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How I Earned $1450 Cashback from Discover

I just redeemed $350 in cashback on my Discover account. If that wasn’t special enough, imagine my delight when I logged into my Discover card [1] account and saw I had an additional $1100 in cashback to redeem!

How did I rack up $1450 in cashback on my Discover card? Let’s take a closer look.

How to Earn Discover Cashback

5% Quarterly Rewards. Discover jumped to the top of my list during the 3rd Quarter 5% Rotating Cash Rewards [2] window with 5% cash back on gas stations. The 5% cash back is for spending up to $1,500 each quarter in the bonus categories. The Discover Rewards Calendar [3] shows 4th Quarter 5% Cashback is for Online Shopping and Department Store purchases… perfect for holiday shopping. You can earn $300 per year maxing out the 5% categories.

Shop Discover. I racked up a ton of cashback using the Shop Discover Cashback [4] program. You can earn 5% – 20% cash back on every purchase you make using the Shop Discover portal. This is in addition to the 5% quarterly rewards, so you can stack them together. I used this program heavily during the holiday shopping season last year. I’ve earned over $1200 with the Shop Discover program.

Standard Cashback. For categories not part of the quarterly rewards, you will earn 1% cashback. However, I don’t use this option much, since there are better choices for spending in other categories [2].

Discover Deals. I haven’t seen Discover advertise this option heavily, but it’s similar to the Amex offers you can load to your account. You save the deals you want, and it will automatically credit your account. For example, there’s a $2 cashback on a $10 purchase at Panera today on my card.

Targeted Offers. I can’t stress how important it is to look at your mail. The offers in the mail that look like junk usually are…. unless they aren’t! I recently got an offer in the mail from Discover to earn $100 cashback after making $1000 in purchases. That’s a 10% bonus! I stacked it with the gas purchases during third quarter to get 15% cashback on our gas purchases! If you tend to throw away your mail, you can always check your account for targeted offers using the Discover Offer [5] link.

Options to Redeem Rewards

Once you earn your Discover [1] cashback, you can redeem it in any of the following ways:

  • Cashback. You can get a direct deposit to your bank account or a statement credit on your account.
  • Pay with Cashback Bonus. You can link your account to Amazon.com and redeem your credits $1 for $1.
  • Gift Cards. I often use this redemption option because you can get $25 gift cards for redeeming $20 to many of the retailers. You can also get Discover gift cards at face value.
  • Charitable Donation. If you have $20 cashback or more, you can donate your cashback to charity.

More on Discover

0% Intro APR. I mentioned in my $2,075+ Application Spree to Stockpile 0% Credit Cards [6] that a new Discover card offers 0%. The current offer for the Discover it [1] card is 0% intro APR on purchases and balance transfers for 14 months.

Discover Card Options. There are various Discover it Credit Cards [7] depending on what you are after. They offer varying lengths of 0% offers and cashback options. In addition, there’s a student card with a sign up bonus.

How much Discover cashback have your earned with your Discover card?