Unlike the Chase Freedom card, Discover doesn’t disclose all of the cash back categories for the full year. Previously they had only shown the cash back categories for Q1 (restaurants & movies) & Q2 (home improvement stores, furniture stores & Bed bath and beyond).
[Read: Tactics for hitting the 5% category bonus in Q2 for Discover it]
While I was doing some research for another article I looked at the Discover cash back calendar and noticed they’ve officially unveiled the cash back categories for Q3 & Q4. There is absolutely no surprises here, they are the same categories offered last year:
- Q3 2014: Gas stations
- Q4 2014: Holiday shopping
There was one little surprise though, when clicking on “Holiday shopping” it says the following, emphasis mine:
Exciting program details, including the maximum you could earn, are coming August 2014
I haven’t seen this wording from Discover before, but it’s possible that they’ve used it. This leads me to believe that there could be changes to the maximum that can be earned. Currently Discover gives cardholders 5% cash back on participating categories on the first $1,500 in purchases per quarter, which is effectively a limit of $75 cash back.
Overall the announced categories are pretty disappointing, they match up similarly to the Freedom’s categories and it’s already possible to get 5% cash back year round with the Fort Knox Credit Union card or SallieMae Rewards Mastercard on gas purchases. Here’s hoping that they are considering raising the spending limit, especially considering it was easy to get a basic manufactured spending technique to trigger the 5% cash back.
If you’re thinking about applying for the Discover it card, I’d recommend reading through our detailed review found here. There might be better options especially if you’re considering a card with a high cash sign up bonus.
