You might not know it, but your Amazon Prime subscription comes with a ton of benefits for UK users besides the free one-day shipping. With streaming video and music, books and audiobooks, photo storage, and much more either included with your subscription or available at a discounted rate for Prime members, it's much more than just an expedited delivery service.
Whether you're new to Prime or have subscribed for years, there's probably more value you could get out of your subscription in the UK. Here's how.
Prime Video
One of the best benefits of Amazon Prime in the UK is access to streaming content via Prime Video. You may have already used it, but there are a ton of great shows on there including Amazon Originals that you won't be able to watch anywhere else. Prime Video even has exclusive rights to live sport these days, too.
Prime Video works great across all manner of devices too with apps for phones, tablets, smart TVs, streaming sticks, and more. Pretty much anywhere that can stream video, can stream it from Prime Video. The vest part is, it is completely free to existing Amazon subscribers.
If you don't have Prime, you can subscribe to just Prime Video for £7.99 per month for access.
Stream thousands of TV shows and movies including Amazon Originals and even live sports like Premier League football and ATP Tour tennis.
Amazon Music Unlimited
While digital and physical music sales may be slumping, the rise of streaming music means we have access to as much music as we want for a low monthly fee. Similar to Spotify and Apple Music, Amazon has its own premium streaming music service in the form of Amazon Music Unlimited.
While your Prime membership gets you a curated selection of music to stream for free, Amazon Music Unlimited gives you access to Amazon's entire streaming catalogue. The best part is, as a Prime member, you get a discount on Music Unlimited membership, dropping the monthly price down to £7.99 versus £9.99. That might make Amazon's service the one to go with if you already have Prime as it undercuts the price of both Spotify and Apple Music.
Like Prime Video, Amazon Music Unlimited will work on pretty much all of your tech devices. There's also a one-device plan if you just want to be able stream your tunes via an Alexa-enabled speaker in your home.
Get unlimited access to Amazon's 50 million-strong music library on-demand and ad-free. You can even save music to listen offline and stream easily via your Alexa-enabled devices.
Audible
You may or may not know that Amazon bought audiobook service Audible a while back. It makes total sense since Amazon was the biggest seller of physical books and dominates the e-reader market with its Kindle line. If finding the time to sit down and read a book is difficult, you might find listening to them easier to fit into your daily routine. Audible is great for getting through some books on your must-read list while you're working out at the gym or on commuting to work each day.
An audible subscription costs £7.99 per month and grants you one audiobook per month that you can continue to access even if you cancel. Anyone, Prime member or not, can get a 30-day free trial to Audible but right now Prime subscribers get the added benefit of two audiobooks during that 30-day spell. That way you can try out a couple of books to see if the service is for you before you have to pay at all.
Bookworms would probably also appreciate knowing that Prime provides First Reads and Prime Reading benefits too.
Try Audible for free for 30 days and see if it for you. As a Prime member, you can even try out two free audiobooks instead of one.
Amazon Prime Student
If you're a student at a UK university, all of the above gets a whole lot cheaper. Firstly, you can get a whole six months — yes, six months — of Amazon Prime Student for free. It has all of the regular Prime benefits, the only catch being you have to be enrolled in a higher education institution in the UK (the proof of this being your .ac.uk email address or other proof of enrolment such as NUS card).
After your extended six-month trial expires, you then get Prime for half its regular price at just £3.99 per month or £39 for the year. It's a total no-brainer for anyone eligible.
All of Amazon Prime's benefits free for six months and then at half the regular price? Yes, please.
Prime Photos
One of Amazon's lesser-known services is its photo storage component, creatively named Prime Photos. It gives Prime members secure, unlimited photo storage that you can access on basically any smart device you own. Considering how expensive some backup systems are, this is a nice bonus freebie. It never hurts to have another backup.
Prime Early Access Deals
You're probably well aware of Amazon Prime Day — the Prime-exclusive mega sale that rolls around once a year, but you may not know that there are a bunch of deals that are exclusive to Amazon Prime members every day. You'll often see extra Prime savings on the product listings for items that score you a few quid off at checkout, but there are tons of limited-time Lightning deals that Prime members get first dibs on via Prime Early Access Deals.
While some of the deals on there won't be for you, you just might see something you really want and having a Prime account means you can snag it first before the sale opens up to the general public.
Not yet an Amazon Prime member?
Not a problem. You can start a free 30-day trial to become eligible for these benefits. As well as these savings, you'll benefit from one-day free shipping all-year round and get to take part in events like Amazon Prime Day and other exclusive sales.
