Discover .. We need to talk !

[patoot10]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

[patoot10]

^^

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

[SouthJamaica]

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@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.

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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.

[kdm31091]

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.

[xaximus]

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.

[Remedios]

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.  

[CreditCuriosity]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

[gdale6]

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@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.

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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.