Many of you have mentioned an email that we ourselves received late last week – that as of January 24, 2012, Amazon Mom will be introducing some changes to their program. Obviously, some of you might not even know what we are talking about. Amazon Mom has been a program offered for over a year where you could receive a three-month trial of Amazon Prime FREE 2-day shipping plus receive additional discounts on products you need as a parent – especially the extra 15% discount offered on Subscribe & Save orders on diapers and wipes that we highlight each and every week in our online diaper deals!
But the changes have brought many questions and a lot of uncertainty about the future of the Amazon Mom program. Currently, when you received your FREE Amazon Prime 2-day shipping for 3-months, you could add a month to that by making a $25 purchase from their Baby Store – an easy thing to do especially if you are buying a large enough size box of diapers – all for up to a total of 12 months of FREE Amazon Prime. But what you also knew as well is that even if you didn’t make the purchase to extend your shipping benefits, you would still receive the 15% off of Subscribe & Save orders as a remaining benefit as an Amazon Mom member.
We have been researching these changes and communicating directly with Amazon to get the answers you need to understand the impact from the upcoming changes. We are going to compile some questions and answers below to help you. We need you to help us identify any gaps we are missing – if after reading this you still have a question, let us know and we’ll try to either clarify or get further resolution.
First, make sure to check out the Amazon Mom information page to learn more about the benefits as this is the source of much of the information here.
1. Do I lose my Amazon Mom membership after January 24, 2012?
This is probably the biggest change we’ve noticed. In the past, when your FREE Amazon Prime membership dropped off (either due to not extending your Prime because of not making the possibly $25 purchase or reaching the year total extensions), you would still receive the additional 15% discount for being an Amazon Mom. As of January 24, 2012, it appears that if you don’t have an Amazon Prime membership (either through extensions – see below – or just by purchasing Amazon Prime), you will not receive the 15% off discount. You will still receive their Amazon Mom email with exclusive Amazon Mom deals and promotions, but the 15% discount exclusively reserved for Amazon Mom subscribers will no longer be available to you.
2. Can I still receive additional months of Amazon Prime with a qualified $25 purchase at the Baby Store?
Our best and current understanding of this is Yes! The Amazon Mom FAQ actually states : “For every $25 you spend in the Baby Store, you earn an extra month of Amazon Mom benefits.” But as before, you can earn up to a full year total and you can check your status of how many months you can still extend your membership by checking your prime membership under the “Manage Your Prime Membership page” in your account. From our reading of this as well, because you are extending the Amazon Mom benefits by an additional month, you should still receive the 15% off discount reserved exclusively for Amazon Mom members for eligible diapers and wipes purchases.
3. How do I continue receiving the full benefits from my Amazon Mom Membership?
After January 24, 2012, the way you can continue receive your full benefits (especially the FREE Amazon Prime shipping and especially the additional 15% off discount for S&S orders on eligible diapers and wipes) is by continuing to make your $25 eligible purchase through the Baby Store or signing up for Amazon Prime for $79.
4. I understand that. Does The Thrifty Couple believe Amazon Prime is a good deal?
We understand the needs of each family will be different. However, you will probably note we post a number of Amazon deals on a continual basis. We will admit (you may have assumed or thought we were just making the $25 purchase for FREE shipping) we pay the $79 each year for Amazon Prime. We have found that the $6.58 per month ($79 spread over 12 months) has been well worth the cost because of the amazing discounts we find on Amazon, the additional 15% off discount for Amazon Mom members when purchasing diapers and wipes, and the convenience of doing it all from home.
We were just looking at one of our online diaper deals and discussing how much we are already saving solely from our 15% off discount:
If you bought just one box of diapers each month:
Huggies Snug & Dry Size 5 120 ct. for $24.80 = final is $5.58 each jumbo pack equivalent
The price you receive prior to S&S discount or Amazon Mom 15% additional discount is $33.50. The way we get to this deal is:
$33.50 – $1.68 (5% S&S discount) – $5.03 (15% Amazon Mom discount) – $2 (ecoupon) = $24.80
Plus, if also buy a box of wipes each month:
Huggies Natural Care Baby Wipes, Refill, 184-Count Pack (Pack of 3) for 648-ct wipes sale for $16.95 ($5.65 each) after Amazon Mom’s subscribe and save additional 20% discount (normally $26.97) = as low as .03 each wipe (.026 exactly)
$21.19 – $1.06 (5% S&S discount) – $3.18 (15% Amazon Mom discount) = $16.95
So you can see, if by combining the two discounts from Amazon Mom you just “earned” $8.21 towards saving which does exceed the $6.58 you need to make up the cost of your membership. We do know that this isn’t a totally fair assessment as we also buy our diapers and wipes in-store with our rock-bottom in-store weekly diapers and wipes deals, but when you consider our other savings throughout the year we fully believe we easily make up the cost of membership – we make a bulk of our grocery and household purchases through Amazon, not to mention our gift shopping for birthdays and Christmas as well.
We are not trying to convince each and every one of you to purchase Amazon Prime now merely to continue receiving your benefits. But you asked us the question (well, we did in our post but we have had many of you ask us) and we want to be honest with you. Its worth it to our family – even as and especially because we are The Thrifty Couple. Plus a little known fact is you can share your Amazon Prime membership with up to 4 invitees, so you can possibly share the cost of membership. And whether this helps you decide, an a full Amazon Prime member you can also loan a Kindle book each month for FREE (out of a selection) and stream thousands of instant videos as well for FREE. There really are a large number of benefits so we invite you to check out the Amazon Prime benefits directly on their site.
5. They are not accepting new Amazon Mom subscription. Because they might be losing some expiring accounts on January 24, 2012, will we be able to sign up?
We hope so. We have asked this question and hope that because of new slots opening up for membership that we might see them open it again.
6. Can I cancel my Amazon Mom subscription and sign up again in a few months to get the full Amazon Mom benefits?
Amazon is very clear that the FREE 3-month Amazon Prime portion of Amazon Mom is only available once in the lifetime of your account.
We hope this helps you work through some of your questions you have regarding Amazon Mom. We remember the frustrations we all had when 20% off (and other) coupons were available in in the magazines and then it all stopped. But we also know that Amazon quickly came up with some great incentives and benefits soon after to get us all buying again.
Do you have any questions about this that were not answered above? We are compiling more questions for our contact at Amazon and would love to include anything from you we missed.
Important note regarding all other Subscribe & Save purchases:
Please note the 15% discount for exclusive Amazon Mom members is not to be confused with the 15% Subscribe & Save discount available for grocery and many other product categories. The Subscribe & Save discount for diapers and wipes was reduced to 5% in October 2011 (see the Subscribe & Save FAQ here for more details). Thus, everywhere else in the site you should still see a 15% Subscribe & Save discount. Only in the diapers and wipes will you see the 5% Subscribe and Save PLUS the 15% Amazon Mom discount while you are still eligible for it. Thanks Camilla for asking about this clarification!
Note: Please note the above information is our best analysis and assessment from all information provided to us. When an answer contradicts official Amazon policy, please understand our answer is in no way binding, nor is it from Amazon themselves. We are merely trying to provide you the best information possible regarding this change to the Amazon Mom memberships.
Renee D.
Thanks for all the clarifying information – I still think it will be a worthwhile and cost-effective program!
Flor
If I were to cancel and then sign up again under a different email and with different credit card information how would they ever know?
Courtney
Question number 2 has me a bit confused. When I visited my Amazon Mom management page, it looks like it capped my membership to one year (thanks to my baby monitor and diaper genie). So after that I think I need to join Prime or “bust.”
thriftyal
Hi Courtney – yes, if you capped your membership to one year due to additional purchases, then our best understanding is that you cannot earn any additional months of the free Amazon Prime shipping. The FAQ states: “You can earn up to one year total of free shipping benefits”
With that in mind, your last statement would be correct. But of course, for the final word you can look under the “Manage Your Prime Membership page” to see if you are eligible for any additional months of extension. Hope that helps! ~Alex
Kim
Was all excited about sharing the membership til I read my email a little more closely, it states 4 “household” members.
thriftyal
Hi Kim – You make a great point. We used the word “invitee” because their FAQ uses that term elsewhere. :-S We actually have that in our list of questions to ask them because even with that its unclear whether your niece or cousin in your “household” means “living in your current house” or “in your family”. If it means “in your current house” it doesn’t make much sense that its even a benefit.
Sorry for all the confusion! We hope we’re not adding to it! ~Alex
thriftyal
Hi again Kim! We heard back the official word! Yes, this is intended for the relationships included in your “manage your account” (e.g., spouse, sibling, parent, etc). However we did clarify this is for those family members “residing with or without you”. So hopefully this will help you share with your family and possibly cost-share.
Plus, you can share your Amazon Mom benefits with one person (if you are either on the initial 3-month period or extending up to one year), but please note that the Amazon Mom discounts are only available to the primary member.
Hope this helps you and others looking at Amazon Prime. Yes, although you can’t share with your neighbor or friend, you can share with your immediate and extended family. ~Alex
Jayne
Does anyone know if current subscribe and save subscriptions will continue with the extra % off or do those discounts go away after 1/24/12?
thriftyal
Hi Jayne – we just added “Important note regarding all other Subscribe & Save purchases” at the bottom of the post and encourage you to check it out. We have not seen anything at all in reference to any other S&S subscriptions (outside of the diaper and wipes). Just as back in October 2011 they made changes specific to the “diaper and wipes S&S discount”, we fully imagine the changes on January 24, 2012 is only specific to “diaper and wipes”. We don’t have an explicit answer other than everything they have published has only concerned diapers and wipes. Hope that helps! ~Alex
Debbie
We’ve only ever had Amazon Student, and while we enjoy the free shipping, it was always a bummer that I couldn’t get the 15% off diapers too.
Kristalyn Ford
Do you know if I decide to purchase the Prime membership in a few months, will my Amazon mom discount be reinstated at that time or do I have to be a Prime member on january 24 or I miss out on the mom discount forever. I am currently an Amazon Mom member and my year capped out a while ago.