I have the Discover It® cash back credit card and in my opinion the best thing about this credit card is the 5% cash back on rotating categories every quarter which you can strategically use to maximize your cash back.1 This quarter Discover is offering 5% cash back on Amazon.com, Walmart.com and Target.com purchases when you activate the offer.2
Some quarters have better categories than others, so I definitely don’t use this card frequently unless the bonus categories make it worth while to me. Like this quarter for example when Target is going to have their annual 10% off gift card sale this month. Using my Discover It credit card to purchase the Target gift cards through Target.com will effectively give me 15% off instead of 10% off. Since my family frequently shops at Target, I know my wonderful wife is going to spend a lot of money throughout the year there so Target gift cards are essentially as good as cash to me.
I probably won’t spend the entire $1,500 quarterly maximum on Target gift cards so since my household usually ends up ordering stuff from Amazon at least once a month, I will just spend the remaining amount needed to reach the $1,500 threshold on refilling my Amazon gift card balance and receive 5% off my future purchases there.
Below is the Discover 2021 cash back calendar.
Most of the time it’s a hassle for me to carry these various 5% rotating category credit cards in my wallet like the Chase Freedom and Discover It credit card3 and to also try to remember all the rotating categories for a particular quarter, in addition to having to manually activate the quarterly offer,4 so sometimes I won’t really make much of an effort during the year to make sure I use my Discover It credit card to optimize my spending, though that may change next year.5
Nevertheless, I think the Discover It credit card is very handy sometimes so if you don’t have one and are interested in getting one, then click on the link below to apply for it and receive a $50 statement credit when you make your first purchase within three months:
https://refer.discover.com/s/EMMANUEL205
Discover will also end up giving me a $50 statement credit for anyone who applies through that referral link above, but I’m more than happy to share the wealth and send that $50 your way so long as you use it towards making your finances elite.6 Just email me at Eman@MoneyElite.blog to let me know you applied and I’ll coordinate the details with you.
Also note, that the Discover It card currently doubles all the cash back you earn at the end of your first year automatically, so the lowest cash back rate you’ll get during those 12 months is 2%, which makes the Discover It credit card better than the Citi Double Cash credit card that I primarily use and highly recommend, at least for that first year anyway.
- The Discover It card offers 1% cash back on all other purchases automatically like most other credit cards.
- For Discover, the cash back every quarter is limited on up to $1,500 in combined purchases, which means you can only earn a maximum of $75 cash back for that quarter in the bonus categories (plus unlimited 1% cash back on anything else that’s not in the bonus categories).
- It’s mostly a hassle for me to carry these 5% rotating category credit cards around because I have a very strong preference to carrying as slim a wallet as possible.
- Activating the bonus offer isn’t actually hard, you just need to click on the link they provide every quarter in an email, but it’s just one more thing I need to remember to do.
- For my readers’ benefit and in the interest of sharing ideas, I will probably try keeping some sort of note on the dashboard of my car with the current bonus rotating categories to try to take better advantage of these offers. I’m still not totally convinced it’s worth the hassle to me, but if I leave the credit cards in the car and just use them when applicable, then perhaps it might be worth the extra $25-$50 I’m estimating I might make per year by doing so. I’ve done alot more for alot less, so we’ll see.
- Making your finances better by paying off high-interest debt, transferring it to your savings account or anything else that will improve your finances.
