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Amazon Prime Day 2021 will bring a staggering number of deals starting Monday, June 21–so many, in fact, that it may be hard to decipher the good deals from the great ones. Here are some tips and tricks to help you snag the best Prime Day deals, whether you’re shopping for a new game, TV, laptop, or anything else. In addition to simply finding the best deals on Amazon Prime Day 2021, there are other promotions running that will help you save money overall, including discounts you can get through Alexa and bonus cash back if you have an Amazon Prime Visa card. See our Amazon Prime Day hub for the latest coverage and deals.
Snag a free Amazon Prime trial
As the name suggests, the sale is exclusive to Amazon Prime members. If you don’t already have a Prime membership, you’re going to want to grab a free trial soon, since Prime Day starts on Monday. All new users can get a free 30-day trial to Amazon Prime. If you’re a college student, you can get a whopping six-month free Prime Student trial. Alternatively, you can see if someone in your family is willing to share their Prime account with you via Amazon Household.
Without Prime, you can’t get any of the deals on Amazon during Prime Day, so this really is step one.
Use product notifications
One handy trick you can use if you’re eyeing specific products is to turn on notifications in the Amazon Shopping app. You can add items to your watch list, and Amazon will notify you when they are discounted. We wouldn’t recommend doing this for a lot products, unless you don’t mind rampant notifications. The Amazon app is available on iOS and Android. It also happens to be the best way to shop on mobile, so we recommend having it downloaded anyway.
Stay nimble
Once Amazon Prime Day kicks off, it’s a bit of frenzy. You’re not dealing with other eager people in a brick-and-mortar store; you’re competing with millions of other eager buyers for some seriously great deals on gaming, tech, entertainment and much more. As such, some of the most enticing deals tend to sell out quickly.
Amazon Prime Day kicks off at 12 AM PT / 3 PM ET on Monday morning. Though we’re not saying the best deals are gone by morning on the first day of the sale, it might be worth scoping things out that night before catching some sleep.
Keep an eye on Lightning Deals
One of the hallmarks of Amazon Prime Day is Lightning Deals, hourly special buys that have very limited stock. Considering Prime Day normally lasts 48 hours, you can expect the same number of Lightning Deal refreshes. You probably don’t want to spend two days in a row camped out on Amazon’s site, but it’s definitely worth checking back throughout the day to see which new deals are available.
Check price history
Amazon always tends to mark products for under list price, but that will be especially true on Prime Day. But just because something says “Prime Day deal” doesn’t mean that it’s actually available for an incredible price. To get the best deal, you’ll want to check price history on Camelcamelcamel to see price fluctuations over time. There’s a chance you may want to skip a certain Prime Day deal because that product has hit a lower price on Amazon in the past–if it was that cheap once, it’ll likely drop that low again eventually. There’s also an Amazon Assistant Chrome extension that lets you compare prices to other retailers and see a 30-day price history. As a bonus, if you install the Chrome extension and click on it five times (once per day) before Prime Day, you’ll get $10 credit to spend during Prime Day.
Snag early deals
There’s a chance you can avoid the flurry of Prime Day altogether if you’re only looking for a few things. Amazon often offers a batch of early Prime Day deals in the days and weeks leading up to the event, such as the Roku Ultra streaming device that’s on sale now for $70. Most of Amazon’s early Prime Day deals tend to focus on Amazon products such as the Echo Dot, Kindle, and Fire TV. Early Prime Day prices are the same as they would be when you buy during Prime Day, so there’s no harm in getting your shopping out of the way early.
Don’t buy Amazon products now
Unless an Amazon product (Echo Dot, Echo Show, Kindle, etc.) is marked as an early Prime Day deal, don’t pull the trigger on any purchases of Amazon-branded products before Prime Day. It’s almost guaranteed that every major Amazon device will be available for its best price yet on Prime Day. So, if you can, wait until the main event. This same logic could go toward any big purchases you are planning on making soon. If you can hold off, it’s worth waiting to see if it’s discounted on Prime Day.
Compare prices across retailers
Amazon Prime Day may have started as an event solely focused on Amazon deals, but it has since evolved into a mini-Black Friday. Virtually every major retailer hosts an anti-Prime Day sale nowadays to steal Amazon’s thunder. That means you should be comparing prices to Walmart, Best Buy, GameStop, Target, and other retailers before you make purchases. It’s worth noting that Amazon often price matches competitors rather than try to beat them, but it never hurts to double-check before you click that buy button.
Alexa devices can help you find deals
Amazon likes to get its voice assistant Alexa involved for Prime Day. If you have an Alexa-supported device (Android phone, Echo Dot, Fire tablet, etc.), Alexa can tell you the available deals and you can shop hands-free. There are currently some really great prices available only through Alexa.
Get an Amazon credit card for cash back
Ahead of Prime Day, you could sign up for an Amazon credit card to rack up points that can be used on future purchases at Amazon. Amazon offers two Visa cards: Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature and Amazon Rewards Visa. The former is exclusive to Prime members and nets you 5% cash back on all purchases at Amazon (6% during Prime Day). You also get a $100 Amazon gift card when approved (this has been bumped up to $150 during Prime Day). The Amazon Rewards Visa gets you 3 percent cash back and a $50 gift card when approved. If you think you’re going to spend a lot on Prime Day, either of these cards wouldn’t be a bad idea, especially if you shop at Amazon regularly anyway.
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