11 Amazon Vacation Shopping Tips to Save You Time and Money

If you’re saving your holiday shopping for the last minute or looking for quick and easy gift ideas, then Amazon’s online shopping is your boon—these seven Amazon holiday shopping tips will help save you time and money this season.

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1) Easy Return and Safe Package Delivery

Pix Kits | Adobe stock

Amazon offers customers the option to ship orders to the self-service Locker Hub, available in more than 900 US cities, including Whole Foods and partner locations such as Rite Aid, GNC, and Stage stores, as well as at independent Health Mart pharmacies. See the location here. Prime members also have access to Key by Amazon, where members can choose to have packages delivered in their home, car, or garage (in certain areas only).

You can store your package in Hub Lockers for up to three days at no additional cost, which is convenient for hiding your Amazon holiday shopping gifts from curious prying eyes. Another option to hide gifts is coming to Prime members with Amazon Day, which means you can have all your orders arrive together on any given day.

And when it comes time for a return, if you don’t want to ship your item back with a trip to the post office, you can return your online gift purchase directly at Whole Foods and choose a Kohl location (where they’ll even pack it for you) or on-site. other Hub Locker and Hub Counter partners.

2) Last Minute Travel Rewards

Buy a gift card for a traveler’s favorite service, like Southwest, or a VISA card they can use for their vacation, directly on Amazon. This website offers virtual gift cards for many travel-related services, which makes it a quick and easy gift. Another easy gift to give? Magazine subscriptions for their favorite publications.

3) Last Minute Delivery

For Prime members (or for an additional fee for non-members), you can guarantee delivery of rewards within 48 hours for most products offered on Amazon. Amazon also offers Prime Free One-Day Shipping and millions of items are available for Same-Day Delivery. This means you could theoretically save on your Amazon online shopping until just before the holidays—though I recommend starting early so you don’t miss out on top-selling travel products.

As an added bonus, Prime members get free Amazon fresh food delivery, so you can avoid the grocery store for your holiday food shopping.

4) Amazon Register

People shopping on their laptops with their credit cards — Konstantin Yuganov | Adobe stock

Don’t forget yourself! The Amazon List function is ideal for storing gift ideas, for others and for yourself. Look under the drop-down menu labeled “Accounts & Lists” and click “Your Lists” to start adding products. Listings are a great way to see what your spouse or kids want for the holidays: Just ask them to make their own and you can buy straight from their selection.

5) Shop and Save with Curated Gift Guide

Check out lists like Mariah’s Must-Haves for handpicked gift guides by your favorite celebrities. And as an added bonus, Amazon hosts dozens of other curated gift guides as well as staggered sales throughout the season.

6) Earn Points for Trips

Some travel businesses have partnerships with Amazon, such as JetBlue, which allow you to earn points when shopping while connected to their in-flight wi-fi. Use your TrueBlue account to access your special link to earn points for holiday shopping on Amazon. Hilton also lets you shop on Amazon with points, so you can save on rewards for your recent Hilton hotel stays.

7) Follow the Treasure Truck

Amazon’s Treasure Truck (a mobile pop-up shop that offers flash sales on select items available that day) is back in operation this year. Sign up for text notifications, and you’ll get notifications about limited-time offers that can be sent directly to you.

Amazon Echo and smartphone on wooden table — Erkan | Adobe stock

If you have an Alexa-enabled device like Amazon’s Echo, Fire Tablets, or Fire Stick products, you can order your holiday gifts via voice commands. Just say, “Alexa, order … on Amazon” and your Amazon vacation shopping can be done while you’re making dinner or watching TV. You can even ask Alexa to light up your Christmas Tree with a smart light switch, play games, or suggest family-friendly conversation topics.

9) Turn Your Coins Into Amazon Cash

Collect all the coins that have been gathering dust around your house and turn them into your local Coinstar. The minimum amount to cash out is only $5, but if you actually have deposited change, you can cash out up to $1,000.

10) Keep Everyone Entertained with Prime Video

Get access to Amazon’s huge catalog of shows and movies with Prime Video. Keep everyone entertained with holiday classics or catch up on the latest series that everyone will be discussing at the dinner table.

Amazon supports many small and medium-sized businesses, and you can shop for products from these types of businesses on the Storefront portal.

Take your holiday gift giving to another level by using AmazonSmile (a program that donates a portion of the purchase price of eligible products to a charity of your choice) and Charity Lists, which are lists created by charities of the products they need and the items they need. purchased are sent directly to charities.