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Get 3x points (3% cash back) on everything in your first year with Discover it® Miles

December 31, 2024: The Discover it® Miles card can be a great card in the first year thanks to Discover’s Cashback Match. Normally, the card earns 1.5 “miles” per dollar, which can be redeemed for cash back. But with the cash back match, you’ll effectively earn 3 miles per dollar on every purchase in your first year.

The card doesn’t normally offer a welcome bonus, but there is a way to get an extra $100 on top of the cash back match, but you won’t see this offer on most sites. Here’s everything you need to know.

Best new cardmember bonus: Dollar-for-dollar cashback match plus $100

Discover it® Miles card art
Discover it® Miles

Annual fee: annual_fees

Best sign-up bonus: Earn a $100 statement credit after you apply through a referral link and make your first purchase within 3 months of getting approved. Plus get all of your miles doubled at the end of your first year. Learn how to apply.

The $100 new cardmember bonus is awarded as a statement credit. The double miles from the Cashback Match will be awarded at the end of your first cardmember year.

We’ve included a link to Frequent Miler above. We don’t currently have a way to link to the best offer directly, so we’ll send you to one of the sites that we like. We’ll always show you the best offer, regardless of our affiliate relationships.

My take: Great card for the first year. Use a referral link.

The Discover it® Miles card can be a great card in your first year of being a cardmember, since it effectively gives you 3% cash back on all of your purchases. If you’re planning on a lot of non-bonused spending, that’s a great new cardmember incentive!

Be sure that you use a personal referral link to apply. Discover will give you the first-year cashback match no matter how you apply, but you’ll only get the $100 after making your first purchase if you apply through someone’s referral link.

Unfortunately, the card isn’t a great option after the first year. You’ll only get 1.5x miles on every dollar. Not bad, but when you consider the fact that the card offers no substantive consumer insurance benefits like extended warranty and no travel insurance benefits, you’re probably better off with a card like the Chase Freedom Unlimited® for everyday spending.

Eligibility: Can you earn this bonus?

Discover doesn’t have rules specific to earning sign-up bonuses, but Discover does restrict how many and how often you can open Discover credit cards:

  • Discover will let you have at most two Discover credit card.
  • You must wait 12 months from the last time you opened a Discover card to open a second card.

As long as you do not already have two cards and it’s been 12 or more months since you opened your last Discover card, you should be eligible to earn the bonus from a referral and get a first-year cash back match.

About the author

  • Photo of Aaron Hurd, credit card and travel rewards expert.

    Aaron Hurd is a credit card, travel rewards, and loyalty program expert. Over the past 15 years, he has authored over a thousand expert contributions published by leading outlets including WSJ, TIME, Newsweek, Forbes, NerdWallet, The Points Guy, Bankrate, CNET, and many others. He has also served in consulting roles for many of these same outlets, designing content strategy, hiring teams of teams of editors and contributors, developing thought-leadership pieces, and ghost-editing for senior editors. Aaron is well-known in the miles and points community and regularly presents about travel rewards at conferences like the Chicago Seminars and Minnebar. Aaron has enjoyed the game of optimizing credit card rewards since getting his first credit card shortly after he turned 18. He started learning about credit cards and travel rewards from the (now defunct) FatWallet Finance forums and FlyerTalk. He holds more than 40 open credit cards and has first-hand experience with almost every major credit card product.

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