Discover Q1 2026 5% cats: Groc, Wholesale, Streaming

[ptatohed]

Not bad!

[Stuart89]

Yeah, not bad indeed. I still don’t like the uncertainty of rotating categories, though. You don’t mind it?

[ptatohed]

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@Stuart89 wrote:

Yeah, not bad indeed. I still don’t like the uncertainty of rotating categories, though. You don’t mind it?

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Yeah, I totally hear you.  I used to think it was so fun to make a quarterly cheat sheets for my wife and me.  And it's not that I don't think it's still fun or that I find it too much trouble to 'juggle' cards (I don't mind that part), it's just that I've actually become more aggressive in recent years in trying to get 5% on more cats all year long so the rotators are kind of becoming less and less needed.  Which is basically what you mean by 'uncertainty', if I understand you correctly. 

But they still have a place sometimes.  Like Chase is 5% PayPal this month.  Also, if one rotator covers a cat that your citi CC was covering, that frees up the CC for another cat for 3 months.  

[crystal626]

I can't use it at Costco so this will be another sock drawer quarter for me. At this point I should just close the card before Capital One slashes it after they take it over completely. There's been nothing but keep alive charges on it this entire year and I'm pretty sure it was the same last year too.

[Aprile421]

I used to love the category game when most ccs were 1.5% or if you were lucky you had a 2% card. $75 for $1500 in spending was great. Especially, if you did or are now doingthe Discover cashback match the first year or the BOA 6%. Each earning $150 per quarter. But, once I use up my $1500 for that quarter the card gets socked because 1% is useless now a days. 

I am a big Rakuten and Capital One Rewards fan. If I can get say Chewy to pop up when I am shopping for pet supplies on Amazon and they are offering me the 10%-30% cashback or rewards points and I can stack it with the 5% PayPal checkout option then I will jump on that. 

But, now with a 3% I may have to spend a little more to earn $75. But, I don't have to sit and calculate my spend cap to $1500 for those 3 months, I just keep using my card for everything and end up with more overall cashback on the same purchases.

[AndySoCal]

Well Discover is following their usual 5% catagory with grocery stores for Q1. If this continues Q2 will be restraunts  Q3 whatever can think and Q4 is Amazon.