The perks that happen somewhere else

Every row below is Amazon's own wording. We have not tested any of these, we do not know your local participation, and we are not going to estimate what any of them saves you — the sourcing rule is the same here as everywhere else on this site.

✓ Figures on this page checked against Amazon’s own pages on August 22, 2026 — Amazon's Explore Prime benefits page. How we check.

Fuel: the one with real money in it, conditionally

Ten cents a gallon at 7,500 named locations is a genuine discount and a completely conditional one. It is worth real money if you commute or drive home at weekends, and it is worth exactly nothing if you do not drive — there is no partial credit here.

Amazon names the brands: bp, Amoco and ampm. That specificity is useful, because it means you can settle the question in one search before counting the benefit at all. Check whether a participating station sits on a route you actually drive. If none does, cross this row out and move on.

Grubhub+: the one most likely to be underestimated

Amazon's wording is "Grubhub+ is free with Prime. Enjoy unlimited $0 food delivery fees on eligible orders. Terms & add'l fees apply." — and note the honest tail on that sentence, "Terms & add'l fees apply", which is Amazon telling you that $0 delivery fees is not the same as a free order.

This is the partner perk with the strongest claim on a student's attention, because food delivery is a habit rather than an occasional purchase. What the Grubhub+ perk actually gives you has the full treatment, including Amazon's own claimed annual value of $120.

Buy with Prime: the one people misread

Amazon's wording is "Fast, free delivery and easy returns at participating brands' websites, including Steve Madden, adidas, bareMinerals, and more." This is not a discount. It is your Prime delivery and returns experience appearing at another retailer's own checkout, on their own site.

The practical value is narrow but real: if you were going to buy from one of those brands anyway, the shipping cost and the returns hassle drop out. It saves nothing on the item itself, and any page telling you otherwise has not read the sentence.

The four that are situational at best

• Zappos — "Link with Prime to get fast, free shipping, 2x VIP points, and perks" Worth linking if you already have an account there; worth nothing if you do not.
• Woot! — "Daily deals with free shipping for Amazon Prime members" Free shipping on a deals site. Useful the day you happen to want the deal.
• Shopbop — "Get free Next-Day Shipping and access to Prime-only promotions" Designer fashion. Honestly not a student-budget benefit, and we are not going to pretend it is.
• Shutterfly — "45% off regular priced items + free shipping for orders over $35" Photo printing. Occasionally exactly what you need in December, irrelevant the rest of the year.

We list all four rather than quietly dropping them, because a benefit list you can trust is one that includes the boring entries. Padding the good ones and hiding the weak ones is how the rest of this category writes, and it is why nobody can tell which benefits are real.

The one condition that applies to all seven

Each of these requires an action: linking an account, presenting the benefit, or checking out through a specific route. None of them apply automatically the way delivery does. That is the difference between a benefit you have and a benefit you use, and it is the reason most members get value from two of these seven at most.

Pick the ones that match something you already spend money on — fuel if you drive, Grubhub+ if you order food — and ignore the rest without guilt. The membership is decided by delivery anyway; this section is upside, and upside you never claim is worth zero.