March 1, 2025: Today Discover announced its second quarter 2025 cash back categories on the Discover it® and Discover More® cards: Grocery stores and wholesale clubs. We expect that these categories will be highly useful to our readers.
Here’s what you need to know about Discover’s cash back calendar.
Q2 2025 Discover Cashback categories: Grocery Stores and Wholesale Clubs
Here are the details on Discover’s second quarter 2025 cash back categories. Using a Discover it® Cash Back or Discover More® card, you can earn 5% cash back in these categories from April 1, 2025 through June 30, 2025.
- Grocery stores includes purchases made at traditional supermarkets, plus meat lockers, bakeries, smaller grocery stores, and grocery delivery services. No purchases from Target or Walmart will earn bonus cash back in this category and convenience/discount stores won’t qualify.
- Wholesale clubs means purchases directly at wholesale clubs. This means purchases made directly at places like BJ’s Wholesale Club and Sam’s Club.
In this article…
Full Discover Cashback calendar 2025
For reference, here is the full cash back calendar for 2025 that Discover has announced.
| Quarter | Categories |
|---|---|
| Q1 January – March | Restaurants Home improvement stores Select streaming services |
| Q2 April – June | Grocery stores Wholesale clubs |
| Q3 July – September | Not yet announced. |
| Q4 October – December | Not yet announced. |
Q1 2025 Discover Cashback categories: Restaurants, Home Improvement, and Streaming
While Discover has announced its second quarter categories, you can still earn 5% in the first quarter categories throuhg March 31, 2025:
- Restaurants
- Home improvement stores
- Select streaming services
Additional details from Discover
Restaurant purchases are pretty simple, but most of the time card issuers exclude things like fast food and delivery services from their restaurant category. Discover includes these items in their category bonuses:
Restaurant purchases include those made at merchants classified as full-service restaurants, cafes, cafeterias, fast-food locations, caterers, and restaurant delivery services. Restaurants located inside of or affiliated with another business, such as hotels or retail stores and establishments classified as a bakery, may not qualify.
Discover cash back calendar terms
If you’re planning on doing a home improvement project. Keep in mind that many home improvement stores also sell gift cards which mean that you can “expand” this category. Pick up a gift card for Walmart at your favorite home improvement store and you’ve expanded the 5% savings to include Walmart.
Home Improvement Store purchases include online and in store purchases at home improvement retail stores, building supply stores (e.g. lumber, paint, and hardware stores), as well as lawn, nursery, and garden supply stores. Purchases made through third parties, such as contractors, may not qualify. Purchases from home furnishings, home appliance, and floor covering stores are not included.
Discover cash back calendar terms
Discover provides a list of streaming services, which includes (from my view) all of the major streaming services. Discover also mentions that other streaming services may qualify.
Examples of Select Streaming Service purchases include Amazon Music, Amazon Prime Video, AMC+, Apple Music, Apple TV, Audible, DirecTV Stream, FUBO, Google Play Music and Video, Max, iHeartRadio, MLB.TV, Netflix, Pandora, Paramount Plus, Peacock, Showtime, SiriusXM, Sling TV, Spotify, Starz, Vudu, YouTube Music, YouTube Premium, and YouTube TV. Other popular streaming services may be included. If your subscription is bundled with another product or service or billed by a third party (such as a digital platform, a cable or satellite provider, telecommunications, internet provider, or a car manufacturer), the purchase may not be eligible in this category. Add-ons associated with Select Streaming Services may not qualify for this promotion if they are not listed, billed in a bundle, billed separately, or billed through a third party. Listed merchants are in no way sponsoring or affiliated with this program.
Discover cash back calendar terms
Our take: How do we plan to use the categories?
I hold the Discover it® Cash Back credit card and I’m excited about the second quarter 2025 categories. Why? For me, it’s all about grocery stores.
You can get 5% or better cash back rewards at grocery stores from a number of cards, but all of the cards offering more than 3% cash back on groceries have caps on the amount of bonus rewards you can earn.
Adding my Discover card to the mix gives me an additional amount I can spend at grocery stores before I start hitting rewards caps—and that’s especially useful when you buy a large amount of groceries.
In principle, I love the warehouse club category as well, but we’re a Costco family. Since Discover isn’t accepted at Costco, either in-store or online, the warehouse club category isn’t useful to me personally. But if you shop at Sam’s Club or BJ’s, then it’s time to pull out your Discover card for your warehouse club purchases.
How to earn 5% cash back: You must activate your categories
If you have a Discover it® Cash Back, you must activate your Cashback Bonus categories before you’ll receive 5% on the quarter’s categories. There are two ways to activate your categories: Through the website or through an email you receive.
Activating through the website: Simply log into your account at Discover.com and look toward the left-hand side of the page for the link to active.
Activating through email: You may also receive an email with a one-click link to activate your cash back categories.
When do I need to activate?
The best time to activate your Discover cash back categories is as soon as they are announced. You’ll earn 5% back on bonus category purchases made only after you activate them. If you spend in Discover’s bonus categories after the quarter starts, but before you activate a cash back category, you’ll earn only 1% on purchases until you activate. Discover does not retroactively award bonus cash back to purchases you make before you activate.
Getting more rewards: Get up to 10% total with a new Discover card
Discover matches your cash back dollar-for-dollar at the end of your first year of card membership. This means that the card’s 5% categories effectively become 10% categories during your first year. Discover will allow you to have up to two cards—and both of those cards can be cards like the Discover It®, which earn 5% in bonus categories.
Here’s the best welcome bonus currently available on the Discover it® Cash Back:
Welcome bonus: Earn a $100 statement credit after you apply through a referral link and make your first purchase within 3 months of getting approved. Learn how to apply.
About the card: More on the Discover it® Cash Back card
Annual fee: annual_fees
Foreign transaction fee: annual_fees
All information about the Discover it® Cash Back card has been collected independently by cardsandpoints.com.
The Discover it® Cash Back card offers 5% cash back in Discover’s rotating quarterly categories and a dollar-for-dollar cash back match in your first year.
Sign-up bonus
Best sign-up bonus: Get a $100 statement credit if you apply through our link, are approved, and use your card in the first three months. This offer is exclusive to referral links like the ones on this page. You’ll also get a dollar-for-dollar cash back match in your first year of having the card.
The $100 bonus is earned as a statement credit and the dollar-for-dollar cash back match is earned as additional cash back rewards.
Rewards
- 5% on up to $1,500 in combined purchases in Discover’s rotating 5% categories each calendar quarter.
- 1% on all other purchases.
Rewards are earned as cash back, but can also be redeemed for gift cards. When you redeem for select gift cards, you’ll get better-than-cash-back value for your rewards.
Benefits
The Discover it® Cash Back card offers no substantive benefits.
Historical Discover cash back calendar: Every category offered since 2020
Knowing previous bonus categories can help you determine how much value you might get from a card with rotating categories in the future. While there is no guarantee that Discover will offer 5% rewards on any particular spending category until it announces its cash back categories, typically spending categories don’t change much year-to-year.
Here is what the Discover it® Cash Back has offered 5% rewards on in the past.
Discover cash back calendar for 2024
- January-March: Drugstores and Restaurants
- April-June: Gas stations, electric vehicle charging stations, home improvement stores, and public transit
- July-September: Grocery stores and Walmart
- October-December: Amazon.com and Target
Discover cash back calendar for 2023
- January-March: Grocery, Drugstores, Streaming
- April-June: Restaurants and Wholesale Clubs
- July-September: Gas and Digital Wallets
- October-December: Target and Amazon.com
Discover cash back calendar for 2022
- January-March: Grocery stores, fitness clubs and gym memberships
- April-June: Gas stations and Target
- July-September: Restaurants and PayPal
- October-December: Amazon.com and digital wallets
Discover cash back calendar for 2021
- January-March: Grocery stores, Walgreens and CVS
- April-June: Gas stations, wholesale clubs and select streaming services
- July-September: Restaurants and PayPal
- October-December: Amazon.com, Walmart.com and Target.com
Discover cash back calendar for 2020
- January-March: Grocery stores, Walgreens and CVS
- April-June: Gas stations, Uber, Lyft and wholesale clubs
- July-September: Restaurants and PayPal
- October-December: Amazon.com, Walmart.com and Target.com
Bottom line: Grocery stores and wholesale clubs are highly useful categories in Q2 2025
We love seeing useful categories on our rotating 5% cash back category cards and groceries and wholesale clubs hits the mark for us. If you’re a Discover it® Cash Back or Discover More® cardmember, be sure to activate your quarterly category bonus and take advantage of this category in April-June 2025.
