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Discover Double Cashback Extended
One of the best credit card promotions of this entire year has been Discover’s Double Cashback (extravaganza). For those who aren’t in the know, this promotion basically doubles all cashback earned on your Discover card the first year. This includes the 5% bonus categories, normal spend and even cashback earned through the Discover Deals portal.
For more info on the promotion, see: Discover it Double Cashback – Everything You Need to Know!
Initially this promotion was open to all Discover cardholders. Eventually Discover realized how popular it had become and restricted the promotion to new cardholders only. From the beginning, the end date of this promotion was set as July 31, 2015. With that date approaching, I know a lot of people were considering whether or not to apply for the card.
Extended Through September 30
Well Discover’s PR agency reached out to me yesterday to let me know that Discover has decided to extend this promotion through September 30, 2015. This is great news if you were considering whether to get a card, but weren’t quite ready to apply. Here is exactly what I was told.
New Discover cardmembers who apply from now through September 30 will receive double the amount of Cashback Bonus® with no limit on the amount of rewards.
Opportunity for Current Cardholders?
As I mentioned before, current Discover cardholders are not eligible to link this promotion to their open cards. If you have had your Discover card for a year or more, you may be eligible to get a new one. If that is the case, you should be able to get this promotion on your new card only.
What about current cardholders who registered for this promotion when it launched? Well if you were to wait until September 30 to apply, you could get another 12 months of double cashback on your new card. This would give you about 8-9 months of overlap and then 3-4 additional months of double cashback on your new card.
Best Offer
The best offer right now for the Discover it card (my review) is the referral offer. Find a friend who has the card and they can refer you. When you sign-up they receive $50 and you receive $50. Of course that $50 is also doubled at the end of the first year!
Conclusion
I don’t often write a post when contacted by a PR firm, but I think this promotion is popular and valuable enough that it is worth sharing the news. If you were planning to apply tomorrow to get in on this deal before it went away, you now have a little breathing room to decide a strategy that is best for you.
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Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Is there an advantage to the discover it card with the double cash back as opposed to the discover miles that is a 1.5% card that doubles after the first year? From what I’ve read, it appears that the “miles” work just like cash back and you would essentially be getting 3%.
Discover it has the 5% categories that double to 10% and you also have the portal which Discover it Miles doesn’t have. So the Miles card pays better for everyday spending, but you can really do well by utilizing the 5% categories and the portals with Discover it.
Thanks Shawn for relaying the important news — and interesting that Discover PR finds you a worthy outlet too. 🙂 (esp. as you’re helping us discern esp. beneficial ways to make the most of it)
Yet one very basic question: I applied for the Discover IT card 7 days ago — its came quick. Just got around to activating and registering it on-line today.
Yet along the way, I haven’t seen any written confirmation of the double cash-back promo at year end. Am I supposed to sign up for this somewhere before using it? Or are we to take it on faith (for a whole year) that Discover is keep track of all transactions that will be subject to the doubling bonus?
I am an old user of Discover IT so when I called they denied my registering for double cash back rewards til end of year, but thanks to Shawn I’ve not given up. However, back to your main question absolutely YES call them and register for it, The worst that can happen is that you waste a couple of minutes but make sure you get it MAN …go for it!!!
The double cashback should have been on your application, but this is what I do on all new cards. Send them a secure message and get it confirmed in writing. Then you can save the secure message and also, it is helpful because they will give you the exact start and stop dates as well. Like I said, I do this for all bonuses just to be safe.
Thank Sean for being so cool,you’ve given us such a great education!
I’m confused on two points.
If the offer was extended through September, is it for both existing customers and new sign ups or just the latter? It’s my assumption that only new sign ups will still qualify.
As far as doubling the referral bonus, is it explicitly clear in their terms they’d consider this for the double cash back promo? Seems crazy (good) if it does qualify. I know they list that it’s any earnings, however I’d consider referral bonuses exempt until proven otherwise.
If it the referral bonus is effectively $200 ( partner refers you, wait a year and get the other $100) then I’m strongly tempted to apply for a second card in my name as it’s $200 for the hard pull and an extra $1,500/quarter. Plus an extra overlap of a few months, assuming I apply in late September.
I know the sign-up bonus is doubled, but I am not sure if you receive double for referring someone. Yes this is for new cardholders only. Sorry if that point wasn’t clear.
Hmmm so that Google email ad link with the $150 Discover bonus could be effectively turned into $300??
I’m going to have to find the fine print on this because it seems too good to be true.
Anthony,
I just chatted with Discover and confirmed the $50 you earn for referring someone is doubled like everything else at the end of the year.
For your records I would suggest just hopping on a chat with them and getting them to say it to you in writing, but I had no issues getting the chat agent to confirm it.
Wow, thanks
I was approved for my 2nd. They won’t give me new credit so had to move some from the 1st.
[…] for both new and existing cardholders of their Discover It product. (The promotion has been extended through September 30.) This is a pretty amazing deal because the earnings potential is astronomical in a few ways. Now […]