It's common for cards to have a roughly $99 yearly fee that gives you nothing other than the ability to have the card. It's a stretch, but I don't think it's dishonest to say the card is free* . *With an Amazon Prime membership.

Not really extremely common, it's extremely easy to find good cards without annual fees. The annual fees are usually for the more "prime" cards that give you more benefits and rewards.

Even so, the point was it's misleading at best to require something that has an annual fee as a condition to get the best rewards then claim the card has no annual fee.

It's not really an annual fee, though. You're paying for a product with Amazon prime -- besides free movies, photos, shipping, etc, you can now get a special card with no annual fee _just for having it_.

Yeah, super misleading headline. I'd sign up in an instant if it was as described, but don't really care if it's just Amazon purchases.

Do you take umbrage with "free shipping" being used to describe shipping with a Prime membership?

I do.

But in general I think "free" has lost all coherent meaning in modern English. It is used as a synonym of "included." When someone says "free" (at the cost of $100/year) I just roll my eyes in my head.

With the card however, it is a decent card with or without prime membership however since you get 3% without Prime which is still mucher higher cash back than competitive offers.

True. But 3% even without Prime on Amazon.com which isn't shabby.

You need to spend $3333 to earn back the Prime membership for 3% cashback, or $2000 for 5% cashback, not an amount I may reach every year..