Why You Can Trust CNET Prime payback: Amazon amps up rewards with new credit card
The Visa card, available only for Prime members, becomes one of four branded Amazon credit cards now available.
A look at the new Amazon.com Visa card.
Amazon is rolling out yet another new benefit for its Prime members, but this one's a mouthful: It's called the Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature card.
If you're as overstocked with Amazon trivia as I've become, you may know that Amazon already has three other branded credit cards. So what's the difference with this one?
Well, two of the existing cards can be used only on Amazon.com and the handful of retailers that use Pay with Amazon. The third, called the Amazon.com Rewards Visa, can be used at just about any retailer and offers 3 percent cash back on Amazon.com purchases.
The new card, announced Wednesday, is an upgrade on that Visa card, offering a bumped-up 5 percent cash back on Amazon.com purchases. The card is only available for Amazon Prime members. As a nice little perk, the new card is metal, not plastic.
While not huge news, the arrival of the card keeps with Amazon's efforts to add more and more benefits to Prime, which costs $99 yearly and includes free two-day shipping, so people continue signing up.
Existing Amazon Rewards Visa cardholders who have Prime will be upgraded to the new Amazon Prime Rewards Visa.
As with the Amazon.com Rewards Visa, the new Visa card provides 2 percent cash back at restaurants, gas stations and drugstores, as well as 1 percent cash back on all other purchases.