I don’t have Prime but for streaming, I use a friend’s account because she uses some of my streaming accounts.

@mike808 We finally canceled Netflix. I’d been thinking about it for a while, and news of another price increase sealed the deal. We signed up for HBO Max as a replacement, and I am very impressed with their catalog! Kinda feels like Netflix 10 years ago, but with all the HBO hits.

We’ll probably sign up for Netflix when the next season of Stranger Things comes out. That’s definitely one I don’t want to miss. That and GBBO .

@gnafuthemeh @mike808
If you are a TMO customer you get a Netflix subscription as part of your service… or you can apply that amount to a ‘deluxe’ (i.e. multiple screens at the same time) account.

@Andrewblor you might find the content in a European Prime video membership is different.

@mbersiam
just checked my account, and it’s 50% of the current price ($59/yr at this time so I guess it will go to $69?)

@chienfou You’re in college?

@Kyeh
nope, that’s SWMBO. working on a masters in classical education… just in time to hit SS payout age!

@chienfou That’s cool! Is she planning to keep teaching?

@Kyeh
right now she is ‘on sabbatical’ so to speak. Taking care of my soon-to-be-90-yr-old mom and doing the masters work is eating her lunch. We will see what (if anything) she does with it when it happens in a yr or so. Meanwhile she is thoroughly enjoying the process so that counts for something (plus we get tax breaks and the above mentioned discount from Amazon…)

@chienfou Nice! My mother’s “beau” spent his working life as a linguistics professor. When he retired, he went back to school and got a PhD in archeology, just for his own enjoyment. Oh, and he’s also an avid amateur botanist, cultivating oak and conifer trees.

@yakkoTDI
Yeah, I hear you, but when I recently ordered some stuff from eBay I was shocked at the shipping times on some of those items. Guess I have gotten spoiled by big A’s ‘2 day shipping’.
Maybe this is the updated of version of “at my age I don’t even buy green bananas…”.

@chienfou @yakkoTDI but… I don’t understand. You are on meh. You can’t possibly care about shipping time.

@unksol @yakkoTDI
Ha! That’s a good point. I guess the difference is when I buy something from amazon, I am looking for it and have a need. When I buy something from meh I don’t necessarily know I need it… much less need it right then.

@callow
In their settings Amazon has a checkbox that allows you to be reminded 3 days prior to your renewal as well.

@chienfou You have to reset that every year. My calendar is forever

@callow
But that only works if you renew on the same date. If you decide to wait a month and then renew then your calendar is wrong… And you’ll have to set a new date.

@chienfou I just looked at my calendar to see how long I’ve done this and guess what? It’s not on there at all, Amazon reminds me!

@callow

@chienfou LOL
Now it’s on my calendar too!