The Sneaky Way Amazon is Charging You More for Movies and Shows

Amazon is way too convenient. I mean in seconds you can select and purchase a movie rental and be watching a movie from the comfort of your own home.

Something that used to take many of us a while to accomplish growing up. We had to drive to the video store, putz around the store finding a movie, stand in line, check out, drive home, pop the movie in the VHS player (Beta if you’re as old as my husband – anyone remember those?!), and finally be watching a movie…only to have to return the movie so no further charges accrued.

The system today is way too slick and way too easy.

And if you are not paying attention, it could cost you more money than you intend to spend.

We do have Amazon Prime, we’ve renewed it every year for several years. It is worth it. There are so many reasons why it is worth it. One of them being that the Prime Movies and TV shows will often be enough to keep you entertained for as long as you possibly want to be entertained and all for free as a Prime member.

But let’s be honest, no matter how thrifty and no matter how much you love your Prime membership, there comes a date night in, a family night in or some other occasion and the desired movie is not part of the Prime selection that month.

So you want to purchase a rental (or purchase a season of a show), Amazon “used to” have an affordable $1.99 – $2.99 SD (more for new releases) rental selection option and for $1 more, you could rent the selection in HD. The movie rentals are usually a $1 more than the TV shows, but still no SD option, only HD options. We have never rented in HD. For some, you may want this option and a clearer picture, but we are generally not watching shows where a super-duper crisp picture was necessary; besides, when you rent in HD, it will give you the caveat that you’re not even guaranteed HD depending on your internet connection.

Most cases, we just want to watch the show for a low cost.

So one day, we wanted to watch a specific show. The more affordable SD option was no longer an option…or so we thought. We begrudgingly rented the show for $2.99, complaining that it wasn’t nice of Amazon to take the more affordable SD option away.

Later, I was logged on to Amazon to find another show. I was again disappointed that the minimum rental fee was $2.99 (in most cases, some prices vary).

That was until I saw the “More Purchase Options” available. I clicked on it and the $1.99 show rental was available again! And not only that, the entire season of a show went from the $19.99 HD option to the $14.99 SD option – a savings of $5!

And as a side note, when you are doing a search – the cheaper options are not even shown in the range of prices…sneaky. 

This is the view from the search – it says $2.99-$19.99, not mentioning that there is a way to get it for $1.99.

Movie rentals have always been about $1 more to rent than television shows, but the SD option is still there, just hidden like the T.V. shows.

Once you click on the “More Purchase Options”…the cheaper rental appears!

What’s funny about this is that we just assumed Amazon had all of the options clearly visible and available like they always have. So when they changed to make an extra click and added the not intuitive “More Purchase Options” selection available, they got an extra $1 out of us. We wondered just how many people were “duped” into spending $1 more when they made this change. Friends, it was probably in the millions…..

It probably brought their movie and show rental sales up BIG TIME and probably still does today!

So don’t be hasty in making your rental decision. Unless you have reason to want to watch in HD, when it comes to most movies (non-action, kids, cartoons, etc.), you probably don’t want to spend that extra dollar (or $5) and just get the basic movie rental.  Look for the “More Purchase Options” link and a pop-up will appear giving you all of the buying options, including the cheaper ones.

Did they dupe you into spending more than you intended to?