Amazon Prime Day Is Here: Here's How To Score Discounts On Things You Actually Want

It’s Amazon Prime Day, the day Amazon offers steep discounts on thousands of pieces of merchandise, all in a bid to convince you to sign up for the internet retailer’s membership service.

The Prime promo is a bit like Black Friday, only in summer. And without the masses of sometimes-violent, bargain-crazed shoppers. And only on Amazon, exclusively for Prime members.

So to redeem any of these deals, you’ll first need to sign up for a free 30-day Prime trial, here. The service costs $10.99 a month after the 30 free days, so remember to cancel it if you find it isn’t worth your hard-earned money.

Browse through some of the best Prime Day deals, here. Those looking for more tech-heavy bargains may appreciate this deal rundown on USA Today.

If you’re not seeing a deal you like, here’s where it gets interesting. When you buy at least $50 in Amazon gift cards on Prime Day, the service will give you a $10 credit ― just be sure to use the code GCPRIME16 at checkout. (Unfortunately the deal is one per customer, so you can’t double up on what’s effectively a site-wide 20 percent discount.)

Entrepreneur notes the gift card deal cycled in and out of stock last year, so check back once or twice if it’s unavailable.

Amazon also has a handful of similar discounts for shoppers who buy products using one of their branded devices. These include:

• Customers who own an Amazon Echo and order something via the voice assistant, Alexa, can get a $10 credit on any purchase of $20 or more.
• If you have an Amazon Visa card, you can get $30 off a purchase of $150 or more by using the promo code VISA30 at checkout.

Are we missing some other great Amazon Prime Day discount? Tell us in the comments.