Important Things To Know About Discover Credit Cards

Whether you’re looking for cash back, travel rewards, or a long 0% APR period, Discover offers all of these benefits with their no-annual-fee credit card to fit your needs. Being that is is a secured credit card, you might want a Discover card after reading about what it has to offer. But like we tell anyone who is credit card searching, make sure you do your research on all the cards you’re considering before you make your final pick. In the mean time, here is a list of some important things to know about Discover Credit Cards to help make choosing easier for you.

Editor’s Note: If you are interested in more Discover Bank Deals, Bonuses, and Promotions, see our compiled list of Discover Bank Deals here.

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Things to Know

1. View credit cards that you’re pre-approved for online. They offer more cards than you might think (e.g Discover it, Discover it Chrome, Discover it Secured & Discover it Miles)
2. You can check your application status with Discover online. When signing up for a new card, you will have the option to see your status and know exactly where you stand with the application.
3. You are only allowed to have a maximum of 2 credit cards. Discover will only issue you 2 credit cards by them. To open a second card, your first credit card must be open and in good standing for at least a year. Additionally, you can only have one student credit card. This also means that multiple inquiries will not be merged since you can only apply for one card at a time.
4. It’s possible to churn Discover credit card bonuses.
5. You have the ability to request a sign-up bonus match. If you see a higher sign-up bonus, you can be asked to matched that. If they don’t, ask to talk to a manager.
6. Refer your friends to apply for Discover credit cards. Discover has a nice perk where it allows you to refer your friends or anyone you may know to sign-up for their credit cards that you have opened. The person you refer will receive $50 and you will also receive $50. Your $50 will be doubled if you have that bonus attached to your account. You are limited to 10 referrals per year.
7. Discover does not issue an instant credit card number. You will have to wait until you receive the physical card to use it for making purchases.
8. There are no retention bonuses, but you are eligible to get spending bonuses. Since they don’t have any annual fees, they therefore don’t really offer any retention bonuses. However, you can call and ask if they have any spending bonuses associated to your account. You also have the option to check online at https://www.discover.com/myoffers if you choose not to call. We recommend you do both.
9. Re-allocating credit limits is considered a soft pull if it is done at the time of a new card application. If it’s for existing cards, it will depend. Note that both cards need to have a minimum credit limit of $500.
10. Requests for small credit limit increases are considered soft pulls and requests for larger amounts will result in a hard pull. This is pretty straight forward.
11. If you set up auto pay it will adjust your auto-pay if you pay it in full or make a partial payment. However, if you pay in full, they’ll cancel the system will cancel the auto-pay.
12. If you apply for a card(s) and you are denied, you can still be re-considered. If you are denied when applying for a card, call their re-consideration line.
13. Business credit cards don’t get reported to the personal credit bureaus. This can be useful in keeping your credit report cleaner.
14. Discover reports for statement balance to credit bureaus. They’ll also report off cycle if you contact them directly. This can be helpful if you need to lower your credit utilization quickly for FICO scoring purposes.
15. You have the option to change your payment due date online. Just keep in mind this doesn’t change the date that your balance is reported to credit bureaus. See previous statement.
16. Discover allows you product change with their different credit cards. There aren’t any rules saying that there is a required minimum length the card needs to be opened for before it can be switched over. However, you currently can’t product change to/from Discover it Miles.
17. A frozen credit report will keep you from being approved. They won’t approve you if this is the case. They also won’t accept a temporary PIN over the phone; you’ll have to unfreeze it before being re-considered.