Can the Discover it miles be a flat 1.5% CASH back card?

[Anonymous]

If you don't ever plan on using the card for travel purchases, can you just use the card as a CASH BACK card?

From the website:

Earn unlimited 1.5x Miles for every dollar you spend on purchases

Starting at 1 Mile, you can redeem for cash as a electronic deposit to your bank account or for a credit for Travel Purchases on your statement made within in last 180 days



    Credit to your account for travel purchases-starting at 1 mile.

    Electronic deposit into an account you designate-starting at 1 mile.

    Any way you redeem, 1 Mile is the cash equivalent of 1 penny.

[Anonymous]

Yes.

[Anonymous]

Yup. That's why everybody was excited about the double points (3% back) for the first year. 

[longtimelurker]

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@Anonymous wrote:

If you don't ever plan on using the card for travel purchases, can you just use the card as a CASH BACK card?

From the website:

Earn unlimited 1.5x Miles for every dollar you spend on purchases

Starting at 1 Mile, you can redeem for cash as a electronic deposit to your bank account or for a credit for Travel Purchases on your statement made within in last 180 days



    Credit to your account for travel purchases-starting at 1 mile.

    Electronic deposit into an account you designate-starting at 1 mile.

    Any way you redeem, 1 Mile is the cash equivalent of 1 penny.

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Yes, this is one of mysteries.   The card goes into great detail as to what counts as a travel purchase you can redeem against, but since you get full-value cash back, it really doesn't matter.

[kdm31091]

Discover Miles is another example of marketing much like the Venture or Arrival+. Your miles are not really "miles". They're equivalent to 1c/1 point as cash and there's no extra incentive for redeeming them against travel.

It's not really a travel card, but it's a decent cash back card, at least for year one with the 3%. After that it's just like a Quicksilver (which is fine if you don't already have that or something even better!). The strength of Discover Miles over the Venture or Arrival counterparts is that at least it does not nerf your "miles" value when you take a cash redemption. You get the same value no matter what.