Quick note: This information is coming from front line customer service representatives. They often have partially incorrect information. I’ve reached out to Discover’s media team to confirm this information, but I believe it to be correct at the time of writing due to the sheer number of different CSR that have confirmed. There seems to be some conflicting information on whether the 5% categories will also be doubled or not.
The Promotion
Starting June 1st, Discover will be offering one of the most generous promotions I’ve ever seen. They will be offering double cash back on all purchases for the Discover it, let that sink in for a moment. This means you’ll earn at the following rates:
- 10% cash back on rotating categories
- 2% cash back on all purchases
- Double cash back on all ShopDiscover purchases
This promotion will be open to all cardholders and sign ups will start June 1st. The double cash back won’t kick in until your statement closes after you’ve registered (e.g if you’re statement closes on June 15th, then you will start earning double cash back on June 16th onwards). Keep in mind Discover let’s you change the date that your statement closes, so you could change it to close on June 2nd for example.  Personally I’d recommend waiting to enroll before changing your statement close date.
Your double cash back will be received at the end of the promotional period (e.g it will show on your 13th billing statement after registration) and you need to enroll by July 31st, 2015. It’s a shame this promotion doesn’t apply to the Discover it Miles card, 6% cash back everywhere would have been a nice promotion.
Discover it Current Bonuses
Discover usually offers a sign up bonus of $150 once a year on this card, unfortunately that offer is only available to some people via targeted means at the moment. The best sign up bonus is a $100 Amazon gift card (although the official site is also offering an introductory APR of 0% for 14 months). Also keep in mind that it’s possible to have more than one Discover it card (although I’d wait until it’s confirmed that 5% categories are also doubled otherwise there is no real advantage to having two cards for this promotion).
Our Verdict
For me the real deal is double ShopDiscover rewards. 2% cash back everywhere is nice, especially with no foreign transaction fee and the fact that Discover cards can be used in some locations where Visa/Mastercard has poor acceptance (e.g China & Japan) but there are plenty of 2%+ cards. 10% on rotating categories is also a really great benefit (if the double rewards does apply), but you’re limited to $1,500 per quarter, because this is for twelve months you could do up to $6,000 in spend for $600 cash back or an extra $300 cash back compared to normal.
ShopDiscover has no caps and also very competitive cash back rates, obviously they could just halve these rate or reduce certain merchants if they are getting hit hard and I expect them to do this to some degree but there will almost certainly be some limited windows in which it’ll be possible to really take advantage (I won’t discuss these until the promo goes live).
Let’s also hope this forces Chase’s hand and they step up their offering on the Chase Freedom card, suddenly a sign up bonus of $200 pales in comparison.
Useful Posts
- Discover will usually do a soft pull for a small credit limit increase and a hard pull for a big credit limit increase
- If you have multiple credit cards with Discover, it’s possible to reallocate your credit with them
- Discover uses your statement balance when reporting your credit utilization to consumer reporting agencies
