Amazon Prime Day is June 21: How to get deals starting now – CNET [CNET]

Isn’t it time to start calling it “Prime Days”? Because it hasn’t been just a single day for years. Once again, it’s a 48-hour event that runs as follows.

• Prime Day starts on Monday, June 21 at 12:01 a.m. PT (3:01 a.m. ET).
• Prime Day ends on Tuesday, June 22 at 11:59 p.m. PT (Wednesday, June 23 at 2:59 a.m. ET) — but some deals often extend a few hours into the following morning, if not longer.

A batch of early discounts leading up to the main event are already live.

As always, anything and everything. But this is definitely the time of year to look for deep discounts on Amazon gear, including:

• Echo smart speakers and displays
• Fire TVs and Fire TV Sticks
• Fire tablets
• Kindle e-readers
• Ring security devices
• Eero networking products

Granted, that stuff goes on sale all the time — a recent Mother’s Day sale revealed savings rivaling Prime Day on a lot of these devices — but the absolute lowest prices are usually reserved for Prime Day and Black Friday.

We also typically see better-than-usual deals on things like Instant Pots, Apple AirPods, Bose headphones and Roku streamers. Make no mistake: This might be Amazon’s party, but plenty of other stores and sellers will be getting in on the action.

This may be an Amazon event, but that won’t stop other stores from getting in on the action. Walmart has already announced a Deals for Days event running from June 21 to 23. Similarly, Target’s recently announced Deal Days event will run from June 20 to 22. Expect Best Buy, Kohl’s and other stores to roll out big sales of their own. Best Buy, for example, is likely to compete heavily on TV deals. We’ll update this when more events are announced. 

As we get closer to the main event, there will be loads of Prime Day deals to prepare for. For now, these are the best things we’ve been able to find. 

• Best streamer deals for Prime Day 2021
• Best early Prime Day headphone deals
• Best early Prime Day TV deals
• Best early Prime Day phone deals
• Best early Prime Day kitchen and cookware deals 

Amazon and its partners will be making a ton of announcements over the next two weeks.

At a certain point, an “early Prime Day deal” becomes a matter of semantics. For instance, Amazon is pitching its discounted Fire TV models as early Prime Day deals — but trust me when I say there are deals to be had all day, every day. You can check my Cheapskate page for the latest and greatest, sign up for the Cheapskate newsletter (see that “Sign Me Up” box just below), get deal texts sent right to your phone and so on. 

You can also follow me on Facebook and Twitter. And check out Amazon’s Daily Deals page, where the retailer markets its limited-time and semipermanent offers. Spoiler alert: Deal quality varies widely from day to day.

The best thing you can do is sign up for an Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card. It’s a no-annual-fee card, so there’s no cost to get it. Once you’re approved, you’ll immediately receive a $100 Amazon gift card, and then get 5% cash back on most Amazon purchases — including products that are on sale for Prime Day. Sometimes Amazon bumps that cash back to 10% or 15% on select items.

Right now, for example, you can also get 15% back on various Kasa smart home products, 10% back on the Amazfit Band 5 and more.

This year Amazon is busting out some new tricks to promote the massive event. The retail giant has announced a three-part concert series called The Prime Day Show, featuring performances from Kid Cudi, H.E.R. and Billie Eilish. Each concert is expected to have its own unique theme and will start livestreaming on Thursday, June 17. If you aren’t able to tune in on launch day, the streams will be available for 30 days.