In which I outsmarted myself, thought better of it, unwittingly committed fraud, admitted said fraud, and essentially received a free year of Prime for my unintentionally criminal ways.
1. Hear about, then bitch about the Prime cost going up.
2. Read about a workaround whereby you can gift Prime to yourself at the current rate, then just re-up using that gift when your current sub expires.
3. Do #2 above (Beavis: snicker!)
4. Read about how using this loophole will lose any grandfathered status you have regarding Prime sub sharing. Mild freakout.
5. Chat with Amazon to see if they will refund me since I didn't use the gift yet. NAY, they say, but just dispute charge with your credit card (which happens to be an Amazon Prime credit card, not that that matters)
6. Dispute the charge on my Amazon Prime credit card, and 2-3 weeks later (!) I get a message confirming that they received my request, and will look into it.
7. Read how you can just convert the existing, non-redeemed Prime gift into Amazon store credit. I do that, and immediatly email CC bank that I want to cancel my dispute.
8. FF 3-4 weeks (more?). Get an email from CC saying they finally processed my dispute, and have credited my account for $128 (or whatever it was).
9. Me freak out. Chats with Amazon CS to let them know what happened (so they don't think I was trying to defraud them by double dipping: converting the gift to Amazon credit AND disputing and receiving a credit from credit card bank.
10. Amazon CS: nah, we're cool. Enjoy your free Prime sub year.