A year of free Nintendo Switch Online now comes with Amazon Prime

Image Credit: Nintendo

Annoyed you can no longer play Mario Kart online without paying for Nintendo's service? If you're an Amazon Prime subscriber, you may be able to get online access for free.

Rather than paying the $3.99 (£3.49 / AU$5.95) monthly fee, Amazon is offering a way to get a whole year of the Nintendo Switch Online service for free.

It's through the company's Twitch Prime service - which comes as an additional, free extra to Amazon's service anyway - but it is a little complicated to claim the full year.

A two part, two month process

First off, Twitch is clearly stating this is only available in certain countries. There's no official list of where you can get it, but we've heard of those claiming it in the US and in the UK.

Secondly, you'll have to claim the trial in two separate parts. If you head to the Twitch Amazon site you'll be able to claim this trial at any stage before September 24 this year, and it'll be for a three month period.

Then when you're 60 days through that trial, you'll have to head back to the same website to claim the additional nine months. Exactly why the service is doing it in this way is unclear, but you'll also have to provide payment details to sign up for the initial trial too.

By signing up to the trial, it'll automatically renew so we'd recommend making a note somewhere that you need to resign up for the second trial to ensure you don't end up paying for Nintendo Switch Online. 

You'll also be able to cancel your trial altogether at any stage if you find you're not using it.

As an added benefit within the Amazon Prime package that already offers a variety of benefits including one-day delivery and access to the company's streaming service, this may prove useful for a lot of Switch owners.

James Peckham

James is the Editor-in-Chief at Android Police. Previously, he was Senior Phones Editor for TechRadar, and he has covered smartphones and the mobile space for the best part of a decade bringing you news on all the big announcements from top manufacturers making mobile phones and other portable gadgets. James is often testing out and reviewing the latest and greatest mobile phones, smartwatches, tablets, virtual reality headsets, fitness trackers and more. He once fell over.

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