Discover has rolled out a new redemption option, cardholders can now use Apple Pay to use their cashback balance to pay for everyday items. It works as follows:
- Select Discover card in Apple Pay and make a qualifying purchase
- Select ‘Tap for Details’ under the Discover redemption message in Apple Wallet
- Tap redeem your Cashback Bonus as a statement credit in the amount of your purchase
It won’t work for T-mobile customers (unless your device is connected to WiFi). Discover is trying to position this as the first ever apple pay rewards feature. Not sure I’d exactly call this Apple Pay rewards, but maybe it means they have plans to add other features as well. For me this is a nothing addition, you can already redeem your Discover cash back for statement credit this is just giving you the option to do this at the time of purchase. I don’t think there is any particular advantage to applying rewards to certain purchases and not others, I guess the upside is that when users are redeeming they get the feeling of “that was free thanks to Discover!!” rather than just taking $X amount off their statement. Redeeming for cash back isn’t always the best option either.
Personally I’d prefer Discover to focus on features and benefits that have a more practical application as I think this is where Discover has an advantage other card issuers with things like:
