Discover Q1 2023 Categories: Grocery, Drugstores, Streaming

Discover announced the  5% categories on the Discover IT card for the first quarter of 2023:

  1. Grocery Stores
    • Grocery Store purchases include those made at supermarkets, meat lockers, bakeries, smaller grocery stores, and grocery delivery services. All purchases made at Walmart, Target, convenience stores, wholesale clubs, discount stores, and supercenters are not eligible.
  2. Drug Stores
    • Drug Store purchases include those made at stand-alone drug stores, pharmacies, pharmacies located inside of retail stores, and from online pharmacies.
  3. Select Streaming Services
    • Examples of Select Streaming Service purchases include Amazon Music, Amazon Prime Video, AMC+, Apple Music, Apple TV, Audible, DirecTV Stream, FUBO, Google Play, HBO Max, iHeartRadio, MLB.TV, Pandora, Paramount Plus, Peacock, Showtime, SiriusXM, Sling TV, Spotify, Starz, Vudu, YouTube Music, YouTube Premium, YouTube TV. Other popular streaming services may be included. If your subscription is bundled with another product or service, billed by a third party (such as a digital platform, a cable or satellite provider, telecommunications, internet provider or a car manufacturer), the purchase may not be eligible in this category. Add-ons associated with Select Streaming Services may not qualify for this promotion if they are not listed, billed in a bundle, separately or through a third party. Listed merchants are in no way sponsoring or affiliated with this program.

Discover now stopped rolling out the full year of categories and will instead announce the categories quarterly. They’ll announce it on the 1st of the month versus the 15th with other banks. You can see the current Q4 2022 categories on all cards in this post.

Activate to earn 5% Cashback Bonus at Grocery Stores (stand-alone), Drug Stores, and Select Streaming Services from 1/1/23 (or the date on which you activate 5%, whichever is later) through 3/31/23, on up to $1,500 in purchases. 

Hat tip to michikade
    Chuck
  • On December 1, 2022, 09:24
Tags: discover

View Comments (24)

  • If you buy a category purchase and later return it, do they claw back the extra cash back? Does it matter if you return it in the next quarter?

  • Delightful news to start December!

    Wouldn’t surprise me if CHASE Freedom doesn’t copycat and cannibalize when they make their announcement of 5% categories mid-month.

  • Do prescriptions at pharmacies count as drugstore spending if the pharmacy is in a drugstore? A bit confused by the wording

    • If you buy anything from the store at the pharmacy registers, then they'll have the same code as the ones up front

      Same for pharmacies in grocery stores

      • Not true everywhere: while IKEA's main registers are coding as Furniture (no surprise), the restaurant is coding as a restaurant, and the "Swedish food market" is coding as grocery.

  • Bummer that they no longer announce the entire year’s categories. It helped me plan my spending.

    Wonder why..

  • "They’ll announce it on the 1st of the month versus the 15th with other banks."

    Or a fraction of a second before the new quarter starts, as Citi Dividend has done lately. ;)

      • Got two Custom Cash cards, and combined with Freedom, Discover, Dividend, Cash+ and a few others my categories are pretty much covered. And the $500/month on Custom Cash is a pain.

        • Can you product change a DoubleCash to Custom? My Alliant Credit Union offers 2.5% on (most) everything (with requirements) so I don't really need my Double Cash anymore.

          • There's a list somewhere, but I'm pretty sure Double Cash is one of the cards you can convert (actually I think it's most Citi-branded cards now). In my case, I converted a Citi Premier card, and DW converted her useless Citi TY card.

    • You can still use it but then pay down to $2 each month before the statement cuts to get the small balance credit. But you do lose a little bit of the interest free grace period vs. paying the statement on the due date.

      • Discover "forgives" any balance up to 2$ (inclusive). If you prepay the card before the statement closes so that your balance is 2$ or less, you will not have to pay anything when the statement does close.

        • Does it still work at this point in time? I saw posts elsewhere where people say that this is no longer possible.

      • They will forgive $1.99 each month as a small balance write off. So you can either charge $1.99 a month to Amazon or your electric bill etc, or pay off everything but $1.99 before the statement closes and get a free $24 a year out of the card.

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