Discover More Credit Card Review
April 5, 2011
The Discover® More credit card is best known for it’s 5% cash back rebate from Discover’s Get More merchants, making it one of the best cash back credit cards on the market.
In addition to having no annual fee, the Discover More card also allows you to exchange your cash rebates for gift cards worth more than the value of your cash back bonus. You can also earn cash back when you shop online with partner merchants through the Shop Discover website – the amount of savings varies across retailers but can be as high as 20% in some cases.
Cash Back Rates
The 5% cashback bonus for Get More partners covers categories such as travel, home improvement stores, department stores, gas, groceries, and restaurants. As you can see below, the bonus categories rotate during the year, so the purchases that you earn 5% back on change depending on the season.
There aren’t many cards that pay 5% cashback for anything so the bonus categories are a great feature of the Discover More card. As we’ll cover again later in the review, these earning categories do require you to opt-in during the period to earn the rewards.
For all other purchases on the More card you earn cash back on a tiered rewards structure. Purchases that are part of your first $1,500 earn .25% and purchases that are part of your second $1,500 earn .50%. After your total annual purchases exceed $3,000, you’ll earn 1% cash back on money you spend outside of the Get More partner stores.
Gift Card Rewards
Discover has teamed up with a list of stores that allow you to trade your cash back rewards for gift cards to those retailers. In many cases the value of the gift certificate you get is higher than the dollar value of your cash rewards.
For example, the Discover rewards program lets you redeem your cash rebates in $20 increments. In some instances you can turn a $20 statement credit into a $30 gift card for home improvement, restaurants, entertainment, or travel. They call it turning your “Cashback bonus into bigger rewards” and it’s a pretty slick benefit that includes some pretty big retailers:
Of course, if they don’t have gift cards available for places that you visit regularly then this benefit isn’t all that spectacular. However, they do have over 100 partner stores in their program so if you shop at any of them the gift card redemption option can help you get more out of your rewards.
Balance Transfer Offers
On top of the cash back features, the Discover More card offers some of the best balance transfer rates available. There have been times when it was possible to get 0% balance transfers for an extended period or to get a balance transfer with no fees. A quick review of the chart at the end of the review will tell you all about the current APR and offers on this credit card.
Customizable Cards
Nowadays we’re used to being able to customize products and services to our own individual tastes and Discover is well aware of that.
You can choose from over 150 different card designs when you apply for the Discover More card.
While choosing your design is cool it is the least important feature of the card. I’ve had a slick looking card for years (Blue Cash) and I’ve gotten lots of comments from store clerks and shop owners on it’s uniqueness, but that does nothing for my bottom line. I agree that it’s nice to be able to choose the design, to make it a little more personalized – but hopefully this isn’t your primary decision point when choosing a card.
Discover More Reviews
It always helps to hear the experiences of other peple who have used a credit card. That’s why I like a feature on the Discover website where customers can post a review of their card for everyone else to see.
Consumers score their card based on three different criteria: 1) Rewards program 2) Customer service and 3) Online Account Center. They they can rate each of those criteria from 1-5 stars, then the three scores average out to give the card review an overall score.
To get some good value out of the reviews you’ll have to go through pages of them, most aren’t very extensive and few offer much valuable feedback. A lot of the comments say something like “great card” or “not my favorite card” but without any detail behind their opinion.
However, if you read through them all you’ll get an idea of the main things people like and don’t like about their Discover card. I think it’s great that Discover posts these customer reviews on their site; it’s probably kind of scary for them to do because they know they’re going to get negative comments but I think it’s a wonderful way for potential customers to get a feel for the pros and cons of the card.
Discover More Complaints
I spent quite a bit of time going through all the pages of comments, so you don’t have to do the thing, here’s a summary of what I noticed. The positive comments about the card covered a pretty wide range but the majority of the complaints centered around one topic, the rules on the 5% cashback bonus categories.
As I mentioned earlier you have to opt-in for the bonus categories every quarter. There’s also a quarterly cap for the dollar amount of rewards you can earn from the 5% cashback bonus. What this means is that once you reach the quarterly cap, or if you don’t opt in, then you earn 1% cash back on those purchases instead of 5%. So most of the critiquies of the card were people asking Discover to increase the caps and not require them to opt-in to the bonus categories.
Interestingly enough, most of the people that left those comments still rated Discover More at least 4 stars, like you see here. Seems like they do like the cashback rewards they’re getting, they just wish Discover would update the cashback bonus policy so they could earn more. Some of these customers commented that once they hit their bonus cap with Discover they switch over to another cash back card like Chase Freedom. Their main point was that Discover would get more of their business if they’d raise the bonus cap.
The other complaint that occassionally came up was that Discover isn’t accepted by all merchants. I guess there’s not a whole lot that Discover can do about that. I run into something similar as well with my American Express cards, which is why I also carry a rewards Visa card.
Discover More Rewards & Customer Service
Although the positive comments covered a much wider range of topics, there were still a few that stood out
- Customer Service
- Gift Card Rewards
- Cashback Rewards Partners
Customer Service
Many people referred to the customer service from Discover as friendly and efficient but there seemed to be something consumers liked even better than just fast and friendly – Discover’s fraud protection. Apparently Discover is very vigilant about suspicious transactions or large purchases and will call you up right away if anything seems out of the ordinary. I read comments from a lot of people who had Discover catch unauthorized card use for them and squash potential identit theft situations.
Another big compliment Discover recieved was the speed with which they redeem your rewards once you request them. One commenter had requested his cashback before bed one night and then saw the money deposited when he got home from work the next day.
Gift Card Rewards
As I mentioned earlier the gift cards can be a good deal if you already shop at some of the partner stores. For example, one person uses their Discover rewards gift cards at Staples and combines it with the cartridge recycling discount to save even more. Another customer that sends flowers out over the holidays uses the FTD gift cards to save on the flowers. A third lady who buys from CVS regularly takes advantage of the $50 gift card for $45.
Rewards Partners
Since the rewards partners discounts can be pretty high, some of the commmentors said they do a lot of their online shopping through Discover. One person did point out that sometimes they’re actually able to find a better deal at online rebate sites, so they compare the ShopDiscover prices to other sites online first.
Conclusion
If you can take advantage of the bonus cash back categories, the gift card deals, or the rewards partners the Discover More card is one of the best cash back rewards cards on the market. If you put a lot of purchases on your card, you might want to keep another cash back card around to take advantage of other offers once you hit the quarterly spending cap.
Another thing to consider, if you’re looking for a cash back card that is also a good balance transfer card then the More card could work for you. This card is great for people who want flexibility when cashing in their rewards.
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