Amazon Prime Day 2022: tips to find the best deals and save money

The next edition of Amazon’s Prime Day is nearly upon us. The online retailer’s sale events seem to be becoming increasingly frequent and the next one – the Prime Early Access Sale – opens to the general public on Tuesday 11 October.

However as the name suggests, Prime members will be given early access to the reduced products and the first batch of offers have already gone live on the site. Non-members will be allowed access on 11 and 12 October, when the sale becomes open to the public.

There are currently more than 200 million Prime members worldwide according to ex-CEO Jeff Bezos in a shareholder letter from last year. However the price of an Amazon Prime membership went up in February. For those that want to pay monthly it will cost you $14.99 per month, a total of $180 per year. However, if you pay the full year in one the price is $139. Students get a discounted rate, at $7.49 per month or $69 per year.

Here’s how to bag the best deals in Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale…

Prime day notifications

You can make sure you don’t miss out on deals by setting up a deal alert for products you are interested in. Many offers are only available for a certain period of time but you can keep track by heading to the Prime Day page and select ‘Watch this deal’.

If you have the Amazon app you can also sign up for push notifications to be notified five minutes before the deals start, to ensure you’re there as soon as it goes live.

Lightning deals

Lightning Deals can be found on either the Today’s Deals or Prime Day page. These deals are available on a one-per-customer basis and are also time-sensitive, often with only a limited number available for that price. If you notice something that you had had your eye on is available on a lightning deal you may want to consider buying it then and there, or risk missing the lower price.

When a Lightning Deal goes live, you’ll be able to see the following information about the offer:

- The item featured in the deal

- Any available variations of the item

- The promotional discount amount and final price

- A status bar showing the percentage of deals already claimed

- A timer showing how long you have to add the item to your Cart and claim the promotional discount

Alexa Deals

Amazon has been trying to push the use of its voice-powered digital assistant for years, offering heavily discounted or even free devices to Prime members. For this Amazon Prime Day there will be a separate category of deals only available to purchase using Alexa.

To find out what’s available, ask your device: “Alexa, what are your deals?”

This will provide you access to exclusive deals, or early access to offers that had not yet gone live on the site. You can access these deals even without a specific Alexa device, by downloading the Alex app for your smartphone or tablet.