Discover Double Cashback End Date & Terms
Around this time last year Discover rocked our world with the DEAL OF THE CENTURY YEAR! While that may be a bit too much excitement, for a brief month or so they did offer existing cardholders double cashback for a year. (New cardholders can still get this when signing up.) This promotion doubles earnings through credit card spend and Discover Deals purchases. We even got Double Cashback on our Apple Pay purchases (10% doubled to 20%) last year.
This past year hasn’t been without trouble. Discover did eventually end double cashback for existing cardholders. They also severely limited payouts from the Discover Deals portal and added a gift card limitation to the Apple Pay promotion. It may have taken them awhile, but I think they eventually realized that doubling all cashback would mean a lot of money!
Confirming Your Double Cashback
Still, many of us are coming up on a year with this promotion, which means our double cashback money is a comin’. Since I know many of you will want to maximize this thing to the end, it is important to know exactly when your promotion is ending. First, let’s look at the legalese regarding the promotional end period.
After the first 12 consecutive billing periods, we will match all of the cash back rewards you’ve earned and apply them to your account in the following one to two billing periods. If your account is closed or no longer in the cash back reward program at the time we calculate your potential award, your cash back will not be matched. You’ve earned cash back rewards when they have posted to your account by the end of the 12th consecutive billing period. This promotional offer may not be offered in the future.
So the double cashback is not paid on the date of enrollment, but on the statement closing period. To confirm my end date and enrollment period, I hopped on chat with Discover. The agent was able to confirm everything for me. (Thanks to reader Anthony for the idea!)
Specifically the agent confirmed:
- The account was enrolled on June 5, 2015.
- The statement closing date is June 12th.
I then asked the all important question:
Me: So I can make purchases up until June 12 that will count towards the Double Cashback?
Agent: That is correct.
So there you have it. You should be able to make purchases up until the day of the statement closing even if the charge doesn’t fully post until later. I am still a little skeptical that they will payout on purchases that are made on June 12th that don’t post until the next statement period, but alas I do have a copy of the chat transcript to back me up. (I do have another card with a later enrollment date, so I’ll probably just use that as it gets closer to avoid any issues.)
Applying for Another Card
It is possible to get a second Discover It card to perhaps play the game for another year. I won’t go too much into the details here since Frequent Miler did a good job of covering all of the considerations for getting another Discover it card the other day.
Conclusion
If you enrolled in Double Cashback on your Discover it card about a year ago, it can’t hurt to chat with Discover to get them to commit to a firm end date just in case there are issues with the cashback posting. I know that I have earned quite a lot of cashback in the past year and will be excited to see it all post in the next month or two!
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Does the promotion for “new cardmembers” apply to those who have other Discover cards? Or do you have to be a completely new Discover user?
Thanks for your posting. In my case, my card was approved in mid-June 2015, e-mail that the card was mailed out was June 28, 2015 and the first statement was actually August 9, 2015 except I emailed discover multiple times and it appears that the double cashback ended with the July 2016 statement since if you count the months:
August 2015 = Month 1
September 2015 = Month 2
October 2015 = Month 3
November 2015 = Month 4
December 2015 = Month 5
January 2016 = Month 6
February 2016 = Month 7
March 2016 = Month 8
April 2016 = Month 9
May 2016 = Month 10
June 2016 = Month 11
July 2016 = Month 12
So in your case, if your first statement was July 27, 2015, your 12th billing statement cycle would actually be June 27, 2016 as you have to count the month itself as you basically are one month earlier than mines. July to December is actually 6 months and not 5 since you have to include July itself and then for 2016, there is another 6 months which means it would be June for the end date for yours so basically it’s 11 months from the first bill since the first bill is already the 1st billing cycle.
Expecting Discover agents to dispense accurate (or even consistent) information is like believing in the Tooth Fairy. Didn’t we learn that during the Apple Pay promotion? The terms that you quoted above say “… when they have posted to your account by the end of the 12th consecutive billing period.” That seems fairly clear. And since Discover is very sloppy about when they post charges, I’m betting that purchases made during the last 3-5 days of the billing cycle will not count.
Here’s where I am confused. My card was approved on June 12. Since my statement generally closes on the 26th or 27th of the month, I would have expected the end of the first billing period to be June 26. But when I look at my statements on their site I see only 6 statements for 2015 with the first statement covering a 6-week billing period (June 14-July 26). So that means that my 12th billing cycle will end July 27.
What did other people see on their first statement? A short billing cycle or a long one?
This is why I saved my chat log and confirmed with a supervisor that the DCB will be based on purchase date and not post date. I hope to not have to go this route but in the event that I do I’ll have a legitimate chance of pushing for the additional 5%.
FYI, rep that I spoke to was adamant that my cutoff was the day that I enrolled. June 1.
Strange. Those terms I quoted above came directly from my rep via chat.
Yeah, this makes no sense at all. It’s become pretty common knowledge that it’s based on the 12 billing cycles. You may want to go back to chat or SM and request a follow up by a supervisor for clarification because I think you were fed misinformation.
sub
how you so smart coomer? just wondering…
The rules state after “12 consecutive billing periods” bonus miles will be posted. Wouldn’t the June 12, 2016 statement represent the 13th billing period and technically not be included? I hope this is not the case.
Yeah I was enrolled on June 5, but it didn’t start until the billing period of June 12. So basically the promotion runs June 12 through June 12 or at least it does according to what I was told in chat.
I got online to chat with a rep – she said that cashback from purchases that do not post by your cutoff statement will not be doubled. I was more concerned about Discover Deals purchases that take forever to post their cashback. Isnt that the same scenario as making purchases before the end of the statement and still getting them doubled?
Lots of confusion here