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If you’ve been to Whole Foods lately, you might have noticed that they’ve cut some of their prices.  That’s in large part due to Amazon acquiring Whole Foods.  But they’ve also rolled up its Treasure Truck deals service to Whole Foods locations and they’ve started delivering Whole Foods groceries through Prime.  This is all great news if you are an Amazon Prime member, and you shop at Whole Foods.  But now, they are offering Prime members 5% back for shopping at Whole Foods, when you use the Amazon Prime Rewards Visa card.

This is actually a really good deal if you think about it.  I mean, use your credit card to purchase your groceries and get 5% back when you do.  The catch, from a consumer perspective, is to make sure that you pay it off immediately.  Presumably, you have a grocery budget for the month and that should go directly to your card.  Otherwise, Amazon is winning and you’re not benefitting from this deal at all.   In addition to the 5 percent back for Prime members, non-Prime members will earn 3 percent back on Whole Foods Market purchases. Non-Prime members will also continue to earn 3 percent back on all Amazon.com purchases, and all cardholders earn 2 percent back on gas stations, restaurants and drug stores, and 1 percent back on all other purchases.

Whole Foods
Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post via Getty Images

Again, this is all really great news.  But only if you use it appropriately.  Now 5% might not seem like a lot, but for every $1000 you spend, that’s $50 back.  Well, technically not back, as it gets applied to your card.  But if you’re a Prime member, that will save you some money on your membership at least.

Like with any company, the card was introduced in order to encourage increased spending on Amazon’s site.  But if you think about it, where else are you really shopping?  I mean, sure you probably do some other shopping, but there is so much available on Amazon, do you need to shop anywhere else?  Other cards offered by Amazon only focused on the ability to get rewards from Amazon.com, but this new card shifts the focus to offline spending as well.  Making it a better deal.

Whole Foods

Amazon has stuck to their word.  Following the acquisition, they promised to lower prices at Whole Foods and indicated that Prime Members would receive special savings and other in-store benefits.  Which they made good on, almost immediately.  So you have to hand it to Amazon, they’re at least doing what they said they were going to do.

Is this something that you would use?  I mean, if you’re a Prime member, I think that this makes sense.  Especially as Amazon expands their vast ecosystem of products and services.  And as this happens, customers will be “forced” (for lack of a better term) to get a Prime membership, or at least use some of the perks that Amazon offers – like this rewards Visa.

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