In January, 2013, Discover consolidated its various brands of then-existing credit cards into the – I kid you not – “It” brand. Discover is pouring lots of money into promoting its new “It” brand, so let’s take a look and see if this brainchild of the world’s worst ad executive is worthy of a credit inquiry.
The Discover It card is marketed as a no-nonsense, consumer-friendly product; humbly self-described as “friendly,” “fair,” generous,” “flexible,” and “human.” It has no annual fee, no foreign transaction fee, and a few forgiveness-type features that pardon late payments under certain circumstances.
The rewards program for the Discover It card is very similar to the Chase Freedom card, offering 5% cash back on categories that rotate each quarter and 1% cash back on all non-bonused purchases. Like the Freedom card, aggregate bonuses are capped at $1,500 of spend (or $75 of rewards) per quarter. The Discover card, however, only offers one or two categories each quarter, whereas the Freedom card typically offers three bonus categories each quarter.
Discover It 2013 Bonus Categories
Chase Freedom 2013 Bonus Categories
One very enticing but often-overlooked perk of the Discover It card is access to the ShopDiscover shopping portal, which is actually quite lucrative and often represents the best kickback available among the various online shopping portals. For instance, at the time of this post, the ShopDiscover portal offers the best rebates available at Home Depot (10%) and Sears (10%).
On the whole, however, the Discover It card is a decent credit card that I’d pass on. Think of it as a Chase Freedom card with fewer quarterly bonus categories and no sign-up bonus. It’s also less widely accepted than Visa, MasterCard, and American Express cards — but by a smaller margin than you might think. As of April, 2010, Discover cards were accepted by 90% of U.S. merchants that accepted Visa and MasterCard. Discover’s international acceptance still lags well behind, however, so the fact that the Discover It card has no foreign transaction fee is of limited usefulness in practical terms.
If you’re looking for a superior cash-back credit card, consider the Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard, which effectively offers 2.2% cash back on all purchases, or explore other top-notch cash-back options here. For reviews of the best points and miles cards, check out this page.