Discover it® Miles review

No Annual Fee Card

Discover it® Miles

Top Features

• Rewards
• Automatically earn unlimited 1.5x Miles on every dollar of every purchase.
• Welcome Bonus
• Discover will match all the Miles you've earned at the end of your first year.
• Annual Fee
• $0

5.0

Credit Score: Excellent, Good

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ALTERNATE CARD TO CONSIDER

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So you’re the travel-loving type with an adventurous streak that embraces freedom, flexibility and choice as you explore your country and the world? Adventurous you, meet CardName.

This is one travel rewards card that offers some serious bang for very little buck – there’s no annual fee and no foreign transaction fees, you earn 1.5 miles for every dollar you spend on the card AND, new cardholders take note, Discover will MATCH all the miles you earn during your first year as a card member.

Go ahead and do that math – that means new cardholders will effectively earn three miles for every dollar they spend on the card during their first year. Say you earn 35,000 miles your first year– you’ll actually walk away with 70,000! Look out across the travel rewards credit card landscape and you’ll see that this is a hard offer to beat.

Here are a couple of other features that make CardName worth a look:

• You can redeem rewards in any amount for travel credit or cash back.
• Regardless of how you redeem your rewards, it’s a simple conversion: 100 miles is always worth $1.

Because it doesn’t lock you into a co-branded airline or hotel, CardName gives you considerable latitude in travel brand choices. And its lack of an annual fee will make you  feel all the freer to jet up, up and away.

CardName rewards

There’s a lot to like about CardName, but knowing that Discover will match all the miles you earn during your first year as a new card member – effectively meaning you earn three miles for every dollar spent – is definitely near the top of the list.

That said, choosing a card based strictly on an introductory offer is rarely the best idea. The good news with CardName, however, is that the flat earning rate of 1.5 miles for all your purchases presents a respectable opportunity to consistently rack up rewards even after your first-year match period has passed. There’s no cap on the number of miles you can earn and your miles never expire. Plus, it’s a flat-rate card which means there’s no need to keep up with tiers or rotating categories.

When you want to redeem those miles, you can either request a statement credit to cover travel purchased within the past 180 days or you can redeem your miles for a cash deposit directly into your checking or savings account. Whichever option you choose, your miles are worth $.01 each – 100 miles always equals $1.

CardName foreign transaction fee

If you need to frequently use your card for purchases abroad, a foreign transaction fee could cost you hundreds of extra dollars. Foreign transaction fees on credit cards are usually around 3%, with dynamic currency conversion fees (DCCs) sometimes as much as 7%. This means that if you use a card with these fees outside of the U.S., you would be looking at paying an extra 3% on however much you spend in a foreign currency.

The CardName does not charge foreign transaction fees, so it can help to save you money next time you travel abroad.

CardName credit score requirements

Discover does not specifically mention the credit score needed to qualify for this card, but it does note that the CardName is designed for those with “good" to “excellent" credit scores. According to the credit scoring agency Experian, a FICO score of 670 would be the bottom of the “good" range. However, this doesn’t mean you’ll automatically qualify if your score is in this range and also keep in mind that different scoring models could offer different scores and ranges.

CardName potential downsides

Many travel cards offer cardholders a one-time bonus in which you can earn a certain sum of miles or points after meeting an initial spending threshold when you first receive the card (for example, earn 50,000 bonus points after spending $3,000 in purchases within your first three months of opening an account). CardName is different in that you have to wait until your account anniversary to receive your bonus.

If it’s likely you will spend a great deal with your card in the first year of ownership, this card’s matched-miles offer leads to a rich reward and can provide the rationale to apply. But if you don’t anticipate buying much with the credit card in that first year, or you can’t wait a year to receive your reward, you may be better off selecting a card that features an up-front bonus.

How do cardholders rate the CardName?

CardRatings conducts a survey annually to learn what actual cardholders think of their cards. Here are the results for the CardName:

How the CardName compares to other cards

CardName vs. CardName

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CardName is a tiered travel rewards card offering 5x on travel purchased through Chase Travel℠; 3x on dining, select streaming services and online groceries; 2x on all other travel purchases; 1x on all other purchases; a $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit; and more. It also offers a signup bonus of 60,000 points after you spend $4,000 within the first three months – a bonus that is worth $750 in travel when redeemed through Chase Travel. It does, however, charge a AnnualFees annual fee.

The key with this comparison is to assess where you most often do your spending. Do you spend enough to make Discover’s match offer pay off or are you someone who would rather spend a few thousand dollars within the first couple of months and then reap your reward? Once your “match year" is over with the CardName you stand to earn more with the CardName if you regularly spend on dining out and travel, but CardName is likely a better bet if you find your spending is more varied since you’ll earn 1.5 miles per dollar on all your purchases as opposed to just one mile per dollar on most purchases with the CardName.

One other thing to keep in mind between these cards is that CardName cardholders enjoy 25% more value when they redeem their points via Chase Travel.

CardName vs. CardName

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If you’re looking for more immediate gratification, you might appreciate the CardName intro bonus offer: enjoy a limited-time bonus of 75,000 miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within the first three months of account opening, plus receive a one-time $250 Capital One Travel credit in your first cardholder year – that’s equal to $1,000 in travel! That said, with Discover it® Miles, if you put all your purchases on the card it’s not hard to see how you could equal or surpass that offer thanks to Discover’s match after the first year.

Similar to CardName, you won’t pay foreign transaction fees with CardName, but you will pay a annual_fees annual fee. You will earn slightly more, unlimited two miles per $1 spent on every purchase with the CardName, plus earn five miles per $1 spent on hotels, vacation rentals and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel, but you also have that annual fee to offset.

If you’re looking for simplicity and don’t want to worry about earning enough to offset an annual fee, CardName is likely a better choice.

Is the CardName a good card?

CardName is an excellent card for the non-brand-loyal credit card user who values simplicity along with travel flexibility. Do keep in mind, however, that Discover isn’t quite as widely accepted overseas as Visa and MasterCard, so plan for that accordingly. And If you do take CardName with you abroad, you’ll be relieved to not have to face any foreign transaction fees.