Pros
- No membership fees
- $60 initial rewards bonus
- Qualify with fair credit
Cons
- High regular APR
- Deferred interest
Amazon.com Store Card
Rewards Details
- A $60 Amazon.com Gift Card will be instantly loaded into your Amazon.com account upon the approval of your credit card application.
- Amazon.com Store Cardholders who join Prime are automatically upgraded to the Amazon Prime Store Card.
- Amazon Prime Store Cardholders can earn 5% back on Amazon.com purchases.
Additional Info
- Deferred Interest Details: No Interest if paid in full within 6 or 12 months on minimum purchases of $150 or $600, respectively. No Interest if paid in full within 24 months on select purchases.
- Equal Monthly Payment Financing: 0% APR for 6 or 12 months on minimum purchases of $50 or $600, respectively. 0% APR for 24 months on select purchases.
- Get Instant Credit.
- Browse items eligible for exclusive financing offers.
- Choose between 5% eligible purchases or promotional financing.
- More Details & Reviews About Amazon.com Store Card
Amazon Store Card Review Summary
It all comes down to your credit standing and whether you’re willing to pay $139 a year for Amazon Prime. If you’re not already a member or you’re unwilling to join, stop reading and instead consider the Amazon.com Credit Card. The store-only version won’t give you anything but a $60 Amazon gift card upon approval.
If you do have Prime, along with at least fair credit, you should definitely apply. Prime membership gets you an upgrade to the Amazon Prime Store Card and 5% back in rewards on every purchase you make, redeemable for a statement credit. That’s an excellent deal, and our overall rating for this card assumes that you qualify.
Below, we’ll explore the Amazon.com Store Card in more detail and take a closer look at how it compares to the Visa version.
Amazon Store Card Highlights
$60 sign-up bonus
The reward you’re guaranteed to earn with the Amazon.com Store Card is the $60 Amazon gift card upon approval.
5% back in rewards For Prime Members
Earning 5% back in rewards on every Amazon.com purchase could save you a lot of money if you’re a frequent shopper. That’s why it has to be considered a highlight.
But the caveat that you must be a Prime member effectively puts a $139 annual price tag on that earning rate, thus limiting its value to current subscribers and people who spend at least $2,780 per year on Internet shopping and corresponding shipping costs. That’s the amount at which you’d earn $139 with the 5% rate.
It’s also important to note that purchases that you pay for under the terms of a promotional financing offer are not eligible to earn rewards. In other words, you must choose between 5% back in rewards and the special financing rate.
No Annual Fee
The lack of a yearly membership charge certainly is good news for your wallet, but this particular account attribute should have an asterisk next to it. Yes, the card can be free to use, which makes it conducive to cost-effective credit building. But if you want rewards, you would need to sign up for Amazon Prime membership first, which is like paying a $119 annual fee.
Amazon Store Card Lowlights
0% Deferred-Interest Financing
This particular feature of the Amazon.com Store Card could go very well for your wallet, but it could also end terribly. The deal gives you a special 0% promotional financing rate for six months on purchases of at least $150; 12 months on purchases of $600 or more; or 24 months for “select” Amazon.com items that currently include only HDTVs and video projectors sold by Amazon.com (excluding third-party sellers). Other deals may be available from time to time as well.
If you pay your bill on time every month and pay off your entire balance by the end of the promotional period, you’d save money relative to the average credit card. But if you pay your bill late or leave even a dollar balance unpaid when regular rates take effect, the card’s 29.99% (V) APR will retroactively apply to the amount of the original purchase that you financed. That would leave you with surprisingly high costs, which ultimately could lead to missed payments and credit-score damage.
We consider this to be too big of a risk to take in light of the numerous available 0% credit cards that do not use such underhanded pricing tactics.
High Regular APR
Despite its Amazon.com branding, this probably isn’t the best card with which to make big-ticket purchases on the site. Not only do its 0% financing terms include a dangerous deferred-interest clause, but the stakes associated with screwing up are also higher, thanks to the card’s lofty 29.99% (V) regular APR. To put that in perspective, the average credit-card offer charges 22.15%, and the average store credit card charges 29.63%, according to WalletHub’s latest Credit Card Landscape Report.
No Regular Rewards For All Cardholders
Simple possession of an Amazon.com Store Card does not automatically correlate with rewards. You have to pay for that privilege once you’ve been approved. It is either a no-annual-fee credit card or a rewards credit card, but it can’t be both.
Other Things To Consider About Amazon Store Card
Low Credit Approval Standards
As previously mentioned, this card’s relatively low approval threshold makes the card attainable for Amazon.com users who can’t qualify for the store’s Rewards Visa. Together with the store card’s lack of an annual fee, the modest approval requirements also open the door to people who may not even care about online shopping. Simply having a credit card such as the Amazon.com Store Card will result in positive information being added to your credit report each month and your credit score consequently rising — assuming you use the card responsibly.
No Smart Chip
Most credit cards these days come with an embedded computer chip that helps to protect users, merchants and card issuers from fraud. The Amazon.com Store Card is not one of them. But that ultimately doesn’t matter to you, as all credit cards guarantee users of $0 liability for unauthorized transactions.This might be too inside baseball, but the card’s lack of an embedded chip basically means that Amazon (rather than the card network) is liable for any fraud perpetrated with the card. But given that this card can be used only at Amazon.com, it seems the Internet retail behemoth is confident in its ability to prevent card fraud itself.
Amazon Store Card vs. The Competition
Amazon.com may dominate U.S. retail, but the credit-card landscape is far more competitive. Shopping around for the card that you’ll ultimately shop with is therefore essential. To help you out, we compared the Amazon.com Store Card not only to its Visa sibling but also to other cards for people with fair/limited credit that offer everyday savings. You can check out our conclusions below.
| Info | Amazon.com Store Card | Amazon.com Credit Card | Capital One Walmart Rewards® Mastercard® | Target Credit Card |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Annual Fee | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Bonus Offer | $60 | $60 gift card | N/A | N/A |
| Rewards Rate | 0 - 5% back in rewards | 1 - 5 points / $1 | 1 - 5% Cash Back | 5% discount |
| Purchase Intro APR | 0% for 6 - 24 months | 0% for 6 - 12 months | N/A | N/A |
| Transfer Intro APR | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Regular APR | 29.99% (V) | 19.24% - 27.24% (V) | 17.99% or 29.49% (Variable) | 27.65% (V) |
| Editors' Rating | 5 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 5 |
| Details, Rates & Fees | Learn More | Learn More | Learn More | Learn More |
Amazon.com Store Card Review Methodology
This Amazon.com Store Card review is based on WalletHub’s proprietary 100-point credit card rating system. By using a consistent methodology to evaluate the Amazon.com Store Card and all other cards, WalletHub’s credit card experts make it easy for people to compare their options and find the best credit cards for their needs.
The WalletHub rating system uses 16 key metrics grouped into seven categories: Fees, Rewards, Two-year Cost, Interest Rates, Approval Requirements, Special Features, and Reviews. Each metric has a maximum number of points allocated to it, based on the metric’s importance as determined by our editors. The points are added up to create an overall rating for the Amazon.com Store Card out of a maximum of 100 points, which is then converted to a 5-point scale.
Ratings for each category reflect how close Amazon.com Store Card is to WalletHub’s definition of a 5-star credit card, which is based on market conditions and what we believe are reasonable terms. We compare Amazon.com Store Card to that standard to give a numerical approximation of how reasonable and competitive its terms are compared to other cards.
To learn more about how WalletHub rates credit card offers, check out our full credit card review methodology.
