What are the best Discover it Cash Back benefits?

This question is about the Discover it® Cash Back

SUE PATTERSON, MPH student

@sweetsue 02/19/20 This answer was first published on 02/19/20. For the most current information about a financial product, you should always check and confirm accuracy with the offering financial institution. Editorial and user-generated content is not provided, reviewed or endorsed by any company.

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The best Discover it Cash Back benefits include 1% to 5% cash back rewards on purchases and 0% introductory APRs on purchases and balance transfers. There are also standard Discover it card benefits such as a $0 annual fee and 0% foreign transaction fee. And Discover will match all cash back earned during the first year after your first account anniversary.

You won’t get many traditional secondary benefits from Discover it Cash Back, though. In February 2018, Discover discontinued numerous benefits on all of its cards, including the Discover it Cash Back card. Those included purchase protection, extended warranty, and return guarantee. They also cut both travel insurance and rental car coverage at that time. Plus, price protection got dropped from Discover’s benefits package effective Halloween 2018.

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What are Discover categories?

Discover categories are areas of spending in which Discover cardholders can earn 2% to 5% cash back on the first $1,000 to $1,500 spent per quarter. These categories may rotate every quarter or they may remain the same all the time. Some of them may also require activation. Purchases outside of the categories earn 1% cash back.… read full answer

The Discover cards with rotating categories include Discover it® Cash Back, Discover it® Student Cash Back, and the NHL® Discover it® card. Past categories have included grocery stores, restaurants, gas stations, wholesale clubs and more. Cardholders earn 5% cash back on the first $1,500 spent in the quarterly categories combined, and 1% back on all other purchases. In order to earn 5% cash back each quarter, you will need to activate the categories online.

Several Discover cards have categories that do not rotate. The Discover it® chrome, Discover it® Student chrome and Discover it® Secured Credit Card all offer 2% cash back on the first $1,000 spent per quarter at gas stations and restaurants combined. And they give 1% cash back on all other purchases. These non-rotating Discover categories do not need to be activated.

The Discover it® Miles card is the only Discover card without categories. It offers 1.5 miles per $1 on all purchases.

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How does the Discover cashback bonus work?

There are 3 Discover cashback bonuses, the first of which is a 5% bonus rate on the first $1,500 spent in designated purchase categories every quarter. Cardholders can earn as much as $75 in bonus Discover cashback each quarter – $300 per year – from one of the cards offering this deal: Discover it Cash Back, Discover it Balance Transfer, NHL Discover it and Discover it Cash Back for Students. All other purchases earn just 1% cash back. The bonus categories rotate quarterly.… read full answer

Other Discover cards offer a cashback bonus in certain categories that never change. Discover it chrome, Discover it Student chrome and Discover it Secured offer 2% cash back on the first $1,000 spent at gas stations and restaurants. Other purchases get 1% back.

There’s a final Discover cashback bonus that all Discover it cards have. With Cashback Match, Discover will match all the rewards you earn the first year your account is open. So if you rack up $500 in rewards during the first 12 months, for example, Discover will tack on another $500 as an anniversary present.

Discover’s 2% cash back bonus and Cashback Match are fairly simple, but there are several other details you’ll need to know about the 5% bonus. To start, Discover has a cash back calendar showing when the categories rotate. And to get the 5% Discover cashback bonus, you need to “activate” it every quarter. You can easily do so by logging in to your Discover account from their cashback bonus page. You can activate the new categories on the first day of the quarter.

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