Discover Deals – credit card cash back guide
Discover Deals is a special rewards program from Discover that allows Discover Card users to earn additional bonus cash back for online purchases at select retailers. Discover Cashback for Discover Deals is available on top of the standard Cashback offer. There are many top retailers who participate like WalMart, Dell, Best Buy, Home Depot and many more. Go to Discover’s Web site to see the full list.
Discover Deals replaces the similar cash back Shop Discover plan although it has a few less partnering merchants now. Discover Deals is the best major credit card mall with payouts ranging from 5% to 20%, but usually 5%. Still, with a minimum Cashback of 5%, it is higher than competitors like USAA and Bank of America.
Key Features
• 184 participating merchants
• Most retailers offer 5% Cashback, some offer 10% or even 20% Cashback
• Seasonal deals can be higher at stores like Sears, Kmart and Target – usually 10% instead of the normal 5%
• Cashback post to your account anywhere from one week to two months
How to Use Discover Deals
To earn addition rewards with Discover Deals you first need to log into the Discover Deals with your Discover username and password. You must do this BEFORE you start shopping on the merchant’s Web site. After you log into Discover Deals, you select your merchant, click on the link and then go to that merchants Web site. After you are transferred to the merchant’s site, shop as normal, but remember to use your Discover Card when selecting your payment type.
That’s it. Just a few extra steps before shopping online as normal and you can cut an additional 5% or more from each of your purchases. I shop at Walmart quite a bit, so for items costing $30 or more I will usually purchase online and pick up my order in the store. It is a good way to save most of the tax.
For items that have manufacture pricing, like Samsung TVs, try to find a seller with a higher rewards payout than the usual 5%. Dell and Sears will usually beat out Best Buy and Walmart, so as long as the store price is the same, get the best Cashback deal you can.
Some things to watch for
• Using third party coupons may nullify your Discover rewards
• You won’t be able to have merchant customer service place your order for you if you are having issues on the Web site
• Don’t forget to actually use your Discover Card as payment or you won’t get your Discover Cashback rewards
• Some items like cell phone refill cards are excluded from Discover Cashback rewards
Tracking your rewards
Unfortunately, tracking your rewards can be difficult. Usually you will get an email a few days after your purchase followed by a confirmation email about a month after that. Lately the emails seem to be more consistent, but the timing of rewards is still a little intermittent. Rewards won’t post for weeks and then many will post at once even if the purchase dates were weeks apart. The precision or lack of in their email communication would not be an issue to me if there was a better way to check the status of the rewards. Currently there isn’t a way to log in and check the progress of your rewards like you might do when tracking a rebate. You can call and talk to customer service and get a little more information, but Discover seems to want to keep the payout process fairly vague.
Bottom Line
Add Discover Deals to your arsenal of savings strategies and make sure you check back especially around the holidays as many retailers will double their Cashback rewards from 5% to 10%. Remember, the additional Cashback is on top of any sale price you see advertised on-line, but only on-line. It would be great if you could also get the same Cashback for in store purchases, but this is still a great way to shop and save.
