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The Offer
No direct link to offer, sent out via e-mail. Subject line is ‘Enroll in Automatic Payments Today’
- Discover is offering $40 when you set up automatic payments
The Fine Print
- Valid until 7/13/23
Our Verdict
Easy $40 bonus if targeted.
Discover NEVER targets me for anything. 🙁
So, there’s 2 of us now.
That’s because you turned off targeting.
Never used autopay…but not targetted.
Same here.
+1 here; never gotten a Discover offer except for a balance transfer at a useless rate
Same here.
Never been a fan of autopay. The amount changes per month. Do people seriously use it (regardless of any bonus) then manually paying per month the statement balance that needs to be paid? If so, why?
Because it just pays the statement balance automatically each month and I don’t need to think about it.
Yup. Only spend what I can afford to pay in full each month!
Wut?
The amount changes per month? You mean the statement balance? If you’re not buying the same things, of course it would be different. No idea what you’re trying to say with the second sentence.
It makes perfect sense. It changes. Autopay is a fixed amount that get paid. However, unless you want to do the minimum (which can incur fees) or you want to overpay, I fail to see the the point except to have it simplified and forget about it?
Autopay is not a fixed amount that gets paid. Assuming you aren’t choosing to pay interest, autopay is literally what you owe that month based on your spend, and it is “automatically” paid before interest kicks in. Setting it up on every card you have is the biggest no-brainer ever.
unless you don’t have enough money in that account😞
That is what I remembered when fiddling around with it and it asked how much do I want to do each month (but never committed). But this awhile ago. I didn’t know autopay isn’t a fix number you put in to pay but it just pays what you owe. I’ll give it another look. Thanks.
There are usually three choices: minimum amount due, a fixed amount and statement balance.
Auto pay is the smartest thing to use to pay statement balance each month. I also use for minimum payment on the 0% finance cards. With so many credit cards, it’s always good to use.
Is Discover the only one who offer bonuses? I guess so.
There are several options for most CC companies (Bank of America’s was THE WORST BY FAR until relatively recently).
1) Pay fixed amount
2) Pay minimum
3) Pay remaining statement balance
4) Pay total balance
For most CC’s, the options above will also automatically be reduced if you have any other credits that reduce the payment due. E.g. if you make a manual payment, process a return, get reward credits, etc., those count as credits and it will reduce the auto-pay amount automatically.
For a 0% APR card (e.g. 18 month promo), you set it up day one to pay the minimum payment due each month, and in the first month make an extra payment just in case (some CC companies lag the first autopay until the 2nd statement…annoying AF).
For a non 0% APR, you set it up to pay the statement balance.
Some of my cards (not sure which off the top of my head) also let you cap the payment; e.g. statement balance, not to exceed some set limit (this can be useful to avoid overdrawing an account).
I resisted using autopay for many years, and although I don’t trust it 100% (BoA, piece of crap, actually overpaid by several hundred $ several times) it makes staying on top of things a lot easier. And, should I miss a due date on accident (e.g. on vacation), the auto-pay ensures at least a minimum payment is made to avoid a delinquent account.
BoA has the worst auto-pay I’ve ever used (but, they supposedly just updated it…we’ll see), and Citi has the worst website (in terms of stuff not working, broken links, forms that won’t submit, etc., and I try several computers and browsers).
Chase, WellsFargo, Synchrony, Amex, USBank, HMBradley, Discover, and various CU and regional banks have all worked just fine.
Why would I not automatically pay for the transactions I authorized?
“The amount changes per month.” Yeah most people don’t spend an exact amount of money each statement period. Must be news for you though.
What?!!!
You can set-up autopay to pay the full statement balance so you don’t incur fees and interests.
You can also set-up autopay to pay a certain FIXED amount or just pay the minimum payment. These actions will result in incurring interest on the balance that carry over month to month.
Yeah I use autopay for all my credit cards. I never have to worry about missing a payment. When I was trying to do it all manually or through a bill pay service something would slip through the cracks.
I have autopay set up for all my cards that never trigger as a back up just in case I somehow forget to pay a card.
Grrrr… some of us are responsible and already enrolled in autopay
Exactly! I feel the same way with paperless statements promotions.
What are we supposed to do, go to manual payments and paper statements until we get targeted?