Share Amazon Prime With Family Not Friends With New “Feature”

Amazon Prime already gives you one day free delivery, and also gives you access to everything from their movie streaming service, which will soon include a new show by Clarkson, Hammond and May, as well as one hour delivery in Manhatten, Dallas, Balitmore, Miami and now even London. One of the biggest benefits though was that for the yearly cost of £79, you could share the benefits with friends. This has now changed with the introduction to Amazon household.

Introduced on the 1st August 2015, Amazon Household lets you share the benefits of prime with upto six members. These members are limited though, firstly you may have only two adults connected to the Prime registration. The adults may have their own accounts, but the four children that can be connected to the account do not need an account to be registered as part of the “household”.

It should be noted though that in order to share and enjoy the benefits of Prime both adult account holders “need to authorise each other to use payment cards associated with their Amazon accounts for purchases at Amazon”. This means that when creating an account with your partner, they will have full access to your card details, as if they were on your account and also anything regarding those payment options. Furthermore the description goes on to state:

“..each adult will be able to copy the payment cards of the other account to his or her Amazon account and use them for purchases at Amazon.”

This means that when you share your account with your spouse or partner, they will have access to not only use your account but also to copy over your card details. The change in the system means that sharing it with your co-worker may not be the best course of action, and there may even be partnerships or relationships where avoiding this deal may be the best course of action. Sadly any future sharing will use this new system, but if you were sharing a prime account with someone before August 1st you can still use the old system, for now at least.

What do you think about Amazon Household? Is it a step forward or does it just open up problems for users and Amazon alike?