Amazon has quietly cut back on the number of adult family members with whom Amazon Prime members can share their free shipping benefits — reducing the flexibility of a Prime membership for some of the company’s most loyal customers.
Previously, as shown in this cached webpage, the company allowed Prime members to share their shipping benefits with “up to four additional family members living in the same household.” That webpage changed over the weekend. It now says Amazon Prime members can share Amazon Prime benefits, including shipping, with only one other adult.
Under the new program, called Amazon Households, Amazon Prime benefits including free shipping and Prime Instant Video can be shared among six people in a household — but that consists of just two adults and four children, according to the company. (The children don’t need their own Amazon accounts under that scenario.)
In addition, under the new program, the company says “both adult account holders need to authorize each other to use credit and debit cards associated with their Amazon accounts for purchases on Amazon.”
The shift promises to cut back on abuse of the program by people who might have skirted the rules in the past by sharing shipping benefits with extended family members. Amazon Prime memberships run $99/year, and splitting up the cost among different family members would have been tempting for budget-minded families.
Amazon’s change was first noted in a forum post on Slick Deals over the weekend. It applies to new Amazon Prime memberships, with existing family sharing arrangements apparently grandfathered in for the time being. However, the forum user who posted the item noted, “I just removed a household member from the benefits yesterday and today I can no longer add them back.”
We’ve contacted Amazon to find out more about the change, and we’ll update this post when we hear back.
Amazon had an estimated 44 million Prime members in the U.S. prior to its massive Prime Day sale last month.
