topic Re: Discover .. We need to talk ! in Credit Cards

Discover .. We need to talk !

patoot10 — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 05:34:54 GMT

Before I start let me say that Discover was my first card and I used it exclusively for 6 months while establishing credit before getting cards from other lenders and during those 6 months I formed a good idea about Discover mission, they are basically a small time issuer who doesn't care about profit margins but cares about establishing a big market share and acquiring as much customers as they can while maintaining high customer service quality to keep those customers and they succeeded in doing so, everyone here on myfico has 1 if not 2 discover cards and a ton of people who are clueless about credit and churning have a discover card "because they approved me" or "they have a lot of nice colors/designs". However, things recently took a steep turn.

Starting from nerfring benefits right and left, one after the other to nerfing the thing they offered best which is quality customer service. During the last year Discover got rid of price protection, extended warranty, return protection, purchase protection, rental insurance, flight accident insurance as well as discover deals, $30 wifi credit on miles card and even providing FICO score chart on your bill on monthly basis !! (I read some chatter about balance transfer fees going up but not confirmed yet)

Even the only thing they had going for them which was the 5% rotating category card became super boring, predictable and pretty much useless when paired with popular cards. You can tell so from our reactions when they released their 5% calendar for this year.

And to top it off they changed how the live chat works on the website and now it's called "Message an agent" and instead of the agent replying to you within 60 seconds you have to wait for them for God knows how long and since Discover "cares" about you they offer push notifications so you can be notified when Mr. Customer Service Rep is finally ready to help you. I had to call their number and before reaching a human rep, Discover robo-dude made sure I know they are "upgrading" their automated system to make it even more automated and offer more help to the customers without human interaction. So basically cutting down on human force and trying to make the process as automated as possible (new Capital One bad "automated" customer service. Anyone?)

As an active investor I can tell you that Discover stock is not doing great and hasn't been performing well in the previous years so looks like Discover is ready for the next step and it definitely doesn't put the customer interests into consideration anymore. It's time for Discover to make $$$. I am sad that I downgraded discover in my own ranking from being in my top 3 banks to just being another card. In the meantime to the sock drawer you go disco.

Let me know your thoughts on this.

Re: Discover .. We need to talk !

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 05:57:58 GMT

I didn't use it much after the first year was up, but I kept it for the utilization padding/increase and BT offers. I hope they come out with a different card/rewards program. If they dropped a 2%+ er'y thing card, I'd use them as my non cat card in a heartbeat.

Re: Discover .. We need to talk !

patoot10 — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 06:24:54 GMT

That's because you have cards giving you all of discover's 5% categories year round.

Re: Discover .. We need to talk !

SouthJamaica — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 12:26:54 GMT

@patoot10 wrote:
Before I start let me say that Discover was my first card and I used it exclusively for 6 months while establishing credit before getting cards from other lenders and during those 6 months I formed a good idea about Discover mission, they are basically a small time issuer who doesn't care about profit margins but cares about establishing a big market share and acquiring as much customers as they can while maintaining high customer service quality to keep those customers and they succeeded in doing so, everyone here on myfico has 1 if not 2 discover cards and a ton of people who are clueless about credit and churning have a discover card "because they approved me" or "they have a lot of nice colors/designs". However, things recently took a steep turn.

Starting from nerfring benefits right and left, one after the other to nerfing the thing they offered best which is quality customer service. During the last year Discover got rid of price protection, extended warranty, return protection, purchase protection, rental insurance, flight accident insurance as well as discover deals, $30 wifi credit on miles card and even providing FICO score chart on your bill on monthly basis !! (I read some chatter about balance transfer fees going up but not confirmed yet)

Even the only thing they had going for them which was the 5% rotating category card became super boring, predictable and pretty much useless when paired with popular cards. You can tell so from our reactions when they released their 5% calendar for this year.

And to top it off they changed how the live chat works on the website and now it's called "Message an agent" and instead of the agent replying to you within 60 seconds you have to wait for them for God knows how long and since Discover "cares" about you they offer push notifications so you can be notified when Mr. Customer Service Rep is finally ready to help you. I had to call their number and before reaching a human rep, Discover robo-dude made sure I know they are "upgrading" their automated system to make it even more automated and offer more help to the customers without human interaction. So basically cutting down on human force and trying to make the process as automated as possible (new Capital One bad "automated" customer service. Anyone?)

As an active investor I can tell you that Discover stock is not doing great and hasn't been performing well in the previous years so looks like Discover is ready for the next step and it definitely doesn't put the customer interests into consideration anymore. It's time for Discover to make $$$. I am sad that I downgraded discover in my own ranking from being in my top 3 banks to just being another card. In the meantime to the sock drawer you go disco.

Let me know your thoughts on this.

I usually can't let it take up space in my physical wallet, because too many of the places I go to accept only Visa and Mastercard. I really have space in my wallet for 2 personal cards at any given time, and 1 of them can't be a Discover or Amex.

I don't have the brain cells or patience for planning my purchases to capture their rotating categories.

The only feature I've found useful is the no-balance-transfer-fee balance transfer offer, when it's offered. And when I'm using that, I can't use the card for purchases anyway, because the balance transfer would screw up my grace period on purchases.

Re: Discover .. We need to talk !

kdm31091 — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 12:56:20 GMT

Many companies across all industries are going more and more automated, so while it is annoying and I don’t like it, it’s not really specific to discover.

Re: Discover .. We need to talk !

xaximus — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 12:58:10 GMT

Personally, I still use the Discover card for the 5% categories and at times it can be very useful, such as for BT's and whatnot. So far, the customer service has been pretty good to me, when I call in, I just ask for customer service and couple seconds later, I'll be on the phone with someone. As far as the other stuff, I generally don't use it so can't really comment on it, but overall, Discover hasn't been so bad to me. It's common for lenders to change as time goes on to simplify and stream-line their accounts.

Maybe the above things like price protection, extended warranty, etc. weren't worth keeping since not many people use it. Alot of those extra perks cost money and are handled by 3rd party companies so, it can be expensive.

Re: Discover .. We need to talk !

Remedios — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 13:07:45 GMT

My thoughts...

Don't anthropomorphize cards/issuers. Computer or human being, we're still numbers. A lot of times I find computers to be by far more pleasant to deal with than humans.

There is hardly anything static about CC industry. Things change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. It's a 5% cashback card. Everything else is just a cherry on top.

If you feel like it's lost it's value to you, SD or close.

Re: Discover .. We need to talk !

CreditCuriosity — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 13:16:23 GMT

If this is the case Discover is going to really lose their last asset they have been known for which is superior customer service, even if they aren't really empowered to do anything other than give retention offers. IMO Discover is nice for the 5% cats or BT's if you have biggest enough CL's, but other then that they are mainly meant for people new to credit or rebuilding(where-as a 2%-3% card or other cards such as a low APR or CSR type card are far better) - their credit lines are usually very unpredictable for people with very strong profiles along with their CLI's, where-as they offer the the full table(big sl's) for rebuilders or people new to credit which is mainly their target market segment(so it appears) and people that carry balances or more than likely to carry balances than transactors. Obviously they need to reevaluate this if indeed they aren't doing as good as they have historically done and look after going after more "prime" credit along with less prime credits and offer different products for each if they are taking bigger losses of the "sub-prime" category. Although I don't see this happening. Discover has never made sense to many on the forums and doubtful they will anytime soon, but they are certainly cutting costs for whatever reason as you are correct they are nerfing alot of things and if their really last remaining thing being good CSR is gone then there goes their JD power and associates best customer service or whatever it is they have.

Re: Discover .. We need to talk !

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 13:17:12 GMT

The way I see it, discover is only for small and non-returnable purchases within the 5% category that’s active. I don’t think the same 4 categories every year are that difficult to keep up with, but I may change my mind and decide to simplify in the future. I’ll definitely be using my discover for gas stations and then restaurants these next two quarters. I’m not a big amazon shopper and I have groceries covered by BCP currently so it’s been sitting pretty dormant for nearly 6 months now. As long as discover doesn’t care that I only use it for 5% spend I’ll keep it.

Anything electronic or something where I’m concerned about the warranty or returns, I’ll use Citi or maybe Amex. For price rewind, basically all of my big purchases go through Citi dc.

Citi dc is a card id absolutely ditch if not for the price rewind feature.

Re: Discover .. We need to talk !

gdale6 — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 13:43:33 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

Anything electronic or something where I’m concerned about the warranty or returns, I’ll use Citi or maybe Amex. For price rewind, basically all of my big purchases go through Citi dc.

Citi dc is a card id absolutely ditch if not for the price rewind feature.

My US Bank Cash+ offers double your warranty up to one year. As far as the Discover card it gets use in the 5% alone.

Re: Discover .. We need to talk !

AverageJoesCredit — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 14:21:12 GMT

Im sure there are no complaints on getting ones cash back doubled or 5% returned.

Re: Discover .. We need to talk !

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 15:27:13 GMT

@AverageJoesCredit wrote:
Im sure there are no complaints on getting ones cash back doubled or 5% returned.

Right, but with capped cards the rewards are still fairly small. After the first year, IF you were able to max out every quarter, you would get $180 more than using a 2% everywhere card (and my expectation is that many do not max every quarter). Now $180 is not nothing (using my math skills I calculate it is approx $180 more than nothing) but given that that is a max, some may not feel it's worth getting another card for that, or worth the effort of keeping track of the quarters etc.

That said, I've just converted my now useless Miles to the standard IT, so maybe I will also fall in love. Or not.

Re: Discover .. We need to talk !

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 15:43:07 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@AverageJoesCredit wrote:
Im sure there are no complaints on getting ones cash back doubled or 5% returned.
Right, but with capped cards the rewards are still fairly small. After the first year, IF you were able to max out every quarter, you would get $180 more than using a 2% everywhere card (and my expectation is that many do not max every quarter). Now $180 is not nothing (using my math skills I calculate it is approx $180 more than nothing) but given that that is a max, some may not feel it's worth getting another card for that, or worth the effort of keeping track of the quarters etc.

That said, I've just converted my now useless Miles to the standard IT, so maybe I will also fall in love. Or not.

Yeah but you are leaving out the fact the Disco is a 2% card for the first year too or the Miles is effectively 3% which means you can carry around two cards (because Discover isn’t accepted everywhere). Simplicity is nice sometimes so if you have cash back match, it can replace most of your other card spending unless you have a Limitless or some other high earning card.

I wouldn’t mind another Disco, probably would go for the Miles and use it for everything for the year and would probably have already gone for it if I didn’t know my limit would probably be $500 if I got approved at all because of my current Disco exposure to income.

Re: Discover .. We need to talk !

iced — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 15:57:11 GMT

@patoot10 wrote:
Before I start let me say that Discover was my first card and I used it exclusively for 6 months while establishing credit before getting cards from other lenders and during those 6 months I formed a good idea about Discover mission, they are basically a small time issuer who doesn't care about profit margins but cares about establishing a big market share and acquiring as much customers as they can while maintaining high customer service quality to keep those customers and they succeeded in doing so, everyone here on myfico has 1 if not 2 discover cards and a ton of people who are clueless about credit and churning have a discover card "because they approved me" or "they have a lot of nice colors/designs". However, things recently took a steep turn.

Starting from nerfring benefits right and left, one after the other to nerfing the thing they offered best which is quality customer service. During the last year Discover got rid of price protection, extended warranty, return protection, purchase protection, rental insurance, flight accident insurance as well as discover deals, $30 wifi credit on miles card and even providing FICO score chart on your bill on monthly basis !! (I read some chatter about balance transfer fees going up but not confirmed yet)

Even the only thing they had going for them which was the 5% rotating category card became super boring, predictable and pretty much useless when paired with popular cards. You can tell so from our reactions when they released their 5% calendar for this year.

And to top it off they changed how the live chat works on the website and now it's called "Message an agent" and instead of the agent replying to you within 60 seconds you have to wait for them for God knows how long and since Discover "cares" about you they offer push notifications so you can be notified when Mr. Customer Service Rep is finally ready to help you. I had to call their number and before reaching a human rep, Discover robo-dude made sure I know they are "upgrading" their automated system to make it even more automated and offer more help to the customers without human interaction. So basically cutting down on human force and trying to make the process as automated as possible (new Capital One bad "automated" customer service. Anyone?)

As an active investor I can tell you that Discover stock is not doing great and hasn't been performing well in the previous years so looks like Discover is ready for the next step and it definitely doesn't put the customer interests into consideration anymore. It's time for Discover to make $$$. I am sad that I downgraded discover in my own ranking from being in my top 3 banks to just being another card. In the meantime to the sock drawer you go disco.

Let me know your thoughts on this.

As an active investor, I can tell you customer service and how nice/friendly/not-automated/etc their customer support is ranks as one of the least important factors affecting the valuation. Companies that waste money on over-the-top service are spending unnecessary dollars that could be growing the company or paying more dividends. Automation saves money, and that helps the bottom line. It's a cold, hard truth, but that is what investors care about.

UAL is a good example of this. People loathe their customer service, and they'll even clobber the occasional passenger over the head and drag them off a plane. But, they continue to meet/beat estimates, and their stock has continued do ok.

Any problems DFS may have (and I for one don't think they're doing terribly) are not because of cuts to service. I see their major problem as being a largely domestic company. Until they get a foothold in international markets, they're never going to have the consumer base that Visa/MC does, and limited markets mean limited future potential.

Re: Discover .. We need to talk !

patoot10 — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 16:06:36 GMT

In the last 5 years Discover stock under-performed the market by over 50%. Any smart investor won't put their money on such stock over say VOO or SPY.

Aside from the investing aspect, the fact that they are downsizing human resources and trying to automate the process while nerfing benefits tells you they are cutting every corner for that extra profit which affects the customer who doesn't care about investing and profit margins they care about a company that treats them right and maintain the benefits and services the customer signed up for. Discover is free to do whatever they think is right for profits but they are losing ground and they are losing it fast. Aside from the first year no one really uses their cards beyond that and they are slowly turning to a subprime lender like capital one that focuses on customers with not so-good credit and high balances.

At the end of the day American Express remains king of the credit world from day zero and looks like dethroning them is just not gonna happen even though they operate their own limited network unlike Visa or MasterCard.

Re: Discover .. We need to talk !

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 16:26:00 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@AverageJoesCredit wrote:
Im sure there are no complaints on getting ones cash back doubled or 5% returned.
Right, but with capped cards the rewards are still fairly small. After the first year, IF you were able to max out every quarter, you would get $180 more than using a 2% everywhere card (and my expectation is that many do not max every quarter). Now $180 is not nothing (using my math skills I calculate it is approx $180 more than nothing) but given that that is a max, some may not feel it's worth getting another card for that, or worth the effort of keeping track of the quarters etc.

That said, I've just converted my now useless Miles to the standard IT, so maybe I will also fall in love. Or not.
Yeah but you are leaving out the fact the Disco is a 2% card for the first year too or the Miles is effectively 3% which means you can carry around two cards (because Discover isn’t accepted everywhere).

I'm not leaving it out because I said "After the first year". Yes, for year one there are extra advantages, but there are also good SUB on other cards for the first year (or 3 months) so I was looking after that period

Re: Discover .. We need to talk !

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 16:29:07 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@AverageJoesCredit wrote:
Im sure there are no complaints on getting ones cash back doubled or 5% returned.
Right, but with capped cards the rewards are still fairly small. After the first year, IF you were able to max out every quarter, you would get $180 more than using a 2% everywhere card (and my expectation is that many do not max every quarter). Now $180 is not nothing (using my math skills I calculate it is approx $180 more than nothing) but given that that is a max, some may not feel it's worth getting another card for that, or worth the effort of keeping track of the quarters etc.

That said, I've just converted my now useless Miles to the standard IT, so maybe I will also fall in love. Or not.
Yeah but you are leaving out the fact the Disco is a 2% card for the first year too or the Miles is effectively 3% which means you can carry around two cards (because Discover isn’t accepted everywhere).
I'm not leaving it out because I said "After the first year". Yes, for year one there are extra advantages, but there are also good SUB on other cards for the first year (or 3 months) so I was looking after that period

It can easily be argued though that because of the match, the Discover is more useful than those other cards you get just for the SUB though. That’s the point. Disco’s way of doing it is genius because it pushes you to use their card 9 months longer than the competition.

Re: Discover .. We need to talk !

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 16:42:43 GMT

@patoot10 wrote:
^^

That's because you have cards giving you all of discover's 5% categories year round.

Right, but I would drop Citi DC and PPCBMC for the Disco card if they did come out with one. Disco's app interface and still decent CS would push them over the others for me. I hate that the PPCBMC isn't integrated with PayPal and the minimum redemption, 1+1% with Citi is annoying (but not enough for me to not use the card). honestly, I wish Cap1 would come out with a 2% card lol.

Re: Discover .. We need to talk !

Save-n-Invest — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 16:44:46 GMT

I have seldom had an occasion to contact Discover cs. When I did it was very helpful. The card that does not require much customer assistance is always a good one in my opinion. The bonus quarters are handy. We just maxed the grocery cap so it will be Double Cash until Freedom's second quarter begins on Monday.

BCE is in the SD. My experience with American Express customer service has not been positive.

Re: Discover .. We need to talk !

patoot10 — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 17:07:21 GMT

Unfortunately the comments on this topic are not addressing the continous nerfing of benefits while keeping in mind that Discover hasn't offered a single new positive benefit since their rebranding years ago.