Amazon Completely Changed How You Can Share Your Prime Benefits and Not for the Better!
Well, it looks like the sharing party is over my friends. I was gone this past weekend on a little trip and got a comment on one of my most popular articles. It shows you how to share your Amazon Prime shipping benefits with four other family members. Since I wrote it, it has been well received. Most people didn’t know you could share you Amazon Prime benefits. Either way, apparently Amazon has decided to change up how you are able to share your Prime account. This new change was introduced on August 1st, 2015. They have re-developed the Amazon Household program.
In doing so, they have removed the ability for people to share their Amazon shipping benefits with four other people. Before, all you needed to do was follow the few steps listed in this article. Now, you can’t do that any more. My dad and sister were listed under mine and were able to get my prime shipping benefit. That gave them free, two-day shipping on millions of products. They are no longer able to do this. So, what changed?
Why Amazon Removed Prime Sharing
I can count a number of possible reasons, but the main one is probably because they realized people were abusing the system. Their wording told you to share with members in your household or you could share with co-workers. The issue is there was no way to know who you were sharing with. While I only had my sister and father, I’m sure others had friends. There were a number of articles showing you how to save on an Amazon prime membership and this was the top tip. The other one was Amazon Student.
It’s no surprise that Amazon wants more paying Prime customers. They are a business that thrives on having more customers. When you take Prime shipping away from those who were getting it for free, you might be able to convert them to paying customer. For us who are already paying customers, this doesn’t affect me much as I wasn’t getting money from my family to share my shipping benefits. This might not be the case with others.
To get more paying customers, they introduced the Amazon Household program. This is where the sharing gets dismantled. Instead of sharing with other people and not having to worry about seeing their order profile information, now those in the household will be able to see your orders. This is what you see when you go to the regular “share your Prime benefits” page.
Let’s talk more about this new program.
What is the Amazon Household Program?
The new Amazon Household program is literally designed for those in a household. It’s only for up to six people and four of those being children who don’t need Amazon accounts. Basically, it’s for two adults and four children. The kicker in the program come in when they talk about how to set it up. Here is a little note they put in there:
Note: In order to share content, Prime benefits, and Amazon Mom benefits, both adult account holders need to authorize each other to use credit and debit cards associated with their Amazon accounts for purchases on Amazon. This will not affect either of their current payment settings, but each adult will be able to copy the credit and debit cards of the other account to his or her Amazon account and use them for purchases with Amazon.
So, in order to actually share your benefits, you need to authorize the other adult account to use your credit/debit cards already in your Amazon account with the other adult. This means both account holders can use either card in both accounts.
Basically, this weeds out anyone trying to share their Amazon Prime shipping benefits with anyone outside of their close family. You wouldn’t want your co-worker getting access to your credit cards and vise versa. That could end poorly. From what I’ve been told, you will also be able to see purchase histories between the two accounts. I can’t verify this, but that would be terrible. You wouldn’t be able to buy your significant other a gift without them knowing it.
I will keep my eyes and ears out to see if this is actually true. Some said it was true with the regular sharing program, but I never found it and asked a number of people who couldn’t see the other people’s order history.
Prior to this new change, you were only able to share your two-day shipping benefits and the Kindle library. I would say the whole reason to share was for the shipping benefits. Now, the Amazon Household program allows you to share a few more things inside your Amazon Prime account. Here they are.
- Prime shipping benefits
- Prime Instant Video (streaming only)
- Prime Early Access
- Kindle Owners’ Lending Library
- Amazon Mom (if one member is a part of Amazon Mom)
How to Setup an Amazon Household
Since the traditional sharing method is gone, then you will need to set up and Amazon household if you want to share with someone you don’t mind having access to your credit cards. In order to set up a new Amazon Household system, you need to follow a few basic steps. Click here for the full instructions.
- Go to Amazon.com and sign into your account. Click on the Your account button at the top of the page when on an Amazon page.
- Click the “Manage Your Content and Devices” link in the list.
- Click the Settings tab, then scroll down to the Households section.
- Click on the “Invite an Adult” button (they need to be present or you should be able to log in for them).
- Log in as the other adult (or have them do it) and then link the accounts.
- Click “Create Household“
There you have it fellow Amazon lovers. They caught onto one of our many ways to save money on their site. Luckily, I will be sharing a large post soon with many more ways to save money on Amazon. Until then, make sure you make yourself familiar with these five little known ways.
What do you think about this move? Have you shared your shipping benefits with others before?
Well this stinks!! Thanks for the news. I’ll pass along the update.
That it does.
I don’t have Amazon Prime anymore, but this definitely doesn’t sound like a change for the better! Ugh!
I still have it, but don’t really need to share with anyone anymore, but this could piss some people off.
Actually, I never knew about this to begin with. Dang it! I might still talk to my dad though to see if he wants to share the love by sharing his Prime membership with me and my brother. We kind of share it already – we live in the same small town so when I need something my dad orders it (and gets free shipping) then he just gives it to me and I pay him back for it.
This might work for you then.
This is such a bummer! I only shared Prime with my Mom, but I still think it would be weird to share credit cards and purchasing information with her. I pretty much only buy boring things, but occasionally I’ll buy gag gifts for my friends’ birthdays and she would likely be… disturbed… to say the least, haha. Boo Amazon!
I agree with you there Melissa!
Thanks for the info! I haven’t shared Prime benefits before but my boyfriend and I were thinking of setting up a shared account. Sounds like we’ll still be able to since we share a credit card and address, but overall this policy sounds like it might hurt consumers.
It might just piss of some consumers, but you should be fine. Not sure why I would need to share my account with my spouse, since we stream anything from my account anyway. No need to stream stuff from hers.
I only share my account with my husband, so the change doesn’t bother me so much. I understand why this change will be bad for most people, though. Let’s all hope that Netflix doesn’t hop on the bandwagon and prevent people from sharing too! That would be a monumentally sad day.
I didn’t think you were allowed to share your Netflix with anyone. Are you just giving them your account info?
Can you just add another credit card (theirs) and have it shipped to your house if they live close?
You could do that, but that requires a level of trust some don’t have with their friends.
Was thinking about joining Amazon Prime when I found out my wife was already a member. I have an Amazon account I use periodically. My main use of the account is around the holidays. Has it been confirmed that if my wife links my account with hers so we both get the prime benefits, will she get notified of my purchases and/or purchase history?
There should be some selections in there of what you want to share with the other members. You have to share payment, but I believe you can hide purchases and purchase history.
I had joined a shared account prior to the change and it didn’t change. It’s due to expire in a month though, and I’m thinking that it will probably automatically drop me then.
However, today you can get prime for $67/year and I’d love to sign up but I can’t figure out how to un-member myself from the other membership to get that price.
I’m not sure how to removed yourself from the other account. You probably need the account owner to do it for you.
Vickie, I’m wondering if- when the account you were on expired, did it auto-renew and keep you on or kick you off? I share with someone in a diff household and it’s set to auto renew in a couple weeks. So far we all still have access to the shared prime. But I’m wondering if it’ll kick them off when I auto renew.
What happens to people that were already setup to share your account prior to the change? I have 2 others on my account and I don’t want to share my credit card access with them.
I unfortunately don’t have an answer to that question. I stopped sharing my account before they put this new change into place.
Anyone sharing your Prime Shipping prior to 8/1/15 may still retain this benefit, until you revoke their ability under “manage prime membership” link, or cancel your Prime membership. ** This info is direct from Amazon corporate!
I was sharing with two of my sons, and wanted to add my daughter recently, but cannot do that now, thanks to the policy change (which sucks). My sons will continue to share my Prime shipping as long as I maintain my Prime membership and do not revoke their access.
Yes, the new “Amazon Household” only works with two accounts to share ALL Prime features, as well as payment info, history, etc. You can only restrict access to things on the four “child” accounts. Both “adult” accounts have free access to each other’s account info… which makes it impossible to buy a gift for your spouse without them knowing about it, and how much you paid 🙁
If you liked the OLD way, where you could share Prime Shipping with family members (not in your house), please contact Amazon and request the feature be re-instated! Thousands of us have already done so, and our voice will be heard if enough complain? Maybe?
Thanks for clearing that up William. I’m not a fan of what they did, but I get it from a business perspective, but it sucks for customers. Glad you adding this info here.
“From what I’ve been told, you will also be able to see purchase histories between the two accounts. I can’t verify this, but that would be terrible”
Could you please provide an update on this, if you have any? In Amazon household program, would two adults be able to see purchase histories between two accounts?
Thanks for the nice article!!
They have verified that you cannot see the order history from the other member you’re sharing with. There is only a shared digital wallet that allows you to use the same credit card information for purchases.