Amazon Prime Shoppers Get Early Access to Holiday Savings This Year

Amazon is giving Prime members an opportunity to start their holiday shopping sooner than usual with a new Prime Early Access Sale.

All of the holiday sales you might be used to are still happening, of course, but now you can get a sneak peek (or a head start) with Amazon's new Prime Early Access Sale. Provided you're an Amazon Prime member and don't miss the limited 48-hour early sales window, that is.

If you do check the event out, Amazon says you can expect "hundreds of thousands of deals" in all of its top categories, such as electronics, home, pets, and toys. As with other Amazon holiday sales events, you can also expect new surprise deals to pop up throughout.

And if you're worried you might miss out on something, Amazon is reminding Prime members that they can set up deal alerts to give them a heads-up when a new item has a price drop during the event.

Granted, this all requires that you have an Amazon Prime membership, which typically costs either $14.99 per month or $139 for a full year (that comes to about $40 less overall). However, it looks like Amazon is offering a free 30-day trial to new Prime members, so you can sign up for free to take advantage of the sale is an option. Just remember to cancel Prime before the trial ends in order to avoid any automatic renewals and the charges that come with them.

The Prime Day Early Access Sale runs from October 11 (12 a.m. PT) through October 12 and will be available for Prime members in 15 different countries, including: Austria, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the UK, and the US.

However, you don't have to wait until October to check out Amazon's holiday gift guides, which are available now (though they're ultimately just suggestions and not actual sales).