Perks of holiday shopping with your Amazon Prime Visa

The Prime Visa is a popular store card for frequent Amazon and Whole Foods shoppers, yet it can also be used anywhere Visa is accepted around the world. During the holiday season especially, this card can be a lucrative addition to your wallet that helps you maximize rewards while enjoying more consumer protections overall.

If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you would be hard pressed to find a more rewarding credit card for your online purchases. Here are some perks you could enjoy when you use this Amazon credit card to pay for your holiday purchases.

Earn 5% back on Amazon purchases

There’s a lot to love about the Prime Visa, especially when you consider it has no annual fee. Perhaps the biggest perk that the card has to offer holiday shoppers is the opportunity to earn 5 percent cash back on purchases at both Amazon.com and Whole Foods Market.

Let’s examine how much you could potentially earn in rewards throughout the holiday season. According to 2023 data from the National Retail Federation (NRF), Americans expected to spend approximately $875 per person on holiday gifts, decorations and food last year. For a two-person household, that represents average holiday spending of $1,750.

If you made $1,750 worth of purchases on the Prime Visa at Amazon.com and Whole Foods Market, you would earn $87.50 worth of rewards.

If you made $1,750 worth of purchases on a rewards card that earned a standard 2 percent cash back rate (like the Citi Double Cash® Card, which gives you unlimited 1 percent cash back when you buy, plus an additional 1 percent as you pay for those purchases), you would earn $35.

While the 5 percent rewards earning capability is one of the most appealing benefits of the Prime Visa, the card also offers 2 percent back at restaurants, gas stations and local transit and commuting and 1 percent back on everything else. Cardholders also earn 5 percent back on travel purchases made through Chase.

Redeem rewards for gifts from Amazon

Another benefit of the Amazon Prime Visa comes in the form of flexible redemptions for rewards. Cardholders can redeem their cash back for a range of options including statement credits, gift cards or travel booked through Chase. Points are also redeemable for merchandise through Amazon.com, and the process is easy. All you have to do is shop on Amazon, add items to your cart and select the option to “use Amazon Visa rewards points” at checkout.

You can cover an entire purchase with points or just part of a purchase as well. This part is totally up to you.

Being able to pay with points can be helpful for the holidays since the points you earn for spending on the Prime Visa can be credited to your rewards account as soon as the same day. This means that using the Prime Visa for groceries, gas and regular bills could help you earn rewards points you can use for holiday gifts in a short amount of time.

Take advantage of Prime Day and Prime Big Deal Days

Amazon Prime Day and Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days are already behind us for 2024, but these shopping events include a range of sales and promotions to help Amazon Prime members save on holiday gifts and items for themselves.

What can you expect from Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days? This year’s sales applied to a range of holiday gift items, from clothing to electronics and games. Also, remember that Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days let you “double dip” with savings and bonus rewards earned with the Prime Visa card.

Enjoy up to 20% cash back with exclusive offers

When you hold the Prime Visa card, you can purchase select items from the Prime Card promotion page and get up to 20 percent cash back. These Prime Card “Bonus Deals” are available in product categories such as:

• Fashion
• Toys
• Home
• Electronics
• Office

You can take advantage of these special offers to check off items on your holiday gift list. Once any eligible Prime Bonus Deal purchase posts to your account, you’ll receive the extra percentage you earned back as soon as the day you make a purchase. And when you receive your bonus cash back, you can spend it on more merchandise from Amazon right away or save it for later.

Rest easy with Visa Signature protections

As a Visa Signature credit card, the Prime Visa card comes with purchase protections that can be particularly useful for holiday shoppers.

Extended warranty protection

When you buy an eligible product with your Prime Rewards Visa card, you can enjoy added peace of mind knowing that the card offers an extended warranty. Rules apply, of course. But as long as you use your card to buy a permitted product with a U.S. manufacturer’s warranty of three years or less, you’ll get an extra year of warranty coverage.

Purchase protection

It can be a sickening feeling when a new holiday gift breaks or is subject to theft not long after purchase. If you purchased the item with your Prime Rewards Visa, however, you might be in luck. The card offers a purchase protection benefit that can cover new, eligible purchases for up to 120 days against theft or damage. Claims are limited to $500 each and up to $50,000 total per account.

Should you open a Prime Visa card for the holidays?

There’s no question the Prime Visa card is one of the best credit cards for shopping on Amazon in 2024. Incredible rewards aside, the card’s lack of an annual fee is another big plus.

You do have to maintain an Amazon Prime membership to keep the card, but you can offset that $139 annual cost if you spend at least $2,780 per year at Amazon.com and Whole Foods. New card memebers also can enjoy an exclusive offer: Get a $150 Amazon Gift Card instantly upon approval exclusively for Prime members.

On the other hand, you shouldn’t open an account if you plan to carry a credit card balance from one month to the next. The variable APR on the card ranges from 19.74% - 28.49% Variable, based on creditworthiness and other factors. If you carry a balance, the interest charges you’d pay could easily offset any rewards you’d earn. Plus, carrying a balance could increase your credit utilization ratio (and might lower your credit score, too).

Worried you won’t qualify for a Prime Visa card due to credit problems? The Amazon Prime Store Card* from Synchrony may accept applicants with fair credit. Read our Amazon store cards vs. Prime Visa credit cards comparison for more information on how these cards stack up against each other.

The bottom line

As the holiday season approaches, this could be a great time to take advantage of the higher rewards rate that the Prime Visa card has to offer. Just be sure that you’re committed to using your credit card responsibly. On-time payments and paying your full statement balance off each month are essential with any credit card you open if you want to avoid debt and credit problems down the road.

*All information about the Amazon Prime Store Card has been collected independently by Bankrate and has not been reviewed or approved by the issuer.