Discover it Student Cash Back Credit Card Review

The Discover it® Student Cash Back Card is custom-made for, well, students. Not the most original start, but that’s what the card is: a decent tool to make ends meet while you’re making the first steps of your future career. It also offers a welcome bonus, some rewards, and a low intro APR. Plus, it helps you build credit responsibly and keep an eye on your FICO score and personal info.

In this Discover it Student Cash Back review, we’ll explore what the card has to offer and discover why it’s a popular choice among students starting their credit journey.

Core Features of Discover it Credit Card for Students

5% Cashback

Upon activation, cardholders get 5% cashback on a rotating pool of categories like groceries, restaurants, gas, and other typical daily purchases. This bonus is available for expenditures of up to $1,500 per quarter. If you exceed this amount, you’ll still get 1% cash back on any spending in those categories. Note that any other purchase will still benefit from 1% cashback.

Boosted Cashback Match

The card comes with an unlimited dollar-for-dollar match for the first year of membership. This means that at the end of your first year of card ownership, Discover will automatically double all cashback you’ve acquired, with no upper limit to the sum you can get. For example, if the bank matches $150 in that you’ve earned, you’ll receive an additional $150 for a total of $300. If you earn $300, you’ll get $600, and so on.

No Additional Fees

Does the Discover Student card have an interest fee? No, it doesn’t. It also offers a 0% introductory APR for the first six months of use. Then, a variable Discover Student Card APR of 18.24–27.24% will be applied based on your creditworthiness. There are no foreign transaction fees, but each balance transfer comes with a 3% introductory fee (which eventually increases to 5%). Discover also doesn’t charge late fees for your first missed payment each month. However, you will still be penalized for further late payments, so you better pay attention to your balance.

Free Credit Scoring Tracking

You may view your FICO credit rating at any time using the Discover it Student Cash Back program. This service allows you to check your credit health without incurring any additional costs. The score is updated regularly and can be viewed through your bank account. It’s based on the TransUnion credit statement and helps you track your credit-building progress. This feature is designed to allow students to monitor the impact of their spending patterns on credit scores.

Discover Student Card Benefits and Pitfalls

What Are the Perks?

Credit Building

This card is an excellent opportunity to start building a good credit history, as Discover provides easy-to-use tools for tracking your score. Along with the FICO score, Discover offers insight into what financial decisions impact your credit score (payment track record, credit utilization, the duration of the credit history, etc.).

Superior Rewards

This student plastic offers some remarkable perks for a specialized credit card. Given that you don’t have to pay an annual fee, getting 5% cashback sounds appealing, even considering the limited pool of supported spending categories. On the brighter side, these categories include the regular purchases that you likely already make every day. For example, through September 2024, each customer can receive cash back at Walmart (or other grocery stores). Next month, it’ll change to Amazon and Target.

An Easy Way to Collect Bonuses for Students

This card has no maximum or minimum spending limit for getting cashback. It also doubles all the cashback you receive during the first year of use. Such a high level of adaptability will be a huge boon for any student on a budget.

A Test Period with 0% APR

For the first six months, the card provides a 0% introductory APR on purchases and a 10.99% introductory APR on balance transfers. After this period, the Discover it student interest rate ranges from 18.24% to 27.24%. This presents an excellent opportunity to begin building your credit without incurring interest charges. However, it’s crucial to stay mindful about when the promotional period ends.

What Are the Cons?

Limited Global Acceptance

Discover is not as widely accepted abroad as Visa or Mastercard, which makes it basically useless in some countries. So, even though there are no international transaction fees, don’t go overseas with just this card in your wallet. If you plan to go abroad, the card is valid in Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil, Argentina, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand. Note that some stores in these countries may still decline Discover transactions.

Alternating Categories

Most of the card’s reward potential lies in a 5% cashback in rotating categories. If you prefer a card with consistent, fixed bonus categories, look into alternative Discover credit cards for students (there are some options that don’t change the categories so often). Managing and maximizing your cash back can grow quite tiresome with quarterly activations and the need to track the rotating categories.

Limited High Cash Back

The excellent 5% cashback rate applies only to the first $1,500 spent per quarter. After that, the cashback will drop to just 1 percent.

So, if you don’t like to activate the categories every quarter, it can be challenging to benefit fully from the card’s bonuses. To maximize your rewards, you may need to focus your spending on specific purchases during those months, which can be highly inconvenient.

Why is the Discover Student Credit Card Good?

Establishing a Credit History

As you won’t need to provide a credit score to get the card, the application process is typically easy and fast. Without an annual fee, all that cashback is also going straight into your pocket. Besides, the card can serve as the foundation for your credit history, since Discover sends reports on your credit utilization to all three major credit agencies. Also, if you miss a payment, Discover will waive the first late fee each month.

Earning Bonuses for Shopping

Compared to other student cards, Discover’s rewards seem quite generous. Even though 5% cashback applies only to selected categories, it’ll still help students save on everyday expenses. And the dollar-for-dollar match feature adds even more value to the deal.

Using 24/7 Customer Service

Most banks would have you pay for additional customer service subscriptions, but Discover provides it for free. The American-based customer support team is available at any moment for real-time consultations. You can reach out to them by phone call, email, or live chat.

Conclusion

The Discover it Student Cash Back is a good-specialized card. With no annual fee and valuable perks, it can be a game-changer for a young person’s financial life, mainly if they can take advantage of the cashback calendar available on the official website. When used wisely, this card can also aid in building a solid credit history at no additional cost.