Amazon.com have introduced a new credit card offering 5% cash back on all Amazon.com purchases. Rewards can of course be spent on Amazon.com. The Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card is as you’d expect only available to Amazon.com Prime members and offers the highest rate of cash back of all Amazon.com’s other credit and store cards to date.
Existing Amazon Rewards Visa Signature card members with an eligible Prime membership will be upgraded to the new Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card automatically and will start accruing cash back immediately while they wait for their newly designed metal (yes metal, not plastic) card to arrive.
As well as 5% cash back on Amazon.com, card holders will get 2% Back at restaurants, gas stations and drugstores, and 1% Back on every other purchase. If you’re not an Amazon Prime member you can still get an Amazon credit card, but you’ll only get 3% cash back. That means, ignoring any other Prime benefits such as free deliveries, if you spend $4950 or more per year on Amazon then the additional cash back will itself pay for your Amazon.com Prime membership.
The card, in partnership with Chase Bank, isn’t going to suddenly convince Americans that they should sign up to Amazon Prime, but it’s yet another incremental benefit which, if you shop on Amazon anyway, will tie you in to the company and make you ever more loyal to the brand. Amazon isn’t just a retailer, with the Prime benefits they want to tie your whole life into the Amazon brand and milk you for every retail dollar you have to spend.
Here in the UK Amazon offer a Amazon Platinum MasterCard which accrues reward points at the rate of 0.75 for every £1 spent on Amazon and 0.5 points per £1 spent elsewhere. Not quite as attractive as the Amazon.com Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card and there’s currently no additional benefit for being a Prime member.
