Discover it Miles Review

Who is the Discover it Miles card for?

The Discover it Miles card is a unique travel reward credit card due to its year-long bonus. Cardholders will be awarded the same amount of miles they earned the first year of opening on the anniversary of the account opening. This effectively means you’ll earn 3x (double the usual 1.5x miles per dollar) on every purchase. 

This card has no annual fee, which makes its cost of ownership low (just the interest on card balances). Accordingly, the Discover It Miles card is ideal for those who want to earn travel rewards but don’t want the pressure of annuals fees or meeting initial spending minimums to earn their sign up bonuses.

Rewards

We generally recommend cards that have straightforward rewards rates. This card checks this box with 1.5x Miles on every purchase - regardless of what you buy. Regarding simplicity, two features of this card really stand out. First, the Discover it Miles card has no cap on the number of Miles you can earn, which makes this card a good candidate for long term use. Secondly, the card has no specific category requirements for you to earn rewards, which removes the complexity of trying to match specific cards to various purchase categories.

As mentioned before, the first year you own this card you will earn 3x miles on every purchase. Keep in mind, however, that this is a welcome bonus in disguise. After the first year, the rewards rate moves back to 1.5x Miles on each dollar.

With the Discover it Miles card, you do not have to be worried about changing your vacation plans seasonal flight demand. There are no blackout dates to redeem your Miles. This means you won’t have stress when you want to take a trip around major holidays when booking the plane ticket. You can also fly any airline with your miles, providing you the flexibility to fly out of your local hub. Moreover, you are not required to use certain websites to redeem the miles and book the ticket, which gives you the option to compare the price and make a purchase at the price you desired. 

Furthermore, there is no redemption minimum for the Discover it Miles card. You can redeem your Miles in any amount, even one dollar, to credit travel purchases from your statement within 180 days. A key advantage of Discover Miles is the flexibility to pay for even small purchases with rewards.

This card is a good fit for people who like to travel but still want to have an option to convert the miles to cash with no loss in value. Even if you are not using this card for travel, the rate of 1.5x miles per dollar is still a competitive reward rate.

Signup Bonus

The Discover it Miles card has a special signup bonus. Unlike other reward cards that offer immediate welcome bonuses, the Discover Miles matches all the miles you earned at the end of the first year with no minimum spending requirement. You can earn unlimited 3x miles for the first year. For example, if you spent $5,000 with the Discover it Miles card in the one year with 1.5 miles per dollar rate, then you will earn 7,500 miles. However, since if it is the first year you use the card, you will get an extra 7,500 miles at the end of this year, which means you can earn 15,000 miles in total.

No Annual Fee

There is no annual fee for the Discover it Miles card. Therefore, you will be able to earn Miles to your heart’s content without asking yourself if the rewards justify the fees. 

Benefits

The Discover it Miles card has a decent intro financing offer. At 0% intro APR for 14 months from the date of account opening, the card’s new-purchase benefits period is longer than the market average of 0% for 11 months. Therefore, you can have more time to purchase expensive items without interest during the first 14 months. After the intro APR expires, your APR will be 11.99% to 22.99% based on your creditworthiness. This APR will vary with the market based on the Prime Rate.

Also remember that for the Discover it Miles card, there is no penalty APR, which means paying late will not raise your APR. There is also no late fee on your first late payment, so if you accidentally forget to make the payment, you won’t be penalized the first time. These benefits have helped this card find success with people who have just started to build credit and those looking to repair it.

Lastly, there is no foreign transaction fee, which means you can use this card in other countries without additional fees. We recommend opening another credit card with the Visa or Mastercard networks if you are going to travel abroad because Discover cards are not accepted in many international countries. Admittedly, they are working to expand their acceptance through strategic partnerships, like China’s UnionPay.

Security and Services

Moreover, using the Discover It Miles card is secure. You will get free alerts that notify you if your Social Security number is found on any of Dark Web sites. In addition, you will be notified of any new credit card, mortgage, car loan or other account shows up on your credit report. You get free alerts to know when anyone pulls your credit to prevent fraud actions.

Your money will be protected well by Discover because you're never responsible for unauthorized purchases on your credit card. If you lose your card, you can freeze your account in seconds to prevent new purchases with a simple on/off switch using your phone or laptop.

However, some activity will continue even if you freeze your card, including bills that merchants mark as recurring. If you lose your card, you can get free overnight shipping for card replacement to any U.S. street address at your request.

For services provided, you will have access to the U.S. based customer service available 24/7. If you lost your card, if you want a replacement for your card, or if you have some questions about the benefits provided, you can always call the customer service for help.

In addition, you can get your free Credit Scorecard with your FICO Credit Score, the number of recent inquiries and more. You can find all the information on both the mobile app & website.

Conclusion 

The Discover it Miles card is a compelling travel reward credit card due to the low cost of ownership, a solid rewards rate, and a long 0% intro APR period. This is a flexible card since you can either redeem Miles for travel purchases or for cash deposits to your bank account. Moreover, there is no minimum spending requirement to get the value from a welcome bonus and no redemption minimum. At no annual cost, this reward card lowers the threshold to open.