Discover have released the 5% quarterly categories for the second quarter of 2017. It will be Wholesale Clubs and Home Improvement stores. Max $1500 for the quarter, as usual. Activation starts March 1.
Wholesale is becoming an increasingly popular 5% category.
The Fine Print
For Discover it® and Discover® More® cardmembers only: Activate to earn 5% Cashback Bonus at Home Improvement Stores and Wholesale Clubs from 4/1/17 (or the date on which you activate 5%, whichever is later) through 6/30/17, on up to $1,500 in purchases. Home Improvement Stores are defined as home improvement retail stores, lumber/building material stores, paint/wallpaper stores, hardware stores and lawn and garden supply centers. Check with your Wholesale Club to make sure your Discover card is accepted. Certain Wholesale Club services, such as travel and cell phone purchases may not be eligible in this category. Purchases made using third-party payment accounts, tap-and-pay, mobile or wireless card readers, virtual wallets or similar technology may not be eligible. Rewards are added to your Cashback Bonus account within two billing periods. See Cashback Bonus Program Terms and Conditions for more information about your rewards.
(Hat tip to Fatwallet)
 Freedom Q2 Categories
As reported previously, the Chase Freedom card will have grocery and drugstores as their Q2 2017 category. Activation starts March 15.
Dividend Q2 Categories
As previously reported, the Citi Dividned card will have Drugstores and Fitness Clubs as their Q2 2017 category. Activation starts March 15.
See a nice roundup of Q1 2017 categories here.
Just got done chatting with Discover support.
Discover Home Improvement qualifying MCC codes: 5072, 5251, 5200, 5065, 5713, 5193, 5231, 5211, 5261, 5198, 5074, 5039, 1711, 7217
https://www.discover.com/credit-cards/cashback-bonus/cashback-calendar.html
Discover Second calendar quarter is open for signup / registration.
buy costco cash card online using discover card eligible for 5%?
Ding ding ding
I shop at costco A LOT, so this is great. In the past, usually costco was excluded.
I used to do this too. Gives me 5%/10% cashback and it also makes the ‘checkout’ process at the gas station much easier, since you don’t have to dip two cards (cash card counts as costco membership card — at least in my area).
However, I noticed that my most recent cash card purchase didn’t code as wholesales club, but general merchandise: http://imgur.com/a/VD2y8
Just a hiccup or did they close this loop for good?
Weird. I’ll have to look at mine after it’s finished pending. I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t code as warehouse and as such they should manually add the cash back to your account. Online or not, it’s still buying from a warehouse.
just checked mine, same here, it is “Merchant Category MISC. GENERAL MERCHANDISE”
Q2 last couple years for Discover was restaurants, wasn’t it? I’d personally rather have restaurants than wholesale clubs, especially since Discover is only accepted at Sams, and not Costco. To each their own.
Discover is accepted online for Costco
Dave P – check out your wholesale club for great gift card deals at restaurants – they often have a variety of restaurants where you get 100.00 in gift cards for 80.00 – then add in your 5%. This is a win/win
Yes, but you can’t use Costco Cash to buy them. And to use Discover, you first need to get Costco Cash cards.
did not know that, thank you.
Sick and tired of wholesale clubs.
You’re crazyyyy.
I always laugh when someone complains about warehouse promotions, and usually there’s always one person in every discussion.
You may want to grab a barf bag because I don’t see warehouse promotions ending anytime soon, and thankfully so. The demographics of warehouse shoppers have higher than average income and consequently spend more which is music to the ears of hungry banks.
There always seems to be this overvaluation of miles and points when compared to actual cash savings. Oren’s Money Saver has pointed this out several times. The difference is the travel community has this sex appeal to it whereas there’s less luster with cash savings.
To each their own, but I’ll always value 5-10% savings on things I already buy rather than vacations I wouldn’t otherwise take if not for getting free points/miles. One is actual savings whereas the other is a luxury. We all need vacations so I’m not shitting on travel here either as it most definitely has it’s value.
I suppose it boils down to the demographics of this niche community, many of which are single and/or retired. To those of us with families we’re loving these warehouse promos. Would be really interesting to see a poll on preference in cash to travel based on age and lifestyle.
I didn’t say anything about miles and trips. Wholesale clubs is as useful category for me as home improvement is: absolutely useless. If you don’t have a family of six, why would you shop there? You can make decent savings at regular grocery stores like Kroger/Meijer. I may look for any MS opportunities, otherwise this is a clear pass.
Anthonyjh21,
As always a spot-on post. I have truly appreciated your insight over the years and just referred to one of your old comments today on how to get 5.5% on SallieMae! (I had never redeemed before!)
You are right that too many people overvalue points/miles as opposed to cash back. And I think it has to do with your life stage: single or retired people have more/freedom flexibility to travel while people with young families do not. Being in the latter, I prefer cold, hard cash every time! (perhaps there is a DoC article in there somewhere?)
Anyway, thanks again for your contributions to this community.
Anyone know if it’s purchase date or post date? I have a 10% off Lowe’s coupon that expires 3/31. :/
It’s post date. I ran into a similar issue last year where the DCB on my cards were ending on 7/1 and 7/3. I escalated this question to management via SM (more than once) who eventually confirmed that the transaction needed to post within the statement cutoff date in order to be automatically credited with DCB. I had wanted to buy eBay gift cards from Lowe’s (during the glory days of eBay). I skipped the card that closed 7/1 but I did gamble on the 7/3 card. My purchase was made 7/1 and posted 7/3 and it was automatically Included in DCB by the skin of my teeth.
Long story short, you’ll probably get different answers from Discover but in the end it takes 2-3 business days for a transaction to post and it must be before your statement closes to get your DCB (or 5% cb for that matter).
So does wholesale include Sam’s Club? I had some success last year buying a pre-paid MC at Sam’s and max loading it. Since my Discover card doesn’t have the chip, they let me buy it with my Discover. I want to try it again.
I maxed out the Q4 2016 and Q1 2017 categories with $500 Vanilla Mastercards from Sam’s. Easy $270.
How’re you liquidating?
I just bought the variable load Vanilla Mastercards and I use them to purchase MO at the post office.
Easy peasy.
I am loving the first year “Double Cash Back!” The whole sale clubs have been a great category! I wish we had Amazon.com all year long as well.
I already got $1500 in Costco cash for Q1. I’m thinking I will do another $1500 for Q2
If I can use Costco cash to buy gas that blows away and other gas option also, by a mile. Where I am at Costco premium is already 50c cheaper than anywhere else around and another 10% is even better.
Do any wholesale clubs offer GCs which can be liquidated via serve/WM? thanks
Sam’s Club has some $500s in store. Not sure about the Serve/WM part.