@GregB wrote:
I had been quite impressed with Discover More Rewards lately. Then two things happened that changed my mind:
1. My spending in the current quarter in the 5% rewards for Restaurant and Grocery Store reached their $400 spending cap. This means a total of only $20 rewards in Restaurants and Grocery Store. Somewhat my fault for not reading every bit of small print BUT I'm a very sophisticated consumer with lots of experience and I still have a tough time understanding the rewards "big picture".
2. My account reached its anniversary and my 1% rewards on everything dropped to 0.25% until I've spent $3000. That means I only get $7.50 rewards on the first $3000 in spending this year instead of the expected $30.00 on that $3000. It was explained to me by the CSR that I received 1% rewards unless I spent less than $3000 per year on the card.
So unless one is a big user of Discover to get lots of use in the 5% catagories without going over their spending cap in that catagory, Discover is just not that good as a rewards card. Even if your spending matches the optimum, a normal 1% on everything like my two BofA cards is much better.
I suppose it is better than nothing, but there are lots better deals out there. Just my $0.02 worth.
After I really started to track my rewards on various cards, I soon realized that Discover's rewards are pretty lame. There is no "big picture" to be had on such small rewards. The .25% was the icing on the cake for us. My husband used to use his Discover for all of his business expenses, but no longer. Now it's our AmEx Delta. PenFed VISA is for the 5% on gas at the pump and 2% on groceries.
The way we ended up maximizing our Discover rewards was for each of us to have our own accounts. That way, once we spent $400 x 2 on groceries, we at least got $40 total rewards as a couple instead of just the $20. We do that for every category that is workable for us in order to double the 5% rewards. Then, we use the earned cashback for gift cards where we can get another boost on value ($40 cashback for a $50 gift card, for example).
I don't shop through Discover a lot because I can get the same type of deals in mileage through my Delta SkyMiles shopping site. I did utilize the 2% cashback on certain purchases at Christmas (department stores, etc.). What I find frustrating is never being able to track what I am signed up for. I kept getting an alert to sign up for the special 2% at Christmas, even though I knew that I had signed up. It is frustrating to simply TRY to find out what I'm getting rewarded for what. I like Discover as a cc company, but i certainly think they could be much more transparent on their rewards structure.
