Until now, anyone with an Amazon Prime subscription could share its benefits with up to four family members in a household.
Advertisement
If you take advantage of enough of those services, the $99 per year fee can pay for itself in no time. So, if you were sharing your Prime shipping benefits with a roommate or partner, that arrangement will still be in place, and they won’t suddenly have access to your credit cards.
Some online sellers on eBay and elsewhere use Amazon as a drop-shipper, and some go further, using their membership in Amazon Prime to ship items to their customers at no cost – something that is prohibited in the Prime terms of use. It now says Amazon Prime members can share Amazon Prime benefits, including shipping, with only one other adult. You can also specify up to four children, but it’s the adult restriction that is the biggest change because it also comes with another, rather annoying rule. This will not affect either of their current payment settings, but each adult will be able to copy the credit and debit cards of the other account to his or her Amazon account and use them for purchases with Amazon. In fact, you can even add children to your account if they don’t have their own Amazon accounts. (The company always “required” everyone to have the same shipping address, but rarely enforced this policy.) Note that both people in an Amazon Household get access to Prime Instant Video and the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library – but that was already the case before. So, if you were planning to add someone to your plan, keep in mind that sharing your Prime benefits now is a much different affair than it was a week ago.
Advertisement
This change doesn’t appear to be retroactive which means you and the other four adults on your account having nothing to worry about if sharing was set up before today.
