Those who signed up for a Discover It card recently (and those who signed up as existing cardholders prior while they allowed that) have a remarkable opportunity: after 12 months, Discover has promised to double all cashback earned. Since the Discover It card already offers generous 5% cash back in rotating categories and one of the best cash back portals around, there are plenty of opportunities to combine these promotions to earn fantastic rewards. For example, in a previous post, I laid out how to take advantage of multiple Discover offers at once to get up to 70% cash back on Sears.com purchases. For complete details, please see this post: Maximizing the Discover Double Cash promo: Huge rewards via online shopping!
Discover 5% at Sears.com
One key piece of the puzzle is the ability to get 5% cashback from Sears during the 3rd and 4th quarter 5% category bonuses. In both quarters this year, Discover is offering 5% cash back for department stores, among other options:
A few readers have commented that while Sears counts as a department store for in-person purchases, Sears doesn’t count for online purchases. Here’s an example comment from an old post:
I love your blog and has been very very useful to me. But I would recommend you stop misguiding people about sears and discover portal earn rates.
sears.com = purchases code as merchandise and are not eligible for “home improvement” or “department store” 5% quarterly bonus
sears.com = purchases do get 10% discover deals bonus
sears instore purchase = you get 5% “department store” bonus
So max you can earn,without the double bonus at end of year, is 10% not 15%.
This would be a useful warning if it were true, but it hasn’t been my experience in the past. Sears.com has always counted for 5% cash back during similar category bonus periods in the past, so why wouldn’t it count now?
With my recent purchases in which I reloaded Sears’ gift cards, my purchases coded as follows:
SEARS.COM 09300 W DES MOINES IA
CATEGORY: Merchandise
Merchant Category: DIRECT MRKTNG-COMBO CATALOG & RETAIL
Despite the coding shown above, I can now declare that Sears.com does count. In my latest Discover card statement, we can see that my combined $1000 worth of gift card reload purchases from Sears.com did result in 5% cash back:
And, yes, I also earned 10% cash back from the Discover portal. So, combined, I earned 15% cash back from reloading Sears’ gift cards. And, when I buy things from Sears.com using those gift cards, I always go through the Discover portal (which is offering 10% until August 31). So, my cash back total comes to 25%, which will later be doubled to 50%. And, in those occasions where I can buy items with 100% back in points, I’ll do even better (see: Roll gift cards into points for triple rewards).
Notes:
- The 5% quarter bonus only works for purchasing e-gift cards, print-gift cards, or refilling existing gift cards from Sears.com. By-mail physical gift cards will not work because the charge will come from Kmart, not Sears.
- The 5% quarter bonus only works for Sears & Kmart gift cards bought from Sears.com. Sears advertises additional gift cards sold by GiftCardMall, but these will not earn the 5% category bonus (and they will not earn portal rewards either).
- You can buy other (non Sears/Kmart) gift cards in-store at Sears to earn the 5% category bonus, but then you cannot combine this with a portal bonus.
Why we care
For anyone signed up for the Discover Double Cash Back promotion, all cash back earned will be doubled after 12 months. So, a 5% category bonus will really mean 10% in the long run. And, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, this and other deals can be combined for up to 70% cash back! For full details of how to take advantage of this promotion, please see “Maximizing the Discover Double Cash promo: Huge rewards via online shopping!”
How to get in on the deal
If you do not have a Discover It card, or you want a second one, you can still get in on the double cash back promotion by signing up for Discover It by September 30th. You can find a referral link (from a friend of mine) on my best offers page. This will get you both the double cash back offer and a $50 signup bonus (which will also be doubled at the end of the year).
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[…] FrequentMiler, Sears does count as a department store for Discover’s 5% category bonus. Double cashback here we come! I’ve already made my purchases, just waiting for my statement […]
Have you received a confirmation email from Discover Deals portal for gc reload purchases this quarter?
Last quarter I purchased 3 gift card reloads and received the confirmation email (titled “Congratulations, your extra Cashback Bonus is on the way”) within 2 days of purchasing each of them.
This quarter it’s already been a week and I have yet to receive any confirmation at all.
Yes, on October 1 I reloaded a gift card and I received the email on October 3rd.
I tried to do this for q4 for discover sears reload and the 5% department store bonus did not show up. Only the discover deals.
It will probably show up on your next statement. If it doesn’t, call Discover to ask for the 5%
FYI, I purchased a Sears gift card through the Discover portal, then went back through the website to purchase items using the gift card. I received a confirmation email from Sears. Then one from discover showing I would earn cash back for a purchase (I’m not clear if it was the gift card or the second purchase, I haven’t received another email from Discover and the amount was oddly either 9% or 11% of either of the purchases–not 5% or 10% as I would have expected). Anyway, mostly so far so good. Then 4 days after my initial purchase my orders were cancelled. The reason given was due to lack of inventory. I called the 800# given and was told there was plenty of inventory and that it was an error. But rather than fix it and send the item, they were going to refund the gift card. They told me if I wanted the item, I could repurchase it.
Not sure what any of this means, but I definitely am lacking trust in Sears at this point!
There’s no doubt that Sears is a screwed up company in many ways. Sometimes this hurts us and sometimes it helps (due to the opportunities to earn points, for example)
[…] back from Sears… and, especially with Discover It offering 5% cash back for department stores (Sears.com counts!)… and, especially while the Discover Deals portal paid out for the purchase of gift cards from […]
Anybody have any experience with purchasing from searsoutlet.com in terms of qualifying for 5% back? Thanks in advance!
[…] […]
I read somewhere that Discover portal is cracking down on purchases made via their portal paid for with cards other than the Discover card. The 10% (x2) is too much to gamble, so I’ll probably just use my Discover for an actual purchase. Is the double dip basically dead?
I haven’t seen any good evidence of this crackdown. I haven’t had any trouble. That said, Sears recently changed their Terms & Conditions on a number of portals so I’m doing some experiments to see what still works and what doesn’t.
A beginner’s question: I want to buy a gift card for eBay. Let’s say I buy it at Home Depot through a Discover portal and pay with a Discover It card. Will it work or are gift cards (eBay/Amazon) not eligible?
Also, if I buy a Staples gift card (as a good deal), can I walk in the store and buy an eBay gift card with it?
Thanks, this is an interesting read 🙂
If Home Depot sold ebay gift cards online directly (vs. switching you to a different URL the way Sears does for giftcardmall purchases) then it would work. I don’t believe they do though.
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Regarding Staples: many cashiers are trained not to let you buy gift cards with gift cards, but it sometimes works if they haven’t been trained or they don’t care.
Do you take advantage of this extensively FM? Or do you just use this Sears method for research for mostly your blog post? I know in one of your other posts you said that in reality you’re limited in things you can purchase that has 100% points. I was just curious as to how limited in terms of what you have done since you are the expert in this area.
I maxed out my $1500 by reloading Sears gift cards this quarter and will probably do the same next quarter if/when the 10% portal bonus returns.
[…] […]
Can someone explain to me what the hype of this deal is? Can this be MS? And if so, how?
He’s already said more than enough for you to connect the dots. Try doing some work on your own.
Can I use Sears coupon code and still get the cash back? I have a 10% Sears coupon I received from previous order. I would like to know if it will void the CB if I use it. Thanks.
In my experience, yes, I’ve always received cash back even when using coupon codes.
Why don’t you try it and post your experience?
Anyone know if an account conversion resets the 5% for the current quarter? Around the end of July, my account was converted from a Discover More to a Discover It (with the double cashback for 12 months promo). Unfortunately, I purchased my $1.5K in 5% categories in early July (this was done online at Sears, and I can also confirm that I did receive the 5%). If I had thought this through better, I would have deferred the $1.5K until after the conversion so that it would be doubled. I know there have been many Discover account conversions recently, so wondering if anyone knows whether the 5% eligibility for the current quarter gets reset upon an account conversion.
I don’t know, I don’t think so, but why do you care? If it resets, you get 10% +5% x 2 = 30%. If not, you get 10% + 1% x 2 = 22%. Clearly not as good, but still amazing.
I’m more concerned as to whether or not the 10% posts. I got an email confirming the first few times, but it’s been silent since.
Have you had success with the 100% back in points tracking for portal bonuses? I did a purchase recently where I had some Shop Your Way bonus points that I used, and it didn’t seem that I received the portal bonus for that purchase.
Yes, it has always worked for me. Give it more time. In my experience, it works when redeeming at Sears.com or Kmart.com, but not LandsEnd.com
To follow up, how do you find out about cashback postings? I receive an email about it, but haven’t been able to find details on the discover website. This is when I am looking for specific purchases to see if they have tracked or not.
Unfortunately, I don’t know of any way to track them other than the email