Get the most from Discover Cash Back Bonus rewards & partners. Here’s how the program works and what you need to know about recent changes to the program.

How does it work?

Discover Cash Back Bonus is a credit card rewards program. With Discover’s most popular card, More, you get 5% cash back bonus in rotating categories and up to 1% cash back bonus on everything else. Furthermore, you can also get a 5% to 20% cash back bonus with online shopping done through the ShopDiscover portal for cardmembers (hundreds of stores are part of the network). This accumulated bonus you earn on your spending can then be redeemed in a number of ways…

When it comes time to redeem your rewards, you have a few options

• Get a credit to your Discover credit card account (at face value, i.e. $50 statement credit will use up $50 in cash back bonus)
• Get a direct deposit to your bank account (also at face value)
• Donate your cash back balance to charity (at face value)
• Get a Discover gift card with free shipping and no fees (at face value)

So those options are all at face value (where $1 in cash back bonus equals $1 towards the reward) but there are a couple ways to increase what you get in return:

• Back in 2010 the Discover Cash Back Bonus rewards program added merchandise as a redemption option. Upon viewing the selection in my account, it looks like they have several hundred products currently available – electronics, fashion, toys, kitchen… you name it, they have it. With some of these products, it looks like you can get more bang for your buck (amount of Cashback Bonus it costs is less than the price in the store).
• Last by certainly not least, the most popular option is to redeem your Cashback Bonus for partner gift cards. There are over 200 companies participating and the face value of the gift card is more than the amount of Cashback Bonus it will cost you. For example, you only need to use $20 of your rewards to get a $25 Staples gift card, $20 for $40 Mrs. Fields Cookies gift card, etc.

The Secret To Maximizing Your Cashback Bonus

For starters, take advantage of the 5% categories as much as possible. When it comes time to redeem your accumulated rewards, statement credits and direct deposits are only face value so skip those. The partner gift cards will almost always give you the most bang for your buck. At the very least, you’re almost always getting a 25% bump ($25 gift card for $20 in rewards) or an 11% bump ($50 gift card for $45). Especially being that there are a number of offers that give double value.

What’s The Best Discover Card For Cash Back Bonus?

The Discover More gives you up to 5% in various categories and up to 1% everywhere else. You can check out my review for a special signup offer!

Already have Discover More? Then score a fat signup bonus of up to $250.00 with Chase Sapphire!

Written or last updated Jan 2012.