In alt.home.repair, on Mon, 05 Apr 2021 10:00:37 -0500, Arthur Conan
Doyle wrote:

Frank "frank wrote:

Prime give access to TV and other stuff besides free shipping. I'm not
interested either and much prefer using Walmart who ships practically
free on anything. If you only buy small items, they will let you add
additional small items until you reach the free shipping level. My wife
bought little things like saccharine tablets, a hair net and seeds and
got free shipping.

You don't have to have Prime to get free shipping from Amazon. Just like
Walmart, if your order exceeds $25 there's a free option. What Prime was
offering pre-Covid was free same/one/two day shipping. That seems to slowly
coming back.

Yes, I plan ahead and I almost never need esp. speedy shippping, so it's
always free. Even when I think I could use something tomorrow, I've
noticed the days go by, I keep busy, and before I know it the package
has arrived when originally scheduled.** Twice, just 2 or 3 days
before leaving on a trip, I didn't have something I needed for the trip,
so I joined Prime for a month for free and then cancelled it. Amazon
doesn't seem to have any problem with this, because each time on the
very next order, they said I could join Prime again for one more free
month.

One of those times, I didn't cancel when I should have, 5 days late, and
when I did cancel, they refunded the second month's charge since I
hadn't actually bought or shipped anything during the second month. I
think they did this without my even asking. (I wasn't going to ask. I
thought it was my punishment for not paying attention. I don't know
anyone else who refunds monthly charges just because benefits weren't
taken advantage of.)

IMO, that's why Amazon is so successful, they don't screw with their
customers, they refund money you spent but got nothing for. Except for
one big, every-time exception. Even though the individual items all say
Free Shipping, and in the upper right corner it says "Free shipping when
qualified order goes over $25 (or whatever it is at the moment)" until
it does go over that number, when it says "Free Shipping", that's only
true until you get to the checkout page, and there, they never set you
up with the free shipping. It's always $8 to get the package a day or
two earlier. You have to click on Free Shipping again to get what they
said you would get. I'm used to this now, I always remember to check,
and I've never made a mistake and paid extra, but it's pretty sleazy and
in contradiction to what I just said about their not screwing with their
customers.


**I used to enjoy watching the tracking. It was like watching my horse
run a race, except I always won. Now most Amazon shipments don't show
anything except two days in advance they ship, and two days later it's
here. Ebay is more entertaining.