Prime Visa
The Prime Visa without a Prime membership
The card keeps working. The 5% does not. If you do not want Prime, there is a different Amazon card that fits you better.
The short answer
The Prime Visa without a Prime membership
The card keeps working everywhere Visa is accepted. The 5% does not — that tier is conditional on an eligible Prime membership. Without one you are carrying a card built around a feature you cannot use, and the Amazon Visa earns 3% at Amazon with no membership required.
What changes
What the card does and does not do without Prime
Nothing dramatic happens. The account does not close, the card does not stop working, and points you have already earned are unaffected — points don't expire as long as your card account remains open (Chase — Prime Visa, verified 2026-08-11).
What changes is the earn rate on the purchases the card exists for. Chase attaches the 5% tier to Amazon.com, Audible.com, Whole Foods Market and Chase Travel, with an eligible Prime membership (Chase — Prime Visa, verified 2026-08-11). Remove the membership and the condition is no longer met.
| Prime Visa (with Prime) | Amazon Visa (no Prime) | |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon.com, Audible.com, Whole Foods, Chase Travel | 5% back | 3% back |
| Gas, restaurants, local transit and commuting | 2% back | 2% back |
| Everything else | 1% back | 1% back |
| Annual fee | $0 | $0 |
| Membership required | Yes, for the top tier | No |
| Welcome offer | a $150 Amazon Gift Card loaded into your Amazon Gift Card balance on approval | a $50 Amazon Gift Card loaded into your Amazon Gift Card balance on approval |
Sources: Chase — Prime Visa · Chase — Amazon Visa · verified 2026-08-11
The decision
So should you buy Prime to keep the 5%?
This is the same arithmetic as the main Prime Visa page, approached from the other direction. If you are already holding the card and thinking about letting the membership lapse, the question is whether the two extra percentage points are worth $139 per year (About Amazon — Prime free trial, verified 2026-08-11).
The math
- Prime Visa at Amazon, with Prime
- 5%
- Amazon Visa at Amazon, no Prime
- 3%
- Difference
- 2 percentage points
- Cost of Prime
- $139 a year
- Extra earnings = annual Amazon spend x 0.02
- Break even when extra earnings = $139
- $139 / 0.02 = $6,950
Below about $6,950 a year of Amazon, Whole Foods and Chase Travel spending, the membership does not pay for itself on card rewards alone.
That threshold assumes the membership is being bought only for the card rate. If you would use Prime delivery, video or the Whole Foods discounts anyway, the fee is not a cost the card has to justify — that calculation belongs on the Prime page.
The practical answer
What most people in this position should do
If you are choosing a card and you do not want Prime: apply for the Amazon Visa rather than the Prime Visa. It is the same issuer and the same $0 annual fee, it earns 3% back (Chase — Amazon Visa, verified 2026-08-11) at Amazon with no membership condition attached, and it removes the recurring fee from the equation entirely.
If you already hold the Prime Visa and are letting Prime lapse: nothing urgent happens. Redeem any points you are sitting on before you consider closing the account — points survive a lapsed membership, but not a closed card account. Then decide whether a 1%-on-everything Visa still earns its place in your wallet, because that is broadly what it becomes for general spending.
If you are unsure whether you want Prime at all: decide that question on its own merits first. A membership bought to chase a card rate is the tail wagging the dog, and the arithmetic above shows how much spending it takes before that tail is heavy enough to matter.
Where the answer is no
Skip this if…
You are buying Prime purely for the card rate and spend under about $7,000 a year at Amazon
The arithmetic above does not work at that level. Take the Amazon Visa’s 3% and keep the $139 per year.
You want a single card that earns well on everything
Without the Prime tier this card is 2% on a narrow list and 1% on the rest. A flat 2% cashback card beats it on every purchase outside those categories.
You are considering closing the account to force a decision
Redeem your points first. Chase states points last as long as the account stays open, so closing an account with an unredeemed balance is the one genuinely costly move available here.
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Common questions
Common questions
- Is the Prime Visa worth it without Prime?
- Not really. The 5% rate is conditional on an eligible Prime membership, so without one you are holding a card whose defining feature is switched off. The Amazon Visa earns 3% at Amazon with no membership required.
- What happens to the Prime Visa if I cancel Prime?
- The card account stays open and keeps working anywhere Visa is accepted. What changes is the earn rate at Amazon, because the 5% tier is conditional on an eligible membership.
- Can you apply for an Amazon credit card without Prime?
- Yes. The Amazon Visa is the version of the card designed for people without a membership: same issuer, same $0 annual fee, 3% at Amazon instead of 5%.
- What is the difference between the Prime Visa and the Amazon Visa?
- Chiefly the Amazon rate and the membership condition. The Prime Visa earns 5% at Amazon with an eligible Prime membership; the Amazon Visa earns 3% and needs no membership. The 2% and 1% tiers match.
Related
Read next
- The difference between every Amazon card — the four-card reference, if the names have stopped making sense
- Is Amazon Prime worth it? — the other way to answer this question is to decide about the membership itself
- Is the Prime Visa worth it? — the full break-even arithmetic, including the version where you already pay for Prime
Written by Stephen V. — An enthusiast who's genuinely into this. I read the terms, compile the published rates, and do the math. No lab coat, no credentials, no test lab.
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Last verified: 2026-08-11