<p>Noticed that Amazon now charges $39 for a Prime membership for students. Used to be free for all 4 years, while now it's free only for 6 months. </p>
<p>You can get around the cost if you have a Prime membership by sharing it with family members. I share mine with my kid in LA though I live on the opposite coast.</p>
<p>And here I thought we were getting it for free. Checked her a account and we paid $39 last August and it expires at the end of the month. Still worth it.</p>
<p>Was never free past the initial year. I signed up the first day it was available, three or so years ago. After the year ended, it was $39 to renew. While I believe now the free period is only six months, you never got more than a year for free.</p>
<p>The charges are automatic… If you go through your prime history you’ll see you’ve been charged. If you’ve been charged, you can cancel for free provided you haven’t bought anything since the Renew date.</p>
<p>Also note, prime for students CANNOT be shared. The regular 80 a year amazon can be shared with up to four other accounts.</p>
<p>D1 has Amazon Prime. It was not automatically renewed. When she went to order her books, she noticed it was no longer showing as “Prime”, so we renewed it. It is definitely worth the $39.</p>
<p>The default for Prime for students is automatic renewal, I think because I remember changing that so we would be aware and wanted to decide to keep it. We renewed our son’s also. Well worth the cost.</p>
<p>I think first year is not automatic renewal, but future years are. Or it changed. Just know mine was auto renewed this week.</p>
<p>They have changed the terms. They reserve the right to do that. They never tell you by email or anything. Secretive company. Remember when the customer service number was a secret passed around the net? </p>
<p>Again, if you have Prime, you can share it with your family.</p>
<p>As of last year, you can link set up the student prime account as part of your regular amazon account, so other members of the household can use it. I never saw any notice that this was not allowed.</p>
<p>I received an email when it was expiring and offering me a chance to renew at the reduced rate. We didn’t renew, but are learning to regret it - without 2 day shipping, things can take forever.</p>
<p>We have prime, so we share it with our S now that his free trial expired. For the student, they lose the access to prime videos on the shared account, versus the $39 student account, so if they use that a lot, it may still be worth paying the $39 but for our S, who just wanted the shipping benefits, becoming a household member on our account works fine.</p>
<p>mathmomvt, my son just opened his Student prime account and had a couple of things shipped to our house. At college he will have things shipped to school. So if there are two addresses that things are being shipped to, how would amazon know whether he did the ordering or I did?</p>
<p>My son has his own Amazon account. He can ship things to home or to school (just as anyone can ship things to any address they choose). This was true both when he had his student Prime account and now when he is attached as a household member on my amazon account.</p>
<p>I don’t understand your question about Amazon knowing who did the ordering. The Prime benefits are attached to a given Amazon.com account (signin). If multiple people are making orders on that account, Amazon doesn’t know or likely care.</p>
<p>I was trying to understand about linking the student account to the home account. If I can order something through my son’s student amazon account, what difference does it make if Amazon doesn’t track who is truly doing the ordering.</p>
<p>charlieschm, My son tried to link the student account to his regular when signing up and was unsuccessful. The student account must be enrolled with an .edu email. He ended up closing his regular amazon account so he could use his regular email on the student one after he enrolled by changing the log in email.</p>
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When my older son had Amazon Prime we received several notices that it was going to expire. We got it again for S2 last year just prior to them dropping from 12mo to 6mo. This summer I watched for a notice for renewal at $39. It never came. When S2 went to go order books it finally told him he was no longer Prime and he renewed then. I’m not sure why there was no renewal notice this time. You’d think they would want to market that pretty heavily and well before expiration.</p>
<p>Regarding ‘linking’ of accounts, I’ve never heard of this. I just log into the account that has Prime and order as needed. The sign up had to be a .edu but afterwards was changed to my son’s comcast email which we both have access to, so no matter who is ordering we can both see the confirmations. We have two credit cards linked to the account and choose the appropriate one depending on if this is a parental expense or a student covered expense, and then we simply choose the correct mailing address.</p>
<p>You would each have your own separate amazon.com account with your own login. Whoever has the prime account would invite the other to join as a household member. Then when you order from your account, amazon will know it is you, but you can still use the prime benefits (if indeed students are allowed to share their prime benefits). The linking doesn’t link the Amazon accounts into a single account. I can’t see my son’s purchase history or anything, and he can’t see mine. But he can use my prime benefits because the way prime works, it can be shared between 4 amazon accounts. they rule is that they all have to be household members, but a child living away much of the year at university seems to be fine.</p>
<p>I just figured I would use his student account to order things. I do not get his emails but he can always forward the Amazon ones to me. I actually don’t order often, I figured I would end up ordering things to send him :)</p>
<p>We have Netflix so have used it for streaming videos. Is the selection different on Amazon?</p>
<p>Netflix versus Amazon streaming does have somewhat different selection. For what we watch, it was similar enough that we canceled Netflix and just use Amazon now.</p>
<p>Lakemom, if the student wants to let other people login to his account and order things, they won’t care.</p>
<p>Student members can’t formally share their membership with another account the way regular members can. Here are the rules on that from Amazon’s site:</p>
<p>"If you sign up for a free trial or paid Prime membership, you may invite up to four eligible household members (living at the same address) to enjoy the shipping benefits of your free trial or paid Prime membership at no extra cost (invitees). Amazon Student and Amazon Mom members are not eligible to share their Prime benefits. "</p>
<p>My DS1 is a member and DS2 joined 4 days ago for the 6 month free membership. DS2 was very pleased that when we arrived here at college yesterday, the Amazon package was waiting for him with the textbooks.</p>
<p>Thanks mathmomvt. Right now, I know my son has let others sign into our Netflix account and we watch it some but I will check out what Amazon offers.</p>