Martin Lewis’s website MoneySavingExpert has warned that Amazon Prime customers will have their subscription prices hiked this week.
Monthly streaming prices for Amazon Prime will jump from £7.99 to £8.99 on Thursday (15 September), which means an annual increase of £16 - from £79 to £95 a year.
A blog post on the MoneySavingExpert website noted that by swapping to an annual subscription before the price change, monthly Prime subscribers can avoid the hike and save £28.88.
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However, anyone who already has an annual subscription might not be able to avoid the price jump, with Lewis’s team pointing out that Amazon won’t begin new annual subscriptions until customers’ current one month subscriptions have run their course.
This means that unless Prime customers switched over to an annual subscription before 14 August, they won’t avoid the price increase.
New customers can, of course, beat the hike by signing up to Prime before 15 September, although the 30-day free trial will have to be waived.
Monthly Amazon Prime Student subscribers will start being charged £4.49 a month instead of £3.99, while Annual Amazon Prime Student subscribers will pay £47.49 a year instead of £39.49.
Lewis first spoke about the price hike last month, explaining in a video: “Amazon Prime is hiking its membership costs. On 15 September, the monthly subscription in the UK will go up from £7.99 to £8.99; the annual cost will rise from £79 to £95.”
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He went on: "So, if you currently pay monthly and you want to keep it, then the best thing you can do – provided you can afford it – is to convert now to the annual package and then you lock in at £79 for the next year, forestalling the rise.”
"If you're an annual payer it's more difficult – though if your subscription is due to renew in the few weeks after 15 September, you could cancel just before that and then get a new subscription at £79 before 15 September – again, forestalling that rise just for a little bit."
Anyone wanting to do this will need to contact Amazon's customer service team by Wednesday 14 September and ask to have ‘benefits ended immediately’ before signing up to Prime again.
Otherwise, MoneySavingExpert experts warn ‘your membership would run until the renewal date even if you cancelled, taking the new payment until after that date’.
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LADbible has approached Amazon for comment.
Topics: Amazon Prime, Amazon
Aisha Nozari