Discover Q4 2014 -- Online Shopping / Department Stores
 

Discover has announced their 4th quarter 5% CBB cats, online shopping and department stores.

Online shopping is pretty broad, I'm thinking maybe AGC + portal or Staples? What's the best play here.

Amazon Payments worked last year so we will see if it works again this year.

Didn't even think about that. Perfect.

I wonder if loading Serve would work. I'm guessing not.

Does anyone know if AGC via a portal (or just in general) counts as online shopping? Seems it would if it's purchased via a website.

Did it work in Q4 2013? Want to make an order but figured I'd check in first. Thank you!

Anything that has the "online purchase" flag should get the 5%. Discover, like other banks, can see whether the card was swiped, keyed in, phone/online order, etc. as part of the info they get for a transaction.

As for what you should do to max this out, anything that you can't earn a category bonus for on a different card (so don't use staples.com) is equally good. I think AP is the best route since you can charge exactly $1500 and be done. That's what I did in 2013, and got my 5%.

even tho its abt a month away, can we combine Chase Q4 discussion with this thread just like we did for Q3?

If you send a $1000 payment via AP in October, and then a $500 payment is November, both with your Discover card, is there any potential problem with using a second card for the additional $500 payment in November?

no.

Chase is amazon.com and other department stores. I can't remeber if AP worked for chase last year. Some sears still have VGC though.

AP does not work for Freedom cash back on Amazon

Would this work to fund Amex for Target?

Online stores only! To get this to work, you'd have to call in the store first, tell them to draw a line, ask them to stand on the line (online), load using your discover while they're online and then come back and tell us if it worked!

No it's not. I think Target is classified as a "discount store" though, so it still won't get 5%

For some reason this post really cracked me up...:D:D

Discover Q4 2014 -- Online Shopping / Department Stores
 

you could get 10% for vgc... you just need to discover where to shop.

Interesting. None of the stores look promising tho.

With AP going away after October, what are people planning to do for the additional 500 of online spend? Are there any other equally easy avenues to fill out the $1500 spend?

except the biggest retailer in the world.

P2P payments ends Oct 13 so can't use AP in November.

Does paying medical bills, health insurance or car insurance online count for discover?

Add the Discover to one of my other AP accounts and spend the $500 there. What are they going to do, shut my account down? Won't really matter by the time that happens.

Would linking the same bank account under another AP account work? What I'm afraid of is the payment is able to get sent but then the receiving account gets frozen/banned before the funds get withdrawn.

Just send $1000 and make sure its withdrawn and then try the $500. Its not like its gonna matter at that point if they ban your account.

A quick $1500 in VGC via GiftCardMall for $75 CB - $22 fees = $53 profit is good enough for me.

I read somewhere in the GCM thread that one of the card prefixes that was blocked when they started to block AGC was Discover. I can't remember if it was a Discover GC though.

It was only cards that started with 600649 which is some kind of store gift card that people figured out worked elsewhere.

Would Simon Service desk count?

I doubt it.

Serve and Discover 5%
 

Will loading serve with the discover card count towards the 5% bonus for the fourth quarter for online purchases?

Don't know. Try it! I will be able to say sometime in the next 24-48 hours when it moves from pending to recent.

(Best Guess, though, is no...it's online but categorized as service)
Serve:
Merchant Category Description BUYING/SHOPPING SERVICES, CLUBS
Broad Industry Description SERVICES-GENERAL
POS Mode Description ONLINE

Amazon Payments (which did count last year, at least):
Merchant Category Description DIRECT MRKTNG-ALL OTHER DIRECT MRKTRS
Broad Industry Description RETAIL-MAIL/PHONE ORDER
POS Mode Description ONLINE

bahahahahahaha, excellent!:D^

Do eBay purchases qualify? I don't see it listed under the examples but the list is not exhaustive (it ends with "AND MORE....").

Is buying VGC from giftcardmall eligible for 5%?
thanks

Discover chat CS says yes

Paying car insurance bill doesn't work. I tried it last year and didn't get the cash back. At least with Geico.

Thank you FTA!

IIRC, giftcardmall worked last year but some people had to call Discover and manually adjust their cashback percentage.

My Serve load has POS Mode Description of Online. Not sure how to confirm that it counts for 5%.

I'm not optimistic.