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Amazon Business Prime American Express Card Review

overall rating
3.2

A solid choice for business owners who are Prime members and make many Amazon-related purchases

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As its name suggests, the Amazon Business Prime American Express is designed for subscribers to Amazon Prime, the company service that provides free two-day shipping and other benefits from Amazon.com. However, its unique rewards—your choice of either cash back or 90 days of interest-free purchases—also apply at Whole Foods Markets, Amazon Web Services, and other Amazon properties. The card has no annual fee, but cardholders must pay $139 per year for a Prime membership in order to receive full benefits.

Amazon Business Prime American Express Card

Overall Rating
3.2
Amazon Business Prime American Express Card
On American Express' Secured Site.
Current Offer

Get a $125 Amazon.com Gift Card upon approval for the Amazon Business American Express Card.

Recommended Credit
Score Our recommended ranges are based off of the FICO® Score 8 credit-scoring model. Credit score is one of the many factors lenders review in considering your application.
350 579
580 669
670 739
740 799
800 850
Good - Excellent
Regular APR (%) 19.24% - 27.24% variable
Annual Fee $0
Rewards Earning Rate Get 5% back on U.S. purchases at Amazon Business, AWS, Amazon.com, and Whole Foods Market with an eligible Prime membership, on up to your first $120,000 in purchases each year. 2% at U.S. restaurants, U.S. gas stations, and on wireless telephone services purchased directly from U.S. service providers. 1% on other purchases.
Cash Advance APR (%) 29.99%
Cash Advance Fee Either $5 or 3% of the amount of each cash advance, whichever is greater.
how this card stacks up
When compared among all business cards in our database:
Rewards
Benefits
Low Fees
Security/Customer Experience
Low Interest
worst best

Full Review of Amazon Business Prime American Express Card

Pros
  • Strong returns on your choice of Amazon rewards

  • Decent rewards on dining, gas, and cell-phone service

Cons
  • Must have an active Amazon Prime membership for full benefits

Pros Explained

  • Strong returns on your choice of Amazon rewards: Uniquely, the type of reward you receive with this card is up to you. Both options are comparatively generous. Cardmembers can choose to earn cash back or get 90 days with no interest for every purchase if they wish. This flexibility allows the leeway to switch back and forth between receiving rewards and paying no interest, depending on what works best for specific transactions or at particular times. The best rewards are earned not only on purchases at Amazon.com but also at other Amazon properties, including Whole Foods Market; Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company’s huge cloud-services provider; and Amazon Business, the company’s retail portal for business purchases.
  • Decent rewards on dining, gas, and cell phone service: In addition to offering the potential for 5% cash back on Amazon purchases, Amazon Business Prime American Express offers 2% in cash back on purchases made at U.S. restaurants and U.S gas stations, as well as those made on wireless telephone services purchased directly from U.S. service providers. You could likely make more in those categories by cherry-picking cards that offered the best return on each. But Amazon Business Prime American Express offers a simple way to earn respectable rewards on them all with a single card. Note, however, that this rewards tier offers no option to be rewarded with an interest-free period; the same applies to the 1% cash back you earn on all other purchases.

The cash back percentage is actually the percentage of points earned under the Amazon rewards program. Percent back rewards are tracked as points and each 100 points earned in percent back rewards is equal to $1. The points can be redeemed for eligible purchases at Amazon.com and Amazon.com/Business or towards a charge on your statement.



Cons Explained

  • An active Amazon Prime membership is required for full benefits: Strictly speaking, Amazon Business Prime American Express has no annual fee. However, the user must maintain an Amazon Prime membership for full benefits. As a result, the card essentially requires paying an annual fee of $139 ($69 for students) for a regular (consumer) Prime membership.

Who This Card Is Best For

The Amazon Business Prime American Express card debuted in 2018 to tap into the small business space while expanding the reach of Amazon Prime memberships. The card charges an annual fee ($139), but it does come with benefits that may justify its cost. Those perks include free two-day shipping from Amazon.com and exclusive discounts on select grocery items at Whole Foods Market. Also, members receive free programming through Amazon Prime Video, which might allow you to forego paying for competing services such as Netflix or Apple TV.

You must have either an Amazon Prime or Business Prime account to take advantage of the full benefits of this card, and the cost of Business Prime varies by the size of your business and the number of card users. The Amazon Business Prime American Express best suits business owners who make many Amazon-related purchases for which they want to receive generous and flexible rewards. 

The 5% cash back you can earn with Amazon Business Prime American Express represents a strong return, but the card's alternative option, to get up to three months free of interest on eligible purchases, is its actual distinction. 

This feature makes the card especially appealing to companies that sometimes juggle cash flow to pay off Amazon transactions along with others every month. Those purchases might be of miscellaneous business items from Amazon.com or Amazon Business—from office supplies to computers and accessories. But they could also be from Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company's cloud-computing division. While monthly bills from AWS can be less than $100, they can also run into thousands of dollars for small businesses that require a lot of data storage and associated services. 

The card is also helpful for those who buy a lot for their business from Amazon and aren't Amazon Business members. That's because Amazon Business Prime American Express includes access to the Amazon Business Enhanced Data Views tools to organize Amazon purchases better. Like many other business cards, this one also comes with various expense management features, including the ability to designate an account manager for the card and integrate your business spending with Quickbooks. 

Finally, because it doesn't impose the foreign-exchange fees of some other cards, the Amazon Business Prime American Express is a helpful card to take along on a trip abroad or to use for purchases from foreign suppliers made in their local currency.

For those interested in earning Amex Membership Rewards points (2 points per dollar spent on all purchases up to $50,000 per year) without paying an annual fee, the Business Blue Plus credit card from American Express might be a good alternative.

Amazon Business Prime American Express Card One-Time Bonus

Upon approval of the Amazon Business Prime American Express card, cardholders receive a $125 Amazon.com Gift Card, which is a nice one-time offer that requires no spending to earn.

Rewards Earning Details

Earning is fairly straightforward with the Amazon Business Prime American Express card. Purchases made on Amazon (you must have an eligible Amazon Prime account) offer 5% cash back on the first $120,000 in purchases each year. This includes purchases made at Amazon.com, AWS, Amazon Business, and Whole Foods Market.

However, those who make Amazon purchases don't have to earn cash back, though. It's possible to instead decide to take 90 days to repay those purchases without interest. There are other ways to earn rewards as well. Spending on wireless phone services paid directly to U.S. providers earns 2% cash back, as does spending at U.S. gas stations and U.S. restaurants. All other purchases earn 1% cash back.

Rewards Redemption Details

The cash back from this card is actually translated into points, and each percentage point from cash back is a card point. The Amazon Business Prime American Express card offers two main ways to redeem rewards:

  • Shop with Points: This card is part of Amazon’s Shop with Points. A connected card allows you to see how many points you have available to apply to payment at checkout.
  • Statement credit: Use the points for a statement credit to offset a purchase.

Transferring Points

There aren’t point-transfer options with this card. While cardholders earn cash back in the form of points, they don’t earn those in the form of Membership Rewards points, as with some other American Express cards. As a result, the ability to redeem is less flexible and there aren’t transfer partners.

How to Maximize Your Rewards

Since this card is heavily geared to Amazon Prime customers, and offers the best rewards on Amazon purchases, you should naturally use it for all purchases from Amazon and its other divisions. You should also compare the 2% cash back you’ll earn on dining, cell phone service, and gas purchases to what you make on those purchases on other cards you might carry.

Finally, if you’re more than a solo enterprise, consider requesting extra cards for employees who make purchases for the business. Widening the number of cardholders will help ensure that as many expenses as possible earn rewards for the business.    

Amazon Business Prime American Express Outstanding Benefits

  • Enhanced data view for business purchases analysis and reconciliation
  • Purchase protection for stolen or damaged purchases of up to $1,000 per occurrence, although terms, conditions, and limitations apply.
  • Vendor Pay by Bill.com

Standard Benefits

  • Secondary rental car loss-and-damage waiver (eligibility varies by card)
  • Baggage insurance (eligibility varies by card)
  • 24/7 customer service
  • Online statements

Cardholder Experience

American Express ranked first in J.D. Power's 2022 U.S. Small Business Credit Card Satisfaction Study. They received a strong, above-average score. Customers can get in touch with American Express 24/7 by calling 800-528-4800. You can also log into your account and live chat with a representative or send questions and comments to @AskAmex on Twitter.

Security Features

Most features offered by Amex are fairly standard. Chip technology is designed to increase security, and there is a dispute resolution process to help with fraudulent purchases.

Final Verdict

Amazon Business Prime American Express is a potentially solid choice for business owners who make many Amazon-related purchases and are already enrolled in Amazon Prime or Business Prime. Its standout feature is its option to take rewards on purchases through 90-day interest-free loans. However, businesses that spend no more than $300 a month on the card, and don’t expect to use its interest-free rewards option, are probably better off looking elsewhere.

Next Steps
For Amazon Business Prime American Express Card
on American Express' Secured Site.
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CURRENT CARD
Amazon Business Prime American Express Card
overall rating
3.2
Recommended Credit
Score Our recommended ranges are based off of the FICO® Score 8 credit-scoring model. Credit score is one of the many factors lenders review in considering your application.
350 579
580 669
670 739
740 799
800 850
Good - Excellent
Regular APR (%) 19.24% - 27.24% variable
Annual Fee $0
Rewards Earning Rate Get 5% back on U.S. purchases at Amazon Business, AWS, Amazon.com, and Whole Foods Market with an eligible Prime membership, on up to your first $120,000 in purchases each year. 2% at U.S. restaurants, U.S. gas stations, and on wireless telephone services purchased directly from U.S. service providers. 1% on other purchases.
Investopedia Credit Card Rating Methodology
Investopedia is committed to delivering the best credit card recommendations in the industry. We’ll tell you when a card is good, we’ll tell you when a card is bad, and we’ll only call a card the best if we would recommend it to our friends or family members.
Overall Star Rating Explained
To rate credit cards we objectively assess, score and weight nearly 100 individual card features which roll up into five major feature sets: fees, interest, rewards, benefits and security/customer service. Here’s how we weighted those feature sets for the overall star rating of a card:
We have applied our proprietary rating methodology to every generally-accepted credit card in the U.S. domestic market to allow consumers to make fully informed choices. It’s important to note that for our overall score that we make a number of assumptions about how you would be using your credit card:
  1. While we make no assumption as to whether balances are carried on a given card we do assign varying weights to all credit cards’ introductory APR (if present) in addition to the regular, long term purchase and balance transfer interest rates.
  2. We utilize BLS (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) income and average category spending data to calculate annual earnings rates for rewards cards that offer cash back, points or miles rewards at a set rate on all spending or in consideration of bonus rewards for certain spending categories, like gasoline, groceries, restaurants or travel.
  3. We determine the maximum points value of rewards cards by dividing the points, cash back or miles required to exchange for the retail price of the most valuable redemption option (for example, in the case of a card that offers a domestic roundtrip airline ticket as a redemption option vs. another redemption option of lesser value that requires the same amount of points or miles to acquire, we would base the rewards value on the airline ticket).
  • Cards that are selected best overall in their respective categories generally feature most if not all of the following attributes:
  • Low or Reasonable Fees Credit card fees come in many forms but the primary ones involve those for annual card membership and balance transfer. There are a myriad of reward and non-reward card options that charge no annual fee but for the many that do assess an annual fee the cost is often justified by their lucrative ongoing rewards and initial signup bonuses. Balance transfer fees are occasionally waived during introductory periods with certain cards, a factor which is heavily and positively weighted in our scoring model for cards offering this benefit. When charged, balance transfer fees range between 3% - 5%, which we grade accordingly. Other standard fees can generally be avoided, such as those for paying late or taking cash advances but we rate those relative to other cards in the market for reference, though with less weight assigned
  • Competitive Interest Many cards offer 0% introductory APR on purchases and balance transfers for varying lengths and then revert to a permanent or regular APR (based on a variable rate tied to the prime rate) that applies to any balances not paid in full. We rate both introductory APR percentage and length (in months) along with the midpoint of the variable regular APR interest rate range.
  • Valuable Rewards Credit card reward programs can be based on cash back, points or travel rewards (which can be generic or travel partner-specific, as with airline and hotel co-brand card programs). For cards that offer rewards we determine the value per dollar spent along with average redemption values and assign more favorable ratings to cards that offer superior consumer value. We also assign value to sign-up bonus offers and their initial spending requirements, when present.
  • Excellent Benefits Credit card benefits cover a range of offerings like concierge service, TSA Pre-check, auto rental coverage, travel accident insurance, lost luggage assistance and free credit scores. We rate cards on the number and level of over a dozen standard and upscale benefits and provide extra weighting emphasis for those travel-related perks that apply to premium travel cards when present.
  • Solid Security/Customer Service Security and customer service features like lost or stolen card replacement, being able to lock one’s card from an issuer app and 24 hour customer support are becoming more standard across the card market and we provide a significant amount of weighting to features in this area.
  • You can also read the full version of our methodology for a more in-depth look at how we assess cards and award them the best in various categories.