Invite-Only deals started last year during Prime Day in an effort to give more people an equal chance to take advantage of the best deals Amazon has to offer. The program must've worked well for Amazon because they repeated it during Prime Big Deal Days later in October. Prime Day will kick off on July 16, but some products are already listed as "invite-only deals." Knowing how to sign up for the Invite-Only deals will give you a fighting chance at taking advantage of these deals.
How to sign up for Prime Day Invite-Only deals
Only a few products will be invite-only deals. They'll have the "invite-only" banner on the product page. If they don't have it, you can't request an invitation for it. As Amazon explains, you must be a Prime Member to sign up for the Invite-Only deals. What you're doing is essentially requesting an invitation to the deal, which will come by email. Here are the steps from Amazon:
Find an "Invite-Only Prime Deal" that you want to purchase. You can find the deals on the Deals page.
Navigate to the product detail page.
Select "Request Invite." If you are not a Prime member, sign up for Prime to be able to request an invite.
You will receive an email notification confirming you requested an invite. The confirmation will be sent to the email that is on your Amazon account. If you don't have an email on your account, add one by navigating to Your Account > Login > Security.
Keep in mind that just because you requested an invitation doesn't mean you'll receive one. If you are selected, you'll receive a push notification and email during the sale. If you're not selected, Amazon will also let you know you didn't get one. You can only buy one of the products that you were invited for, but you can request as many different product invitations as you want. The invitation will last as long as Prime Day lasts (two days).
As you can see from our past coverage of Prime Day Invite-Only deals, they are impressive. In October, Amazon had a 43-inch 4K Smart Fire TV for $99. You'll likely see similar deals this year. Some other tips to shop smartly for Prime Day are to use Alexa to remind you about deals and use deal alerts to receive notifications related to your recent Amazon searches and recently viewed items.