Want Amazon Prime membership for free? You’ll need access to the scheme to shop the Prime Day deals (Image: AMAZON • UNSPLASH • EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS)
Prime Day is almost here. For those who don’t know, the blockbuster sales event sees thousands of items slashed in price across every department on Amazon. Outside of Black Friday, Prime Day is the biggest single shopping day online – so it’s definitely one not to miss. Express.co.uk will be keeping tabs on the best Prime Day deals throughout the event which, somewhat confusingly, runs for two days instead of one. Prime Day 2022 will take place from July 12 to 13th this year.
As the name suggests, Prime Day is exclusive to Prime members. The membership scheme unlocks a number of benefits, including early access to discounts on Amazon UK, free next-day shipping on thousands of items, exclusive boxsets and movies from Prime Video, streaming of thousands of tracks from Amazon Music, unlimited cloud storage to back-up photos from your smartphone or tablet, and more. Amazon Prime usually costs £79 per year, or £7.99 per month.
However, you can get access to Amazon Prime for free – so you can take advantage of the swathe of deals and discounts coming in Prime Day 2022.
Amazon offers a 30-day free trial for its Prime membership so you can test out the benefits for yourself. If you don’t cancel within the 30 day trial period, Amazon will charge you for a full membership plan. However, it’s possible to cancel as soon as you’ve agreed to the trial, so there’s no excuse to be charged if you only want a Prime membership for Prime Day.
And don’t worry if you’ve taken out a Prime free trial in the past. Amazon will allow customers to take advantage of the free trial offer every 12 months of so. If you’ve previously trialled an Amazon Prime membership, it’s worth checking again as you might be able to take advantage of the free membership in time for Prime Day.
Confusingly, Prime Day actually takes place over two days in July 2022 (Image: AMAZON)
How To Get Amazon Prime For Free
It couldn’t be easier to get a free membership to Amazon Prime. First up, you’ll need to have an Amazon account. For that, you’ll need an email address and a unique password. If you already have an account but haven’t logged in for a while …you can reset your password to regain access. If you’ve never had an Amazon account, you’ll be able to set-up an account as part of the free trial sign-up process, so there’s nothing to worry about!
Next up, head to this webpage to kickstart your free Amazon Prime trial.
Once you’ve signed up for the trial, you’ll see the logo in the top left-hand corner of the Amazon homepage will change to reflect that you’re a Prime member. That means you’ll now be able to check the latest deals and discounts, including Lightning deals. The latter are limited-time offers that are only available for a short period of time and a limited amount of stock. Once the total number of items has been claimed, or the time has elapsed, the deal will no longer be available.
Amazon rolls out new Lightning Deals throughout Prime Day 2022, so you’ll need to set plenty of reminders if you want to snatch up the best deals!
What Is Included With Amazon Prime?
Amazon Prime membership unlocks a number of perks. If you’re always buying from Amazon UK, own an Alexa-powered smart speaker or smart home device, watch boxsets on Fire TV, or read on a Kindle, there are a number of lesser-known extras that couldn’t make Prime membership a no-brainer for you. The full perks are…
• Next-Day (or Same-Day) Delivery: As long as the item is listed as ‘Fulfilled by Amazon’, you’ll get next-day delivery at no extra cost. That includes thousands of items across all departments of the online superstore. It also includes some discounted second-hand or damaged items from Amazon Warehouse, which offers substantial discounts compared to new items. In some areas of the country, you’ll be able to get same-day delivery as part of your Prime membership too. This is only available on a limited number of items, but it can be incredibly helpful if you’re in a rush.
• Lightning Deals: Amazon reserves some discounts and deals for Prime members. Lightning Deals, as the name suggests, are only around for a short amount of time and only accessible for Prime members. Throughout Prime Day and Black Friday, these blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em deals offer sizeable savings on goods from all departments.
• Prime Video: Bundled as part of your Prime membership is Amazon’s Netflix rival, Prime Video. This streaming platform is also available as a standalone subscription for £5.99 per month for those who aren’t fussed about any of the other benefits of Amazon Prime. You’ll be able to stream Prime Video on a wide variety of devices as there are dedicated apps for iPhone and iPad, Android phones and tablets, Apple TV, Roku, Chromecast with Google TV, Amazon’s Fire TV streaming dongles, PS5 and other games consoles, Sky Q and Sky Glass, to name a few. Prime Video included popular syndicated shows like The Handmaid’s Tale, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, and Mr Robot, as well as exclusive boxsets and movies you won’t find anywhere else. That includes the likes of critically-acclaimed The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel, superhero satire The Boys, Clarkson’s Farm from the ex-Top Gear frontman, and sports documentary series All Or Nothing. Later this year, Amazon will debut the first season of its Lord Of The Rings spin-off series, which is set to be the most expensive show of all time with a budget of $465 million for the first series. Prime Video also boasts movies like House Of Gucci, 007 No Time To Die, Palm Springs, Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm, and The Green Knight.
• Prime Reading: For Kindle owners, this is a brilliant benefit. It unlocks access to thousands of ebooks, magazines and comics that can be downloaded to your device to read for free. Even if you don’t own a Kindle, you can access all of this content using the Kindle app on iPhone, iPad, and Android. Amazon regularly rotates the selection of books available to read for free, so you don’t need to worry about running out of choice each month either.
• Photo Back-Up: Keep dismissing a low storage warning from Apple or Google on your smartphone? Prime members can back up all of their photographs at full resolution for free as part of their subscription. With apps available on iOS, Android, Windows, macOS and more, you’ll be able to securely store your photos from any device. Better yet, a selection of images can be used as a screensaver on your Fire TV, Fire tablet, or certain Amazon Echo gadgets. Like rival photos apps from Apple and Google, Amazon will highlight images from previous years taken on today’s date, so you can revisit treasured memories. You can also search and sort your photos by people, places and things with advanced image recognition.
• Deliveroo Plus: If you like to order takeaways with Deliveroo, there’s another perk to being a Prime member – you’ll get access to one year of Deliveroo Plus for free. This optional extra is worth over £40 a year and unlocks free delivery on all takeaway orders over £25 made within the Deliveroo app. Not only that, but Deliveroo Plus members also get exclusive special offers and rewards.
• Amazon Music Prime: As part of your annual Prime membership, you’ll get access to two million songs hand-picked by the team of editors at the streaming service. Prime Music listeners are able to download tracks from this selection to listen offline, when on a flight or an underground train, for example. If you own an Amazon Echo, it’s possible to request tracks and playlists with AI assistant Alexa. If you’re unsure of the title of the song, Alexa can unearth the track for you when you quote a few lyrics too. For those who want access to the complete library of 90 million tracks, Amazon Music Unlimited is a direct competitor to Spotify and Apple Music. Although this fully-fledged streaming service isn’t included, Prime members get a discount on the monthly subscription fee if they want to upgrade.
• Prime Gaming: This perk is perfect for anyone who loves to while away the hours playing the latest games on their PC. As a Prime member, Amazon will dish out exclusive in-game loot, including weapons, characters, skins, boosts, and other in-game upgrades. Better yet, Amazon regularly offers free games to Prime members in a similar way to Xbox’s Games With Gold and PS Plus promotions each month. In previous months, Amazon has handed out games such as Dead Space 2, Cat Quest, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and Madden NFL 22. Prime also comes with a free channel subscription on Twitch.tv as well as exclusive emotes, Twitch Chat colours, and the ability to talk to members-only crown chat badge.
• Prime Day: Last, but not least, you’ll need to be a Prime member to take advantage of the Prime Day sales. This two-day blockbuster sales event – a Black Friday-like bargain bonanza halfway through the year – is reserved for members of Amazon’s membership scheme, with those without the subscription plan left to pay full price. Ouch.
How Long Is The Amazon Prime Free Trial?
Amazon offers 30-days with full access to all of the perks of Prime membership before you’ll need to make up your mind about continuing with the scheme. The benefits of Amazon Prime will kick in as soon as you confirm plans to accept the free trial period, so you’ll be able to start binge-watching a new series from Prime Video, downloading a playlist from Prime Music for a longhaul flight, or avoiding a delivery fee for an item in your shopping basket immediately.
If you’ve used a trial period before, you’ll be pleased to know that Amazon lets you take advantage of the 30-day Prime free trial multiple times. However, at least one year needs to have passed since your last trial before you’ll be able to get another free 30-day taster of the members-only scheme.