While the shopdiscover portal tends to have very competitive payouts, you'd need to be doing a lot of online shopping to justify the credit inquiry. An inqjuiry is worth $500 minimum in opportunity cost. Let's be generous and say the shopdiscover portal would get you 2% more cash back than other portals. You would need to do $25K of online shopping to justify the inquiry. Better to wait for a good sign up bonus. Of course, TPG is pandering to clueless noobs who can probably afford the inquiry, but clearly his choices are tainted by the affiliate commission.