Quick background: Discover is currently running two overlapping promotions: an extra 10% cash back for Apple Pay purchases, plus double all cash back for a year. Each promotion is amazing on its own. Taken together, they’re fantastic. You can find full details here and here.
The one little hitch has been the introduction of terms to the Apple Pay promo. The terms now exclude gift card purchases. See: Discover’s Deal of the Year: Excludes gift cards.
Will the gift card exclusion be enforced?
Just because Discover tells us that gift cards are excluded does not mean that the rule will be enforced. My guess is that gift card purchases will count. Unfortunately, that is just a guess based on past experience with similar deals. Until we get evidence, we won’t know for sure.
Waiting for proof
Proof has not yet arrived. Bonus cash back usually appears on the next statement after a qualifying purchase, or the statement after that.
So far, many people have had their statements close, but they have not yet earned any rewards from the Apple Pay promotion. That would be worrisome if it was only true for gift card purchases, but its true for regular purchases too. My statement closed today with the same result. No Apple Pay rewards were credited for gift cards or for other stuff.
The Apple Pay promotion began September 16th. So, in the second half of October, some people will receive their second statement covering purchases that may have qualified for Apple Pay promo rewards. I hope and expect that we’ll see reports from readers in late October that will settle the issue of whether or not the gift card exclusion is enforced.
TLDR
We don’t know. Please check back later.
Today’s non informative post was inspired by reader questions received daily.
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Guys any good news???
Sub
I am new to Serve. So what i heard is Vanilla is a no go for serve.
Shaws is not present in texas. I am in dallas , TX. So any MS guys…can add some data points for this region.
Now please let me know where to buy non vanilla gift cards – 500 $ with apple pay, since redbird may die soon and need to switch to serve
Can’t you load Vanilla Visas to Serve at Family Dollar?
yes
Shaw’s
Same here standard 1% for gc purchase at office supply store
Status update for my Frequent Miler buddies. My statement closed October 12th, no 10%. Standard 1% received for everything. This is for one gc-only purchase, one mixed purchase, and one pure merchandise purchase. Fingers still crossed!
following
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remindme!
My statement closes on the 18th. Had one GC purchase post on 9/18, will update on 10/18 as it will be my second generated statement with potential AP CB, maybe it’s the number of statements, though could very well just be X amount of days or whenever Jimmy over in Customer Rewards hits the big green button.
That’s true. Looking forward to hearing your results!
Well that was a long wait, still no posted AP. Come on Jimmy!
I love that you are ‘inspired by reader questions received daily’…..
🙂 Thanks for all you do Greg!
I agree. Thanks for the update. Even no update is an update.
I was itching to email to see if you had an answer to the burning question, but restrained myself.
Anyone had an issue using Apple Pay in excess of $50? My local grocery store has a $50 limit. The nice cashier said that he heard I could input a code to override it, but wasn’t sure how to make that happen. Anyone else have this issue and find a solution? Thanks!
I had no issue over $50 and I spent well over $50 at several stores. Did you mean over $500? Even so, I had no problem. I did get an alert from Discover for an amount over $500 because I set that up.
If you go to your Discover 12 month online activity portion on their website and then print your cash back bonus summary will itemize everything you have gotten or not.
Looking at my old Discover account . . . I think I see what you’re referring to. It looks like a total by category. Wish it was a detailed list by transaction with an associated date. I wonder if I’m looking at the right thing??
Thanks for the update, I assumed you were waiting as well….zzzzz