Each year for the last couple of years, my husband has given me a 12-month subscription to Kindle Unlimited as part of my Christmas gift. This year, however, it seems that particular gift will be missing from under the tree: On Saturday, I noticed that Amazon is no longer offering ANY pre-paid or gift subscriptions to the service.
In the past, you used to be able to pre-pay your Kindle Unlimited subscription in increments of 6, 12 and 24 months. Or, you could buy a gift subscription for someone by going to a special gift landing page. Now, that page shows a message stating that gifting is unavailable is blank.
Is this a permanent change in the way Kindle Unlimited subscriptions are handled? The Amazon page says that they are “working on getting it back as soon as possible.”
The Purchase a Kindle Uimited Pre-Paid Subscription help page still indicates that you can buy pre-paid and gift subscriptions for terms of up to 24 months. The Manage or Cancel Your Kindle Unlimited Membership page still refers to pre-paid gift and bundles. There is just no longer a link to purchase those subscriptions. Now, the only option on the sign up page for Kindle Unlimited is to pay $9.99 per month for the service.
I was going to try to contact Amazon today to ask about the pre-paid plans and, as the picture below shows, found that there is no option for any kind of support for Kindle Unlimited, even under the digital services tab.
It seems odd the that there is no help available for gifting options for KU, especially during the holiday season.
Amazon has gone back and forth on the idea of gifting some of its services: There was a time when you could not gift Amazon Prime, and Amazon Music Unlimited still cannot be purchased as a gift.
I can also understand that Amazon might not want the hassle of customer service support for Kindle Unlimited during the busy holiday season. Amazon’s servers already tend to be swamped with people registering their new devices and buying content with their gift cards.
It may also be the case that the no refunds policy for gifts and pre-paid subscriptions may be a factor. While the service boasts over a million titles, most are by indie and Amazon’s own publishing imprint authors. People looking to read the latest bestsellers may prefer a different gift after sampling the service.
It will be interesting to see if the gift and pre-paid options return after the holidays. (I, for one, liked the convenience of the option.)
What do you think?
The eBook Evangelist 
And it’s now 12/14 and you still can’t gift it… That’s a shame, as I give a year as a gift every year…
Andy, they are allowing 12 month subscriptions again! Here’s the gift landing page. 🙂
My husband’s mother has been buying me unlimited kindle for a few years and I know she has been in contact with Amazon since 11/30 and I believe before then on this issue. Instead of fixing it their short term solution was to remove the page from their site completely. Now I have to buy it as a monthly subscription? Ugggh.
They must have listened to your mother-in-law! Amazon is again allowing the gifting of Kindle Unlimited for a period of 12 months. Here’s the page.
Hi! I tried the link and it took me to a blank page. Can you paste the actual link? Thank you!!
Erica, it was working when I put it up, but now seems to be wonky for some reason. 😦 Try or you can try https://www.amazon.com/kindleunlimitedgift or try via the KU help page – that’s how I found it.
Thank you! I just used the link you posted and I was able to purchase a kindle unlimited gift subscription for a year for my father. Thanks for the link!
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Oh boy, it looks like there yearly subscription is royally broken. I’m having MAJOR issues and they say the yearly subscriptions are experiencing a “known issue.”
And the problems continue. The Gift links are now not working, and they still haven’t refunded me.
Andy, no further word from Amazon on this?
I spent at least 30 minutes being transferred from person to person in Amazon’s chat support system yesterday. They say that their system says the order was refunded on 12/25, but there’s no sign of it in my account (or in my bank’s system, or the payment processor’s). The last person (supposedly a supervisor) said they would get me the transaction reference number, but it could take up to 48 hours to get it. That seemed odd to me since a completed and successful transaction should have a reference number much more easily available.
So, I’m still waiting… We’re getting closer to me disputing the transaction with the bank.
I purchased the gift subscription Dec. 20, $80.21. My card was charged $9.99 for Jan. I called Kindle customer service today and they were only able to refund my $80, and cancel the subscription. Today is Jan 17, I’m not happy. It wasn’t the books so much as the audio books. I hope they rethink this.