Amazon Prime continues to expand its partnership opportunities as it teams with Sprint. Although the two have partnered in the past, there are some added sweeteners in this deal such as free introductory months and consolidated payments.
Sprint and Amazon have appeared in quite the number of headlines together lately. This is of course because Sprint has been pushing Amazon’s Prime service as one of its benefits. This all began with Sprint announced that some of their plans would come with the ability to sync an Amazon Prime membership with their Sprint plan, effectively bringing the payment for both services together in one easy to manage and centralized payment. Although, this did initially gain some criticism as the Sprint Amazon Prime membership ended up costing customers more over the year than if they had opted to get Prime membership directly from Amazon.
The service through Sprint typically costs $10.99 per month. However, those who sign up during the month of July will receive their first two months of membership for free. This essentially means Sprint is knocking $21.98 off the annual cost of having the Prime membership through them. Of course, Amazon does already offer a one month free trial of the Prime service for those signing up to Amazon Prime for the first time, so if you do plan to sign up and are a Sprint customer, then this option will net you an additional month for free. Although one of the added benefits of the Sprint Prime route is that you are paying monthly for the service and do not have to pay outright for the year.
Which does mean that if you sign up in July, as well as getting the two months free Prime you will also be a Prime member just in time for the upcoming Amazon Prime Day which is scheduled for July 12.
As we have seen with other services such as ride-sharing, dining, and entertainment, to name a few, there are many cross-marketing possibilities available, especially using mobile devices. Combining convenient, one-click payment options and attractive promotions by well-known brands is typically a winning proposition. All the more reason why card issuers need to be top-of-wallet when consumers are given mobile payment options for multiple services.
Overview by Raymond Pucci, Associate Director, Research Services at Mercator Advisory Group
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