Chase Amazon Prime Rewards Card Review – 5% Back on Amazon

About a week ago, ads starting popping up for a new Chase Amazon Prime Rewards card. It’s been officially released today, and is largely similar to the current Chase Amazon Rewards card.

Direct Link to card

Offer Details

An important prefatory note: if you already have the Chase Amazon card, you do not need to apply for the Amazon Prime Rewards card to earn 5% back. Most eligible Prime members have been automatically upgraded to the Amazon Prime Rewards card and will receive a new card with the new design in the mail (you likely have an e-mail from Chase with the subject “Your card just got better”). If you weren’t automatically upgraded, you can learn how to earn 5% back here, by linking your Amazon.com Prime membership.

As the Amazon Rewards card is subject to 5/24

As always, remember that we do not use credit card affiliate links, so our review is not biased by monetary incentives.

Card Basics

Benefits

• No annual fee
• No earnings cap
• No foreign transaction fee
• Standard Visa Signature benefits (a full list is available here)

Earning Structure

• Earns 5% back at Amazon.com & Whole Foods and Chase Travel with an eligible Prime membership
• Earns 3% back at Amazon.com & Whole Foods and Chase Travel without an eligible Prime membership
• Earns 2% back at restaurants, gas stations, and local transit & commuting (including rideshare)
• Earns 1% back on all other purchases
• Amazon may offer you ways to earn bonus points through the program or special promotions.

Signup Bonus

Upon approval, an Amazon.com gift card will be loaded into your Amazon.com account. The value of the gift card should vary from account to account (and may change over time). With the Amazon Rewards card, accounts with Prime memberships generally receive a better gift card offer than accounts without Prime.

I see an offer for a $70 Amazon gift card. Let us know in the comments what your offer is.

Pricing Details

APRs

• Purchase & Balance Transfer APR: 14.74% to 22.74%*, based on your credit worthiness
• Cash Advance & Overdraft Advance APR: 25.49%*
• Penalty APRs: Up to 27.24% depending on your credit worthiness/score
  • Applies if you make a late payment
  • Can apply indefinitely
• Grace period: 21 days (minimum, up to 28 days)
• Minimum interest charge: None

* Note: for purchases & balance transfers, Chase adds 10.99% – 18.99% to the Prime Rate. For cash advances, Chase adds 21.74% to the Prime Rate. The Prime Rate is 3.75% as of 12/15/2016. The Pricing & Terms currently indicates APRs that are 0.25% lower than the product description on Amazon because Chase has not updated the page to take into account the new Prime Rate.

Fees

• Annual fee: None
• Balance transfer fee: $5 or 5% of the amount of each transfer, whichever is greater.
• Cash advance fee: $10 or 5% of the amount of each transaction, whichever is greater
• Foreign transaction fee: None
• Late payment fee: Up to $15 for balances <$100; up to $27 for balances >=$100 but <$250; up to $37 for balances >=$250
• Returned payment: Up to $37
• Over credit limit fee: None

Application Information

Please feel free to add your own application information in the comments at the end of this review.

What Credit Score Is Required

Using data for the Amazon Rewards card from the last two years from Credit Boards:

Lowest approved score	640
Average approved score	693

What Credit Bureau Does Chase Pull For?

This depends on what state you live in, you can view that information here.

What Credit Limit Will I Receive?

Using data for the Amazon Rewards card from the last two years from Credit Boards:

Minimum CL	Highest CL	Average CL
$800	$8,500	$2,929

The minimum possible credit limit should be $500. Be aware that if you are approved with a credit limit under $5,000, you should receive a Visa Platinum card instead of a Visa Signature card (although that may not be the case).

Rewards Program

Just like the Amazon Rewards card, this card earns points instead of cash back, but it is stylized as % cash back since 1 point = 1 ¢. You earn 5% back (5x points) if you have an eligible Prime membership and 3% back (3x points) if you do not. Do be aware that, each Chase Amazon Prime card can only be linked to a single Amazon account with an eligible Prime membership for 5% cash back. From my understanding, this means that you only get 5% back when the card is used with your linked Amazon account, and not when used with other Amazon accounts. According to reader Ryan, as long as your eligible Prime account is linked to your non-Prime account, you will get 5% back.

By default, the Amazon.com account you are signed into when you apply is used to determine your eligibility for 5% back. Eligible Prime memberships include: annual and monthly Amazon Prime subscriptions and members of their Amazon Household (excluding Amazon Prime Video and invited guests of an Amazon Prime account), Amazon Prime Fresh, Amazon Family, Amazon Prime Student and trial memberships of Amazon Prime.

5% or 3% back is only earned on purchases made at Amazon.com (including digital downloads, Amazon.com Gift Cards, Amazon Fresh orders, Amazon Prime subscriptions, and items sold by third-party merchants through Amazon.com’s marketplace). 5% Back or 3% Back is not earned on purchases from merchants using Pay with Amazon, or purchases made at international Amazon retail sites (including but not limited to Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, or Amazon.co.jp), or any other website operated by Amazon.

Just like the Amazon Rewards card, this card also earns 2% back at office supply stores (through May 31, 2017), restaurants, gas stations, and drug stores, and 1% back on all other purchases. Amazon may offer you ways to earn bonus points through the program or special promotions.

Points do not expire as long as your account remains open.

Redeeming Rewards

Your point balance is linked to your card and can be used to Shop with Points when checking out at Amazon.com, at a value of 1 ¢ per point (note: this is not the same as Shop with Points using Ultimate Rewards points, which have a value of 0.8 ¢ per point). There is no minimum required when redeeming points this way—but you’ll only earn 5% on the net purchase total (purchase total minus cash value of points redeemed), instead of 5% on the total amount of the purchase.

You can also redeem your points for cash, at a value of 1 ¢ per point, starting at 2,000 points with no minimum (updated 7/26/19). You can request an account statement credit or an electronic deposit into an eligible checking or savings account held by a financial institution located in the United States.

Update History

• Update 1/22/20: Deal is now $150, not sure what it is for non prime.
• Update 11/15/19: Bonus is now $100, not sure what it is for non prime.
• Update 7/25/19: Signup bonus has been increased to $80 for Prime members, $50 for non-Prime. ht uscreditcardguide

Our Verdict

It is possible to get 5% back at Amazon if you have a card that gives 5% (or more) back at merchants that sell Amazon gift cards. And, the signup bonus of $50 – $100 is small potatoes even compared to most credit card bonuses with low spend requirements.

That said, it’s hard to beat the convenience of the Amazon Prime Rewards card. For the average non-churner, this is a fine card to get & a keeper for anyone that has one.

Check our list of Best Credit Cards For Amazon Purchases – Up to 5x Points/5% Cash Back for other good Amazon options. And always check out this post for Things to Know about Chase Credit Cards before applying.

Chime in below with any questions or comments and I’ll happily answer them.