Amazon Prime’s latest perk is a new Rewards Visa Card with 5% back

Amazon announced this morning it’s teaming up with Chase to introduce a new Visa credit card exclusively for its most loyal customers, Prime members. The card offers Prime members 5 percent back on Amazon purchases, as well as other rewards, including 2 percent back at restaurants, gas stations and drugstores, and 1 percent back everywhere else.

This is not Amazon’s first entry into the credit card space, as any Amazon shopper can tell you. Ads appear across Amazon’s site today, encouraging you to save money on purchases by applying for Amazon’s Rewards card. However, it is one that targets Prime members in particular, with a focus on encouraging increased spending on the site.

The addition follows other cards which only work on Amazon.com or with those retailers that use Pay with Amazon, as well as the original cash-back-focused Amazon.com Rewards Visa, which offers 3 percent back on purchases.

The new card sweetens the deal for Prime members with a 5 percent cash-back option instead. Amazon says that it will upgrade current Rewards Visa Signature card members with eligible Prime memberships to the new card, but they’ll be able to take advantage of the benefits immediately — even before the card arrives.

Other benefits include no annual fee, no foreign transaction fees when traveling or when cross-border shopping, travel protection, 24/7 concierge service and zero fraud liability, and the card itself features a new metal design. There’s no cap on rewards earned and those rewards never expire, Amazon says.

The Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card (whew!) is issued by J.P. Morgan Chase, sports the Visa logo, and reads “Amazon Prime” at the top right.

The move represents yet another effort by the online retailer to encourage consumers to join its $99 yearly membership program, Amazon Prime, whose benefits now extend far beyond just free, two-day shipping.

Today, Prime members can take advantage of a host of services from Amazon, including Amazon’s Netflix-like service Prime Video, music streaming via Prime Music, free e-books and magazines through Prime Reading, Audible Channels, unlimited photo backup and storage via Prime Photos, Twitch Prime, early access to deals and more.

Amazon continually adds new perks to Prime in order to boost Prime membership, which was recently estimated to range anywhere from 58 to 69 million members. That means roughly half of U.S. households are using Prime. The program is key to Amazon’s bottom line, given that Prime members may spend more than double what non-members do, according to some analysts.

The new Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card is available starting today on Amazon. 

Update: Corrected wording, as this is not the only card that targets Prime members. However, cards like the Amazon.com Store card are designed to be used for Amazon.com purchases, not those that take place offline.