Amazon Ties Prime Discount Promotion to Launch of New Series, Adds Deals

Amazon is cutting the price of a Prime membership by 20 percent to $79 for new members in a Friday promotion that runs from midnight EST to 11:59 PST. The promo is connected to the launch of Amazon’s original series The Grand Tour, it announced Wednesday. The first episode airs on Friday and new episodes will release weekly for 12 weeks, it said. Amazon also trumpeted “a month of Black Friday prices” in a Wednesday announcement promising new deals every five minutes through Dec. 22. The best deals will pop up over what Amazon called the “Turkey 5” days of Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday. It encouraged shoppers to download the Amazon app to track deals through its “watch a deal” feature so they know when a deal is about to start. Deals will be available at various dates and times from Nov. 18 to Black Friday at www.amazon.com/blackfriday, said Amazon. Amazon’s device specials topped the list with $40 savings on Echo and Tap (to $139 and $89), $10 savings on Dot (to $39), $30 savings on select Kindles, bringing them to $49-$69, $30 on the Fire HD 8 tablet (to $59) and $10 savings on the Fire TV stick with Alexa control (to $29). TV deals for the period: an unnamed 32-inch 720p LED TV ($69); unnamed 43-inch 4K Ultra HD smart TV ($199); TCL 32-inch 720p smart TV ($125); 55-inch LG 4K smart TV ($398); “premium brand” 60-inch 4K smart TV ($599); premium brand 55-inch 1080p TV ($298), “top-selling” Blu-ray player ($49); Denon Heos 1 wireless speaker ($99); Sennheiser HD 598 headphone ($99). The e-tailer’s “package x-ray” feature began Wednesday, allowing iPhone users to scan a code to see what’s in a delivered box from Amazon without having to open the box.