For students, it's 6 months free and a discount of 50%! http://www.amazon.com/gp/student/signup/info

The link to Amazon Prime in that article is an affiliate link. Here's the part that gives it away ?tag=slicinc-20

If this was intentional it's basically an ad for Amazon without a disclosure.

If it was unintentional, they just linked to amazon with a random person's amazon affiliate link, and probably made them quite a bit of cash.

Update: It looks like the author of the article, found the deal via slickdeals and used it on Techcrunch without realizing it was an affiliate link.

It's been removed with an attribution link to slickdeals added at the bottom of the article.

Any way to force renew early?

Go here [1]. Click End membership. Select the option to end later. Note the day your membership ends.

Then go here [2] and buy for yourself as a gift for the day after your membership ends.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/primecentral/editMembership/ref=pc...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/gp/prime/pipeline/prime_gifting_landi...

The discount is for new members only.

If you read the article in it's entirety you'll see it specifically mentions current customers are not eligible for the promotion.

Not in the UK...