The Prime Visa is a good credit card for Amazon Prime members with good credit. It has a $0 annual fee and gives bonus rewards on purchases from Amazon.com, Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market, Chase Travel, gas stations, restaurants, rideshare companies, and other local transit and commuting services. New applicants can also get a $100 Amazon gift card immediately after being approved for an account. 

The downsides of the Prime Visa are its high APR and the fact that Prime membership is not included. If you’re not a Prime member, you can get the non-Prime version of the offer, the Amazon Credit Card. 

Prime Visa Review Highlights 

$100 initial bonus is easy to earn

With most credit cards that offer an initial bonus, you have to spend a certain amount in the first few months your account is open to qualify for the bonus, then wait weeks or even months to see the bonus rewards appear in your account. With the Prime Visa, you get a $100 Amazon gift card electronically right after being approved for an account.  

The $100 you can get as a sign-up bonus from the Prime Visa is slighly less than what you’d get from the average initial bonus available right now, according to WalletHub’s latest Credit Card Landscape Report. Furthermore, the Prime Visa’s bonus is considered taxable income, since you don’t need to spend any money to get it. 
 

1 - 5% cash rewards on purchases can provide a lot of savings  

Earning 5% cash rewards on Amazon.com, Amazon Fresh, and Whole Foods purchases can save you a lot of money on everyday expenses. Interestingly, you can also save at an equally rapid clip when you use the Prime Visa to purchase airfare, hotel reservations, cruise tickets and rental cars through Chase, the card’s issuer. Bookings must be made via chasetravel.com or by calling the number on the back of your card, but you should still shop around for travel bookings on other sites to make sure you’re actually saving money at the end of the day. 

On top of those ongoing bonus rewards for eligible Amazon and Chase purchases, cardholders can earn 2% back in a selection of popular spending categories. Those 2% categories include gas stations, restaurants, and local transit and commuting, covering everything from trains, buses and rideshare services to toll roads and parking garages.  

To illustrate just how attractive these rewards are, the average cash back credit card gives just over 1% back on all purchases. And 1% back is actually what you’ll earn on normal purchases that don’t qualify for bonus rewards. You might want to use a card with a higher base rewards rate for such purchases instead. 
 

$0 annual fee doesn’t add to the cost of Prime 

Prime members don’t have to pay extra to own the Prime Visa, as it has a $0 annual fee. You can’t get the card without Prime, however. 
 

0% foreign transaction fee

The Prime Visa works wherever Visa is accepted internationally, and foreign purchases won’t cost you extra money. Most other credit cards add a surcharge of around 3% to foreign transactions. 
 

Lots of secondary benefits 

The Prime Visa offers insurance coverage for rental car collisions, lost and delayed baggage, and serious injuries that occur while traveling. Cardholders also enjoy extended warranty protection, purchase protection, roadside dispatch, and emergency travel assistance. 

Each of these benefits has its own coverage rules and exclusions, and you will have to file a claim to get reimbursed for covered expenses. Still, at a time when many credit cards are stripping away supplemental perks, it’s nice to have a lot of options. 
 

19.49% - 27.49% (V) APR can get very expensive 

If you carry a balance from month to month with this card, interest charges will quickly wipe out your savings from rewards. The APR could be anywhere from 19.49% to 27.49% (V), depending on your overall creditworthiness. Fortunately, if you pay in full by the due date every month, you won’t have to pay any interest charges. 
 

700+ credit score recommended

The Prime Visa requires good credit or better for approval, which means you need a 700+ credit score to have good odds of being approved. 

You can check your credit score for free right here on WalletHub. If you’re not in a position to qualify for the Prime Visa, you might still be able to get one of the other Amazon credit cards.