Discover Encourages Consumers to Merge All Bank and Credit Card Accounts in One Online Login

Most banks allow us to have credit cards and bank accounts in the same online account login. Discover used to only allow a signle credit card in a login, and your Discover bank login had to be separate as well. Around a year ago they started allowing us to merge, and for the past few days, Discover is now prompting everyone to link their logins together as one.

The system tracks your accounts based on SSN, I assume, and prompts you to merge the online logins by choosing one of the userID/password combo for both. This is true both for merging bank and cards, as well as merging your two Discover cards together.

I was having an odd time with my Discover account logins for a few days (random error messages for reasons I couldn’t figure out), then yesterday they popped up with the option to link logins. Since I did that, it’s been working fine.

With the logins merged, it takes an extra click to see your credit card details. Personally, I don’t really use my Discover checking/savings – got them a while back due to bonus and keep a few dollars there to keep the accounts live – so I actually prefer keeping them separate. I don’t recall now whether Discover forced me to merge the logins or if there was an option to keep it as before.

A couple of interesting pointers from the comments:

  • Some people had their Discover accounts automatically merged
  • Each Discover card gets it’s own Discover Deals offers even when they are combined in one login
  • Some people mentioned that idea that Discover’s Cashback Match might somehow get messed up if you merge logins, so maybe keep them separate until the first year ends if you can. (For example, I can see this being an issue with getting Cashback Match on the referral bonus – which card did the referral? If it’s two logins, there will probably be two separate referral links.)
    Chuck
  • On October 25, 2017, 09:34

View Comments (23)

  • I had my credit card long before my husband and I were married. Now I am being forced to add a money market account we share as a married couple. I don't want to do that. I have called Discover and had long conversations with IT, has anyone been able to not link their accounts?

  • If i already have a regular Discover online savings acct and i then apply for a different kind of Discover-branded savings account such as the AAA Discover ssvings .... Does Discover pull a new chexsystems report?
    Just trying to estimate how many chexsys items i have. Not eligible for my yearly free chexsys report for 6 months more.

  • Speaking of a Discover bank account, Discover has [recently] ended its business relationship with AmEx and NFCU. I learned this the hard way when I tried to add one of those external accounts to my Discover bank account, Discover logged me out of its system without any warnings and displayed a message to call the 1-800 number for support. WTF? Tech support told me Discover no longer allows customers to add AmEx or NFCU. The good side is that if you had either account added, it'll stay there until you remove the link.

    • Yes, you get a separate set of offers for each account after merged logins. Sometimes I've received the Kohl's offer under both accounts, other times under only one. Don't know if the merger was the reason in those months when I didn't receive it.

  • There was some back and forth on this for a while: my first DiscoverIT card and checking account were combined, but when I asked to combine my wife's accounts they said it's not possible (that was about 18 months ago). At some point long ago, she was offered the option to merge them.

    I had two logins to keep my DiscoverIT cards separated. Mostly for caution about double cashback promotion for the first year. My Logins where merged automatically without confirmation about 2 months ago.

    When I opened the Discover Savings I put them on the account that had no Savings account yet. Maybe that triggered the merge.

    The Merge happened overnight and I did not experience any issue or errors before or after the merge.

  • It looks like merging my cards into one account actually removed the second card from the Cashback Match program. I've tried to get an answer from Discover and I get a copy/paste customer service response from their Cashback FAQ.

      • There used to be a count under the "Cash Back Bonus Available" box as well as under my pending transactions (I believe) showing my accumulated cash back that will be matched. I might be remembering wrong though. I'm waiting for my next Cash Back update email from Discover to arrive.

  • Discover went back and forth on this. I had an existing credit card login when I opened a bank account in 2015, and was able to add the bank to the same login. Around the first of this year, I helped my Mom open a bank account, and she was NOT able to add the bank to the same login, we actually called Discover when we had trouble online, and were told she had to make a separate login. And now, they've apparently gone back to allowing/encouraging/mandating you to merge them.

  • I have it under one login from starting.. Credit card opened in early 2014 and first deposit account opened mid 2015.

    • Same here. The one year is really off in the op. And D always offered me to mere my 3rd account.

      The question is, will the Kohls and other offers be separated as well?

    • How's that possible, unless everyone uses the same deterministic algorithm. I would think the blurring uses random sequences.

    • Thanks for the info, Sarah. I've actually wondered about that, and I've only used blurring when it's info that's not too sensitive, just didn't need it broadcasted).

      • Could someone explain what the above post means (several carets followed by "this" in all caps) ? I have seen this on SD all the time, but have no idea what it means and I thought it was something related to a SD secret. But now that its posted here as well, I guess its not related to SD.

        Thanks in advance and sorry for the noobishness on this topic.

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