Amazon Discount Finder Find hidden 75%-off deals & more

This is a hidden rulebook for giant web store Amazon, with 13 top tricks to slash prices. This includes our Amazon Discounts Finder Tool, which instantly finds secret 75% off plus bargains, including DVDs, cameras, clothes, video games and more.

Plus track price reductions, grab free gift vouchers and escape delivery charges.

1. Don't assume Amazon's cheapest
Take 20 seconds to check elsewhere

The Amazon* business model is that it's a one-stop shop. Yet, however tempting it is to do all your shopping in one easy sweep, you can often undercut it.

In the same amount of time as it takes to search Amazon, you can use shopbots (shopping robots) that whizz to scores of internet retailers to find the cheapest price. Our Megashopbot.com tool auto-searches the best of these for each category.

The same rule applies if you're buying Amazon Marketplace gear, where external sellers supply new and second hand stuff. Always check if eBay* or similar sites sell it cheaper. See the Ebay Buying Secrets guide for more on this.

2. Find Amazon's secret bargain basement

Amazon often offers 90% and better reductions, yet it directs people to other areas, sending them to higher profit margin products instead.

There's a geeky way to manipulate Amazon's web links to display all heavily-reduced bargains. All you need do is fiddle with Amazon web addresses (URLs) to bring up lists of knock-down prices.

The problem is these are a faff to make yourself. So we've built the Amazon Hidden Discount Finder tool (above) that creates your own bespoke super-specific sub-department pages in seconds, where you choose the discount and if you want free delivery.

Top tips for using the Amazon Discount Tool

When searching for treasure, don't just look at the first page of bargains, try a few. And don't assume just because it's discounted it's a good buy. Try higher percentage discounts for cheaper, smaller items and lower percentages for niche, expensive ones.

Not all items have free delivery, so just tick the tool's ‘free supersaver delivery' box and do the search. Only items with free delivery will show, and Marketplace sellers, where delivery usually isn't free, should be excluded from the search.

Before you try the tool, here are some popular web addresses we made earlier:

3. Track past Amazon prices

Our hidden discount finder's proved hugely popular, yet, as we've warned, just because Amazon lists it as reduced, it doesn't make it cheap. Before you buy, plonk any item's Amazon URL (web link) into the site CamelCamelCamel and it charts Amazon price changes, to show whether the 'was' price is realistic. The results can be fascinating.

First find hidden discounts with our Amazon Discount Tool, then just go to CamelCamelCamel and paste a specific product's Amazon URL in the search box. Hit the buttons to remove different seller types or drag the timeline to adjust the date range.

Try the Firefox plug-in

There's also a nifty free Camelizer plug-in for the Firefox web browser, which charts price changes while you visit Amazon.

Installing's simple: if you don't already have FireFox, go to mozilla.org and follow the prompts. Then go to Camelizer and hit download. Follow the prompts and restart Firefox.

Go to an item's Amazon page and click the tiny camel in your browser's bottom right – the price chart should appear.

4. Monitor the perfect moment to buy

Amazon prices jump up and down more than Jordan on a trampoline, and when they're cheap, they sell out quickly. Yet CamelCamelCamel lets you enter your desired price and fires off an email when Amazon hits it.

Simply pop an item's URL into it, click the 'track' tab and enter the maximum price you want to cough up. You'll receive an e-mail when the price falls to that amount or lower.

Alternatively, Zeezaw works in a similar way. Just sign up, create a list with the max price you want to pay for Amazon items, and you receive e-mails when the price drops.

5. Not everything has free delivery

These days Amazon* offers free delivery as standard. The free super saver option usually takes three to five days, but not all goods qualify. Some items do have a delivery charge, especially goods sold by Amazon Marketplace sellers, rather than Amazon itself.

Always check at the top of the page that it states ‘Your order qualifies for free delivery'. If it doesn't, you'll pay.

6. Don't 'pay more by default'

While Amazon lists free delivery on some products, you have to select the 'super saver' delivery box at the checkout. If not, the default delivery option is expensive - one to two days first-class.

7. Get next-day delivery free

Currently, Amazon* is offering customers a free 30-day trial of its 'Prime' service, in the hope that they'll keep paying for it once the trial's over. The service gets you free one-day delivery, rather than its slower free delivery. The beauty is you can sign up, order, then just cancel the trial before Amazon charges you.

Amazon's press office says that currently anyone who logs on to their account who hasn't already taken a trial will be offered one.

This is especially useful if you time the trial to coincide with Xmas shopping to get parcels delivered speedily. Though only do this if you are super-organised and will remember to cancel. See the Free Amazon Prime Trial Instructions.

Go to Amazon and click the Amazon Prime link on the screen's left hand side. If it says 'Sign up today for your free trial of Amazon Prime', sign up for it and shop as normal. You'll automatically get the free one-day delivery, provided you've ordered products sold by Amazon.co.uk itself, not Marketplace sellers.

If you have already taken a Prime trial, it's unlikely you'll be offered it again on your account. See Prime terms and conditions.

How to cancel

As the trial will run its course even after you've said you're not paying, cancel as soon as you've signed up. Forget to cancel, and it'll take £49 from your acount. Yikes!

To cancel payment, view 'Your Account' using the link at the top right of the page, scrolling down to Prime Settings. In the Membership Information panel on the next page, click 'Don't upgrade automatically'.

Now it should tell say the trial will NOT upgrade automatically, so you can enjoy the remainder, safe in the knowledge it's free. Though do still check your bank statement on the day the cash would leave, because mistakes happen. And don't use the delivery as an excuse to buy more!

Is it worth paying for Prime?

Amazon Prime is not worth your dough once the trial runs out, unless you're a mega shopper. The site's all-inclusive free super saver delivery package will save you money. Since you get free three to five-day super saver delivery anyway, you'd need to buy a heck of a lot of gear and need it all the next day to justify the £49 annual price tag. Better to be organised and order early.

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8. Get £10 free Amazon credit

The Natwest* & RBS* YourPoints World card gives 2,500 points when you successfully apply, enough for a £10 voucher at Amazon, as well as Boots and M&S.;

Always pay off in full, or the 17.9% representative APR interest will dwarf the gain. See Credit Card Freebies for a full guide to this, the effect on your credit score and more freebies.

9. Earn Amazon vouchers with online surveys

If you're willing to give your views on topics like the Labour Party, lingerie or the latest moisturiser, you could earn Amazon and other gift vouchers by doing online surveys. All you have to do is put the hours in filling in surveys online. Dedicated survey do-ers earn £200ish a year from home.

Several survey sites pay you in Amazon vouchers, including Valued Opinions, MySurvey and, for IT workers, QNA. There's a full step-by-step guide to the top paying online survey and market research companies in the Earn from Survey Sites guide.

10. Students, save 5%

Students are about the only lucky chaps who can get a voucher code for an instant discount. You need a current National Union of Students Extra card to get 5% off.

Just log on to the NUS website and click 'access this deal'. It will give you a personal promotional code to paste into the gift voucher code box on Amazon every time you order. The reusable code should be valid for 12 months.

The discount only works on certain departments, including books, music, DVD, beauty and home. See a full list.

11. Tap in to free cash with Amazon Associates

If you've a blog or website, set up a free account with Amazon Associates, a scheme where you earn Amazon vouchers for linking to the site.

Just follow the steps to add links and banners to your website. When someone clicks on Amazon from your site and makes a transaction, it's recorded and you're paid 5% commission, which you get in the form of cash or an Amazon discount. This rises to 15%, depending on how much you sell and what category it's in; see a full list of payments.

Amazon only pays out once your commission hits £25 or, for cash payouts, £50. Do note that any products bought by you personally won't count towards your commission, as anything ordered for delivery to your home address or paid for on a credit card registered to your home address is excluded. There's nothing to stop pals clicking through though.

12. Use a cashback credit card

You can earn up to 5% every time you spend by using a cashback credit card, although always ensure you pay it off in full to avoid interest charges.

There's no conflict between using a cashback card and clicking through from charities or Nectar (see below). This is because when you spend money, it's the cashback site, not the retailer giving some of it back, whomever it's spent with. For the current top payers, see the full Best Cashback Cards guide.

13. Earn charity funds or Nectar points

It's possible to give charities a boost at no extra cost to you. Simply click through to Amazon from a charity's special link, log in and click on the product you want.

When you grab something, it's recorded and Amazon pays the charity 5% of your purchase in cash – no small beer, especially as it costs you nothing.

Click through to Amazon from there BEFORE you put anything in your basket, otherwise the charities won't get the money. Charities that do this include: Royal National Institute of Blind People, Epilepsy Action and Voluntary Service Overseas.

If you work for a legit registered UK charity, add it to the Amazon Charity Clicks thread, so MoneySavers can help their favourite causes.

Earn Nectar points

Alternatively, set up a free account with Nectar, log in and click on Amazon. When you buy something, it's recorded and normally you're paid one Nectar Point point for every £1 spent. Do click through from Nectar before you plonk stuff in the basket to ensure you get points.

If you spent £500 at Amazon, you'd have 500 Nectar points, which our Reward Checker values at a paltry £3. Considering a £500 purchase would net a charity a £25 donation, that option could be more worthwhile.

If you're wondering whether it's possible to use Cashback Sites with Amazon, the answer is usually no, none of them currently list it.