Amazon Prime credit card: The Amazon Prime Visa earns 5% back at Amazon and Whole Foods

The Amazon Prime Visa, available exclusively to Amazon Prime members, offers its highest rate of cash back on purchases at Amazon. If you have Amazon Prime, this card should be in your wallet… or at least loaded as your default payment method on Amazon. The Prime Visa has no annual fee, but an Amazon Prime membership ($139/year) is required to qualify for the card.

You’ll probably pick up the Prime Visa for its 5% cash back rewards at Amazon.com, Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market. But the card also earns 5% back on Chase Travel purchases. In addition to rewards at Amazon, the card will give you 2% back at gas stations, restaurants, and on local transit and commuting, including rideshare services. The card earns 1% back on all other purchases.

Many store credit cards leave out essential benefits, but not the Prime Visa. The card has Extended Warranty and Purchase Protection, so you don’t have to choose between earning maximum cash back and having your purchases protected when you’re buying on Amazon. The card also features baggage delay insurance, lost luggage reimbursement, secondary auto rental collision damage waiver, and travel accident insurance.

Annual fee: annual_fees
Requires paid Prime membership.

Best sign-up bonus: bonus_miles_full

Learn how to apply.

This bonus comes as an Amazon gift card, but the card earns points which can be redeemed for cash back.

Amazon Prime Visa: Amazon credit card at a glance

Here’s what you need to know about the Amazon Prime Visa.

My take on the Amazon Prime Visa

I have the Amazon Prime Visa and use it for my buyers club purchases, plus my personal Amazon.com purchases.

The card gives you a baseline 5% rewards on pretty much everything you purchase with Amazon. That makes it one of the best cards to use for Amazon.com even before you consider that you’re getting Chase’s extended warranty protection on all your purchases.

5% rewards is great, but you can often get 6%, 7%, or even 10% rewards using the card at Amazon.com. Most of the year, I can get 6% using my Amazon Prime Visa if I opt for slower shipping. On Prime Day and around the holidays, I frequently see opportunities to get 7% or up to 10% rewards in certain categories (like Kindle and Alexa devices.)

While the Amazon Prime Visa is a great choice for your Amazon (and Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market) purchases, you can easily find better cards to use on your non-Amazon purchases. Any 2% cash back card will match that Prime Visa’s earnings in most categories. And you can find cards that will give you much more in cash back rewards at gas stations and at restaurants.

Bottom line: If you have Amazon Prime, you should have the Amazon Prime Visa. Use it for all of your Amazon, Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh purchases. Use other cards for everything else.

Prime Visa rewards

The Amazon Prime Visa from Chase card offers 5% rewards on your Amazon purchases, plus increased rewards in a handful of other categories. Here are the details.

Amazon, Amazon Fresh, and Whole Foods Market: 5% cash back.
Chase Travel: 5% cash back.

Gas stations: 2% cash back.
Restaurants: 2% cash back.
Local transit and commuting, including rideshare: 2% cash back.

Other eligible purchases earn 1% cash back.

You can redeem your Prime Visa rewards for cash back, gift cards, travel, or purchases on Amazon.com.

Cash back redemptions are the most efficient way to redeem your rewards. If you redeem your rewards for purchases on Amazon.com, you’ll miss out on the rewards you would otherwise earn on those purchases.

Benefits of the Prime Visa

Here is a summary of the benefits offered with the Amazon Prime Visa card from Chase.

Travel insurance benefits

Cards targeted toward travelers often offer travel insurance benefits that can protect you when you are traveling away from home. Terms and restrictions apply to all benefits.

Car rental loss and damage Insurance – Car rental loss and damage insurance protects you against damage or theft to your rental vehicle. For coverage to apply, you need to reserve and pay for your vehicle using your card and decline your car rental company’s collision damage waiver.The coverage provided by your Prime Visa is secondary to your personal auto insurance. This means that you will be required to make a claim against your personal auto insurance before this policy will pay. Additional terms apply. See your card’s guide to benefits for details.

Baggage delay insurance – Baggage delay insurance can cover your essential purchases like toiletries and clothing when the baggage you checked with a common carrier, like an airline, is delayed. The Prime Visa covers up to $100 in expenses for 3 days for baggage delays over 6 hours.

Lost luggage reimbursement – Lost luggage reimbursement provides coverage to replace items that are lost or damaged while traveling on a common carrier, like an airline. Coverage is typically in excess of any reimbursement you receive from the carrier. The coverage you get with the Prime Visa includes $3,000 per passenger of coverage.

Travel accident insurance – Travel accident insurance typically covers you for things like accidental death or dismemberment when you are traveling. Policy terms vary, so see your card’s guide to benefits for details.

Consumer insurance benefits

Many cards offers consumer insurance benefits that can protect the things you buy. Terms and restrictions apply to all benefits.

Purchase protection – Purchase protection protects the things you buy with your card from damage or theft for a certain amount of time after you buy them. Your Prime Visa Purchase Protection benefit covers your new purchases for 120 days, up to $500 per claim and $50,000 per account.

Extended warranty – Extended warranty protection provides additional warranty coverage on items you purchase with your card. The extended warranty coverage of the Prime Visa extends the warranty of eligible items by one additional year, on warranties of 3 years or less when you purchase the items with your Prime Visa.

Who is Amazon credit card best for?

If you subscribe to Amazon Prime, the Amazon credit card should be in your wallet, full stop. The card earns 5% cash back rewards at Amazon.com, Amazon Fresh, and Whole Foods Market. This is the highest amount of uncapped rewards that you can get on a credit card on these purchases.

Outside of Amazon purchases, the Prime Visa doesn’t really offer much in the way of benefits or rewards. You’re probably better off with a card that offers category bonuses or flat-rate 2% cash back elsewhere.

Alternatives to the Prime Visa

If you’re looking for a card that earns excellent rewards on Amazon purchases, here are a few other cards to consider.

• The Amazon Business Prime American Express Card is a good alternative for small business owners. The card offers 5% or 90 day terms on U.S. purchase at Amazon.com, Amazon Business, AWS, and Whole Foods Market, but only on the first $120,000 in purchases each calendar year. Afterwards, you’ll earn 1% rewards. If you’re using Amazon Business or AWS services, this is probably a better alternative, but there are limited reasons to use this card.
• For the highest possible cash back on Amazon, you could use the U.S. Bank Shopper Cash Rewards® Visa Signature® Card to get up to 6% on Amazon and another retailer you choose, on up to $1,500 in combined purchases each quarter.
• Amazon frequently is among the quarterly categories offered on the Chase Freedom Flex℠. If you collect Ultimate Rewards® points and getting more than 1 cent of value out of each of your points, switching to the Freedom Flex for the first $1,500 of Amazon purchases is a great move.

For more alternatives to the Prime Visa, check out the best cards to use at Amazon. If you want a better card to use at Whole Foods or Amazon Fresh, take a look at the best cards for grocery rewards.

Frequently asked questions