Discovercard $500 fall bonus

[mikeford]

I got a letter from Discover with a fairly hot offer, nothing says it isn't open to anybody that I have seen so far, but we have had a DiscoverCard for some time.

Like all of there bonus promo's you have to activate it, usually that can be done on the web, but this one requires calling 1-866-645-1436 sometime in July 2010.

Spend a minimum of $2k every month, Aug thru Dec, and get a $500 bonus on top of the usual 1% cash back.

Other than using Discovercard for all purchases, and keeping track around the end of the month in case paying a bill early etc is required to meet the $2k minimum for that month, I don't see any strings attached.

 

[postmortemIA]

Right, that requires you to make $32,000 a year (before tax) and spend it all to last penny just to meet that $2,000 per month.

And for mere $500?

 

[jlee]

Not a bad deal if you have a bunch of major purchases to space out over a few months, but I don't make enough to even be able to do that, after rent/car payment...

 

[FuzzyWuzzyDan]

if only i could pay my rent with my credit card...

 

[FuzzyWuzzyDan]

Right, that requires you to make $32,000 a year (before tax) and spend it all to last penny just to meet that $2,000 per month.

And for mere $500?

No, that is what it requires if you pay off your cards, and spend ...responsibly...

with the American way, this is easily possible... look at all the new toys you get to buy.

 

[Pardus]

Discover card is nice to use with there gasoline cash back, but they are horrible at updating your account with any payments sent. I had to send them two letters with scanned images of payments they said they "never" got.

There website needs a total redesign also, its very complicated just to see the last 60-days of transactions. I had another card that offered 5% gas cash back, i drop them.

 

[GusSmed]

Right, that requires you to make $32,000 a year (before tax) and spend it all to last penny just to meet that $2,000 per month.

And for mere $500?

That sounds a lot worse than it actually is. $24K spending per year isn't really all that much if your household income is $100K or more. We don't run a balance, and we ran just a tad over $32K last year through our AmEx Blue account. That includes a lot of non-discretionary items, like $5K for groceries - only $10K is recreational spending.

If you're going to spend that much anyway, it makes sense to shop for the card that will give you the best deal for doing so. Amex pays us a bit over $400 a year for doing this. If we could get $500 for just 5 months of spending, I'd definitely take it.

The problem is, I don't think we could. Many places don't take Discover, and we don't spend $2K every month. It's lumpier than that. We replaced our ancient washer and dryer last year, for example. We also had a couple of sizeable home repair bills, for heating repair and maintenance of the air conditioner.

- Gus

 

[simonizor]

I don't even make that much in a month...

 

[SimMike2]

Discover card is nice to use with there gasoline cash back, but they are horrible at updating your account with any payments sent. I had to send them two letters with scanned images of payments they said they "never" got.

There website needs a total redesign also, its very complicated just to see the last 60-days of transactions. I had another card that offered 5% gas cash back, i drop them.

I never mail payments to credit card companies anymore. I do it all online. In my opinion, this is a way for them to scam you and charge you exorbitant late fees.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

That's a good deal IMO. I've had credit cards for about 22 years and I haven't paid any interest on one in at least 15. I often do spend this much on my Amex (I probably average $20-24K/year on it) but not so steadily that I'd probably be able to carry this off - otherwise I'd give it a try.

 

[esquared]

This is a good deal but you can be sure that Discover is not counting on people paying this off every month because they would lose money. They hope that people are charging enough to then carry a balance.

For the minimum 10K on purchases to be eligible Discover is getting probably 3% from the merchants who sell you the goods. That's 300.00 to Discover.

Now Discover is going to pay you 5% bonus on top of the 1% they already give. That's 500.00 plus 100.00 for a total of 600.

They lose 300.00 (or so) per buyer that does this and pays off the balance every month.

Again I am guessing on the merchant account fees that Discover charges but it's in the 3% ballpark.

 

[mikeford]

One of the things I think Discover is after with this promo is to get people to shift all their automatic bill payments to Discover, and potentially leave them there after the 5 months is over. I get 2% on my VISA, so that isn't going to happen (the leaving them there part).

Free to sign up, so I will just see how I am doing at the end of each month and decide on whether or not to make deferred purchases.

 

[Raizinman]

I just called the phone number and this promotion is NOT for any Discover card holder. It was marketed to only Discover card holders who don't use their credit card very much. It is a marketing tool to try and get infrequent card users to use their Discover card more. Discover will not allow regular card users to be involved in this program. I charge about 1K each month on my Discover and it would not of been hard for me to increase that to 2K each month. Probably why Discover did not send me this letter.

 

[mikeford]

Sorry to lead you on, it makes sense I used to be all Discover, but with this 2% Visa we all but stopped using Discover. I'll switch back for the promo, but bad news for them is that when its over all of my periodic charges will go back to the VISA.

 

[Cal166]

if only i could pay my rent with my credit card...

Or my mortgage!

 

[Jassi]

Buy coins!

http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/$1coin/

 

[hans007]

This is a good deal but you can be sure that Discover is not counting on people paying this off every month because they would lose money. They hope that people are charging enough to then carry a balance.

For the minimum 10K on purchases to be eligible Discover is getting probably 3% from the merchants who sell you the goods. That's 300.00 to Discover.

Now Discover is going to pay you 5% bonus on top of the 1% they already give. That's 500.00 plus 100.00 for a total of 600.

They lose 300.00 (or so) per buyer that does this and pays off the balance every month.

Again I am guessing on the merchant account fees that Discover charges but it's in the 3% ballpark.

merchant account fees on discover are especially high, might be like 5% . thats why they dont take discover at a lot of place.s

 

[mikeford]

American Express used to be the worst, but from what I have seen there are many "deals" in the merchant side of credit cards. Not accepting them can also have a big impact on sales.

These days I don't see many places that accept credit cards but not Discover, better than it used to be, but still it can't be the only card in your wallet.

 

[aolj]

I received one too. Same time frame but only $250 bonus for $1500 per month.

 

[mikeford]

They must look at old spending habits and find a point where it has to hurt.

 

[hans007]

Buy coins!

http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/$1coin/

you could actaully buy lots of stamps too. then return them.