I am an Amazon Prime member and an avid Amazon shopper primarily for the convenience. I travel so much and it is so nice to be able to simply order what I need while on the road and have it delivered to my door. I have written about the many benefits of Amazon Prime before and how I really enjoy the many benefits that I get for my annual membership to Prime. Well, it looks like the membership just got more valuable. You used to be able to qualify for free shipping with purchases of $35 or more or of course with Prime. Now, it looks like Amazon has raised the spending threshold required for free shipping to $49Â (see new guidelines here.)
Amazon Free Ship Threshold Raised To $49!
Orders including $25 or more of eligible books qualify for FREE Shipping. All orders of $49 or more of eligible items across any product category also qualify for FREE Shipping. With free shipping, your order will be delivered 5-8 business days after all of your items are available to ship, including pre-order items.
I am sure that people without Prime will not be very excited about this news. If you are an avid Amazon shopper, this might encourage you to sign up for Prime membership, which is likely Amazon’s hope.
About Amazon Prime
- FREE Two-Day Shipping on millions of items
- Unlimited, ad-free access to over a million songs
- Instant streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with Prime Instant Video
- Free unlimited photo storage in Amazon Cloud Drive
- Read free books each month through Kindle First and the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library
- Prime members can share FREE Two-day shipping, Prime Instant Video Streaming, Prime Early Access, and the ability to borrow books from Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.  Prime members can also share access to the 20% off diapers discount and the 15% Baby Registry Completion discount, compliments of Amazon Family.
- Create a Family Library to share books, apps, and games on your Amazon devices and media apps.
- Both adults can manage parental controls with Amazon FreeTime for up to 4 children.
Bottom Line
Hopefully you signed up for Amazon Prime back in January when it was on sale for $26 off. If you don’t have Prime, will you consider getting it now that you have to spend $49 to get free shipping unless you are ordering books, where the spending threshold is only $25.
HT: Reader Diane
About The Weekly Flyer
The Weekly Flyer writes about travel from a business traveler perspective. He travels the world every week accumulating points and miles along the way.
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Now the free Shoprunner membership from Amex looks more valuable. The threshold can vary by merchant, but for example drugstore.com’s threshold is $25.