The Discover it Miles (DiM) card is the latest offering by Discover and was released on February 19th, 2015. It joins the other credit cards that they offer: Discover it, Discover it Secured, Discover it Chrome & Discover it Student. This card is slightly different to the others in that it earns miles instead of cash back (although it’s really not different at all, you can read more about this in our redeeming section).
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Contents
Application Information
This card was only just released, rather than leaving this section blank we’ve decided to use data from the Discover it credit card. I think the approval requirements will be remarkably similar, make sure you share your data points in the comments so we can update this post with data that is only from the DiM card.
What Credit Score Is Required
| Credit Boards | Credit Karma | |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest approved score | 617 | 676 |
| Average approved score | 681.5 | 711 |
People seem to start having issues getting approved for this card if their credit score is 660 or below. Because of this we’d recommend having a score of at least 660 before you consider applying. There are a number of ways to check your score, the most used score by lenders is the FICO score. You can view ways to get this score for free here. Other options for free credit scores include: Credit Karma, Credit Sesame, Quizzle, WisePiggy & Credit.com.
Common Reasons For Denial:
- Self employed. As long as you do your taxes through a registered accountant, you should not have any problems. Those who do their taxes themselves have reported issues.
- Credit score too low. As mentioned before people with scores below 660 seem to have issues getting approved, there are still some cases of people being approved but the success rate drops off quickly.
- Bankruptcy on file. Having a bankruptcy on your credit report will almost always lead to an instant denial. Usually a wait of rtwo years after the bankruptcy is discharged will be enough to get approved.
Discover will often approve people who are denied if they call the reconsideration line and answer a few simple questions. Click here to find out the best reconsideration number for Discover or click here to read our tips for your reconsideration calls.
What Credit Bureau Does Discover Pull For The Discover it Miles Card?
Typically Discover will pull your Experian credit report regardless of where you live. In some rarer cases they will pull your TransUnion or Equifax credit reports.
What Credit Limit Will I Receive?
| Minimum Credit Limit | Highest Reported Credit Limit | Average Credit Limit |
|---|---|---|
| $1,000.00 | $25,000.00 | $3,670.93 |
An average credit limit of only $3,670.93 seems quite low but when you consider that Discover are approving people with sub-prime credit histories this is actually quite a generous limit. When you look at people with scores above 700, the average limit jumps up to $5,858.82. Discover does let you ask for a credit limit increase and in most cases it will result in a soft pull, as long as you follow some simple rules.
Rewards Program
This card earns Discover miles. There is no cap on the amount of miles that you can earn or redeem. Miles don’t expire as long as there has been some activity on your account within the last 18 months. If the account hasn’t been used in the last 18 months they will still
Earning Rewards
The earning rate on this card is a flat 1.5 miles on all purchases, there are no bonus categories or rotating categories. For the first year you will receive double miles on all purchases, there is a catch though. You won’t receive these bonus miles until after the first twelve consecutive billing cycles, they will then double the amount of miles you earned during this period and post them to your account on your next statement.
To put this in layman’s terms, for the first twelve months you’ll receive 1.5 miles on your account as normal. After being a card member for a full twelve months they will double the amount of miles you’ve earned and add them into your account.
Sign Up Bonus
Current Sign Up Bonus
- February 19th, 2015 – Current: Double miles for the first year
Sign Up Bonus History
- None
Redeeming Your Rewards
It’s kind of strange that Discover are calling these miles, this is really just a marketing gimmick (and not a very good one mind you). No matter how you redeem miles they are always worth 1¢ a piece and you can always redeem them as little as 1 mile at a time.
This is what you can redeem the points for:
- Cash. You can opt to receive an electronic transfer to your preferred bank account.
- Against any travel purchases (airline tickets, hotel rooms, car rentals, travel agents, online travel sites and commuter transportation) made within the last 180 days.
Card Benefits
- Lost, stolen or damaged cards will be replaced overnight for free.
- Free FICO Score. This is the TransUnion Classic Risk Score 2008 (TU-08) and is updated monthly as long as you used the card at least once in the previous month.
- $30 In-Flight WiFi Credit. If you purchase WiFi during a flight, you’ll automatically receive a statement credit within 7 days of the charge posting to your account. This is based on your card member year (e.g if you applied in September it would run September – September) and not on an anniversary year.
Our Verdict
This card really only makes sense if you can take advantage of the 3x miles in the first year. There are only cards that offer 2-2.2% cash back on all purchases so the benefit is pretty marginal. To illustrate this I did a post comparing this to the regular Discover it card.
To give another comparsion, let’s assume you have a 2% cash back card and you sign up for another credit card with a $200 cash bonus. The Discover it Miles would only be earning 1% more than the 2% cash back card, that means you’d need to spend $20,0000 on the Miles card to catch up to that $200 cash bonus.
The majority of people aren’t going to be spending that much in a single year, especially when they could be spending that money towards other minimum spend requirements or credit cards that offer 5%+ bonus categories. I wouldn’t recommend this card unless you plan to put A LOT of spend on it during the first year and even then, be careful because you’ll need to wait twelve months for Discover to double it.
[Read: Credit Cards With A Cash Bonus]
We Recommend This Card For:
- People that put a lot of non bonus spend on their credit cards and can make full use out of it in the first year
We Don’t Recommend This Card For:
- The majority of consumers. In the long run you’ll be better off using a credit card that earns at least 2% cash back.
Alternatives
- Probably the best alternative to this card is any other card that earns at a high rate on all purchases. A full list can be found here, some examples:
- Citi Double Cash 2% (it might even be possible to get a sign up bonus on this card)
- American Express Fidelity 2% (+$50 sign up bonus)
- Barclaycard Arrival+ 2.2% when redeeming against travel expenses
- Anything with a high sign up bonus. We’ve listed the best cash bonuses here and the best hotel credit cards here. We hope to do something similar for airlines, soon.
F.A.Q’s
Can I convert an existing Discover card to this card?
At the moment Discover is not allowing product changes to this card. I presume this also means they will not allow you to product change this card to another one as well.
Is it possible to have multiple Discover cards?
Yes it is possible. People have reported that they had to call in and specifically tell Discover they wanted to keep their old account open and open this new account.
Will miles earned from Discover Deals also earn double miles?
My understanding is that when you make a purchase through Discover Deals using this card that you will earn the cash back rate displayed (e.g 5% cash back for Kohl’s), this won’t be doubled because it will never be in the form of miles. If you also used your DiM card for this purchase, you would earn 1.5 miles which would be doubled.
E.g, there is no opportunity to rack up mass miles through the portal.
Does this card only come in the standard blue color?
No, there are currently three different versions of this card: Blue, Green & Pink. You can choose which card you want when you sign up and you can also request a different color card at any stage. To do so online follow these steps:
- Click Manage Account
- Click new Card Designs
- Follow the prompts
Tips
You can get $60 cash without it counting as a cash advance.
At some locations you’ll have the option to get $60 in cash with your purchases, this usually doesn’t count as a cash advance. You will not earn cash back on this cash portion though. For example, if you purchase $50 worth of goods and get $60 cash. You’ll receive $0.05 in cash back instead of $0.11. As always, your mileage may vary so don’t do this unless you’re willing to possibly front the cash advance fees. Here is a list of stores that offers this.
Discover is all over the board when it comes to approvals, Some with bad/low scores get approved, while others with mid 700’s get denials. Not sure what their method of approval entails.
I, personally, applied tonight. My Fico Credit Score with Equifax was 719, have 5% utilization, no collections/public records, never paid a payment late, and have a Discover It Card already, and they denied my application. So, since I had a $250 small balance on Discover It, I pulled out my Chase Slate 0% for 15 month Balance Transfer Card, and did a BT, and shoe-boxed the Discover it Card. If they can be that cheesy with approvals for good credit customers, then they will get no more of my business.
They pulled Equifax. My Chase Freedom Card will get all the business that used to go on my Discover It Card. I may not be able to choose who approves me, but I can choose who gets my business, and it will no longer be Discover It.
Why would you assume that they’d extend you more credit if you are barely using your current card now?
It’s always interesting to me how consumers display this irrational behaviour and air of self-importance. The reality is that your BT $250 is like trying to drain the ocean with a thimble.
Might this card make sense for reloading the Target Red Card? With an effective 3%, albeit after 12 months, that seems like a pretty good option, considering no reload fees to the card. If not, is there a better choice of card to reload red card?
It could do, but the problem is there is risk you won’t get the extra 1.5x at the end of the year for whatever reason.