Discover How Dishonest Discover Is

Another rant about a dubious business process. My wife and I use the Discover card for business expenses only. We use the American Express Rebate card for all other purchases because it pays us back 1.5% of all our purchases. Discover has a cash back program also, but it is for 1% unless you buy certain things. In the past, Discover simply applied your reward to your balance, which is what I would expect the default to be. Well, you need to be a lawyer to sift through all of their rules to prevent you from really taking advantage of their new offer. They no longer apply the reward to your balance automatically. They now stick a sheet in their bill that most people will throw away (mistake 1). The sheet says you must call a 1-800 number or go to their website to redeem the reward (mistake 2). Honestly, are the elderly going to see that? I almost didn't see it. True, your reward will continue to grow, but I bet a TON of people just assume it is applied to their balance at some point not knowing that they have to do something to cash it in. How many people will cancel their cards or die with a reward outstanding? Next, they try to get you to trade in your $ for gift cards - marketing the fact that you can double your reward on some purchases. Well, I had $120 coming to me so I thought - wow - if I can double that with a store I use a lot (Border's, Gap, Best Buy) maybe I'll do it. Well, the only companies that doubles were travel agencies and cruises (mistake 3). Most would give you an extra $5 if you got a $20 making it a $25 gift card. I still thought I might do this, but I noticed there were only 1 or 2 companies I do business with. Well, I'll just get 3 $25 cards for 2 companies making $30 in the process. Wrong. You may only get 1 "bonus" per company (mistake 4). In the end I just decided to click the button that would apply the reward to my balance and instead of prefilling the entire amount of $120, it defaults to only $20 in the "apply this amount" bucket (mistake 5). Almost makes me think it's time to "Discover" a new company to use for business expenses and travel!