As Amazon Prime’s annual cost has grown over the years, so has its spread of perks, and that’s particularly true for video game fans who claim its attached “Twitch Prime” subscription bonus. Weirdly, paying Amazon’s subscription fee sometimes results in vouchers for other services’ subscription fees, primarily in the form of free-trial offers to paid MMOs.
On Thursday, Amazon went one bigger by allying with its first-ever console maker in order to create a pretty solid perk. If you own a Nintendo Switch and pay for Amazon Prime, you can now claim a combined 12 months of free Nintendo Switch Online access (a $ 20 USD value) through a Twitch Prime perks page.
If you’ve already pre-paid for a full 12 months of Nintendo Switch Online (which includes access to online multiplayer modes and a selection of classic NES games), you’re still in luck. This new Twitch Prime offer logs you into your NSO account, then stacks your new free months on top of any NSO period you’ve already paid for. (To confirm when your existing NSO subscription is going to end, you can check your account here.)
In order to dispel one-month Amazon Prime subscribers from cashing in, however, there’s a catch: you can only claim the first three months of this offer at first. Once you’ve claimed that voucher, Amazon will start a clock on your Prime membership, waiting a full 60 days before coughing up a code for your additional nine months of NSO access. Additionally, because the offer requires NSO login and Twitch credential verification, you cannot game the system by claiming multiple Twitch Prime bonuses on a single NSO account. (That means you can’t swipe a parent’s unused Switch months if you also claim your own.) The three-month offer expires September 24 of this year, while the additional nine-month offer must be claimed by January 22, 2020.
This bonus is good news for Amazon Prime, which hobbled its best game-specific feature last year: the end of its 20-percent pre-order discount. Now, game pre-orders will instead give Amazon shoppers a voucher to claim on future game purchases, which is a bit more of a hoop to jump through to claim what’s a bit less than that original 20-percent value. (Last year’s change also removed Twitch Prime’s ad-free experience.)
