<Update 10/18/17> Per recent comments, it appears Amazon has changed their process and now you can no longer cancel your auto-renew in advance! Instead you can choose to be reminded three days prior to the auto-renew date. This is BS. I think there may still be a way to cancel if you are doing the prime trial – you can just click on “Do Not Continue” and it should still remain active for the remainder of the trial period. Let me know in the comments if you found a similar option or if you found a way to stop the auto-renew for a regular prime membership.
<Original post follows>
How annoying that Amazon makes the auto-renewal option so difficult to disable. It used to be a simple option to select. Now, you have to click the “End membership” – not just once, but twice, before you get the option to keep your membership until the end of the year. But you can still keep your membership for the rest of the term, and not have it auto-renew.
On the top right, hover over the “Hello Sigmoid, Your account” and then select the sixth option down – “Your Prime Membership”. On the left sidebar, you’ll see an option to end your membership. The first time you click, it doesn’t end immediately, it gives you more options. The options were something like, “Continue membership”, “get a reminder 3 days before membership ends” and “end membership”. Again – if you click on “end membership” it doesn’t actually end your membership right away, as you might expect. Instead, it gives you the option to either cancel immediately, or have it cancel on the annual renewal date.
How annoying is that?
Thanks so much for this info, I couldn’t find it anywhere. Pretty scummy that they’d hide the option to the extent that you cannot see it unless you try to quit.
I was concerned things may have changed and didn’t want to accidentally cancel my membership with 6 months left, so I simply chatted with a support member and they straightened things out within minutes.
Hope this helps, and apologies for any formatting issues.
They toggled it like you said.
My membership status now reads “On July 05, 2015, your card will not be charged and your membership will end.”
Thanks for the walkthrough. It should not be so difficult to have control over our accounts. I’m going to renew because I love Amazon, but I don’t like not having that control myself. A big flaw for an otherwise great company.
I agree thank you so much. I wanted to cancel my auto renew and couldn’t figure out how; I was, of course, heasitant to click “end membership” until I read your post and realized is the only way to finally get to the option to cancel the automatic renewal!
Yeah, Amazon is great if you live in the contiguous 48 states. Over the past 5 years it has gone downhill for HI and AK. We nod and shrug off the “benefits” that have changed and been downgraded (while still paying the same premium), but now it has gotten so bad that we can’t get many of the things that Amazon typically sells… sad, but I’ll have to quit my premium membership until I move to the mainland, I guess.
I never realized that Amazon had different policies for Hawaii and Alaska, but it makes sense that shipping costs would be higher. Keeping a warehouse in Hawaii would probably be super expensive. I’ve noticed I only occasionally miss prime when I want something fast. As for free shipping, I’ve noticed in many cases if you click the link to see other sellers, there often will be someone selling it with free shipping for around the same price.
When I click help “Amazon Prime” isn’t one of the options under Recommended Topics anymore. Is there a new work around other than hitting end your amazon prime membership, which at over $100 is scary to click? Thanks I really appreciate your help.
I just went there, the option to cancel autorenew isn’t there anymore. The only solution they offer now is “remind me 3 days” before they autorenew. Such bullshit, and that’s completely the kind of thing that is open to a class action lawsuit.
Hello Cynic, it looks like Amazon still allows you to stop your Prime membership from auto-renewing, following the same steps as in your original post. At least, it’s that way in Canada.