The Offer
- Double your debit rewards with your Discover cash back checking account. Starting May 1st, you can earn 20¢ cash back on up to 100 debit purchases each month.
The Fine Print
- Valid from May 1st till July 31st
- Limit of 100 transactions ($20) per month
- Standard 10¢ will be earned as normal, bonus 10¢ will show up the following month under “other promotions”
Our Verdict
Using your Discover Debit card would make sense for any transactions under $10, as then you’d be earning over 2% cash back on your purchases. It should also be pretty easy to game this promotion (e.g purchasing Amazon gift cards for low dollar amounts or putting your groceries through one item at a time). That being said, this would probably lead to shut down if you did it excessively, so it’s probably not worth the risk.
There is also a $50 sign up bonus that you can currently get on this account.
Hat tip to readers Jefferson, Keger and also Maximizing Money
” That being said, this would probably lead to shut down if you did it excessively, so it’s probably not worth the risk.” Who will shut you down? Discover or Amazon?
Possibly both, Chuck has experience with Amazon shutting him down with too many gift card purchases: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/amazon-freezes-my-account-for-buying-lots-of-50%c2%a2-gift-cards/
I doubt Discover will tolerate solely $0.5 purchases, especially when they are paying out $0.2
I believe Discover states explicitly in the Terms that they can make problems if you manufacture transactions just for the sake of the 10 cents.