Why You Might Want This Card

Seeing Double

Discover has given us something extremely valuable through this particular card: Double your money. Discover will match everything you earn in the first 12 billing periods of opening your account -- with no limit. That means if you keep an eye on your quarterly rotating categories to earn 5x cash back, you have huge potential here. Let’s talk about the 5% earning categories, which are announced annually, usually around November for the following year. Sure, these categories are preselected for you, but they make a lot of sense. Things like groceries, restaurants, gas and Amazon. Between the earning categories and the $0 annual fee, this a unique card to keep around even if you're working on a minimum spend on another card. Cash redemption has no minimum amount if you're crediting the cash back to your account, doing an electronic deposit into a designated account, or utilizing your cash-back bonus at select merchants. If you redeem for a gift card or eCertificate, the redemption has to be in $20 increments. There is also a nice perk of 0% APR for the first 14 months on not just balance transfers but also on purchases. There's also the $0 annual fee and no foreign transaction fees.

Bottom Line

The spending multipliers can draw some interest. But Discover got rid of many perks like rental insurance, travel insurance, extended warranties and the like. This may not matter to someone getting a cash back card because you could get those perks with most of your other travel cards. And there's zero sign-up bonus. The bright spot is this is a pretty easy card to get for college students who are trying to build credit -- while also getting some cash-back perks.