Discover it Chrome Benefits Guide

The Discover it® Chrome isn’t your typical cash back credit card. Its streamlined benefits and first year Cashback Match™ make it a solid choice for people with good credit who want to earn decent rewards on dining and gas purchases. This card is ideal for people upgrading from a secured credit card or student card to one that offers a simple rewards structure and functional benefits with no annual fee. Uncover which benefits you could enjoy and the keys to maximizing the Discover it® Chrome.

Discover it® Chrome benefits

Discover it® Chrome doesn’t carry the standard benefits you might find on other top cash back cards. You won’t find any purchase protections, annual statement credits or extended warranties, but you will find its Cashback Match program and no annual fee useful.

Fraud protection benefits and financial tools

The Discover it® Chrome offers a few ways to keep your identity and money safe with these features:

• Freeze your account: This lets you temporarily freeze your account through the Discover mobile app or website to prevent new transactions from coming through.
• Discover Identity Alerts: A free service that monitors your Experian credit report for new inquiries or accounts and monitors the dark web for leaks of your personal information and social security number (activation required).
• Zero fraud liability: You’re never responsible for any unauthorized purchases on your card.

Plus, if your card is compromised or lost, you can have it quickly replaced for free. You can also view your FICO credit score for free through your Discover account.

Discover it® Chrome rewards

Discover it® Chrome has a cash back rewards program that offers a rate of 2 percent cash back on your first $1,000 of combined restaurant and gas station purchases each quarter and 1 percent on everything else. The calendar quarters begin on January 1, April 1, July 1, and October 1. After you’ve reached your quarterly cap for 2 percent cash back, you’ll earn unlimited 1 percent cash back on all purchases. Those rewards can be redeemed in multiple ways:

• Gift cards
• Charitable donations
• Electronic deposit
• Statement credit
• Pay with rewards at checkout with Amazon.com and PayPal

Cashback Bonus®

The rewards you accumulate from using the Discover it® Chrome are simple to understand and are referred to as your Cashback Bonus. To show how much you could earn with the Discover it® Chrome, let’s say you hit the $1,000 spending cap on the 2 percent categories every quarter for one year. You also spend $1,000 outside of the 2 percent categories each quarter. Here’s how much cash back you would earn:

The spending cap on the cash back you can earn reduces the usefulness of this card for people who spend more than $333 a month at restaurants and gas stations combined. However, it could make sense for someone whose spending fits within that quarterly threshold.

Cashback Match

Discover doesn’t offer a traditional welcome bonus for new cardholders, but that doesn’t mean you’ll miss out on rewards. Instead, Discover matches each dollar of cash back you earn in your first year, with no limit, through its Cashback Match program. So if you earned $120 of cash back in your first year, you’d be rewarded with an extra $120 at the end of the year, totaling $240 in cash back.

The Discover it Chrome’s Cashback Match offer can provide a lot of value in the first year for big spenders. But the card’s so-so regular rewards rate without Cashback Match makes it fall behind other options, like the Discover it® Cash Back card, after the first year.

Purchase and balance transfer offers

Do you need to transfer a high-interest credit card balance or finance a large purchase? The Discover it® Chrome has two introductory offers that could save you money on interest and make it worth it to choose this card:

• 0% intro APR for 6 months.
• 0% intro APR for 18 months. Transfers must post by a specified cut-off date (which you can find in your account terms and conditions) to qualify for the introductory APR.

After the introductory period ends, the ongoing 18.24% – 27.24% Variable APR applies. If you do a balance transfer with Discover it® Chrome, there is an intro balance transfer fee of 3 percent for transfers posted to your account by the cut-off date noted within your terms and conditions. Balance transfers performed after your cut-off date have a balance transfer fee of 5 percent. Remember that this card has no grace period on your balance transfers.

No foreign transaction fees

The Discover it Chrome charges no foreign transaction fees, making it a good option if you’re planning to use your card abroad. Keep in mind, however, that Discover cards may not be accepted in every country. You can check Discover’s international acceptance map to see where your card is accepted.

Maximizing the Discover it® Chrome

Maximizing the Discover it® Chrome requires monitoring your spending habits in the higher-rate rewards categories so you don’t overshoot the quarterly cap and get reduced cash back on purchases that could be better rewarded by a different card. Avoid this by pairing the Discover it® Chrome with one of the top flat-rate cash back cards to consistently earn a higher rate on purchases other than restaurants and gas stations.

Another way to maximize the Discover it® Chrome is to finance a large purchase or transfer a high-interest credit card balance with its introductory APR offer. You can minimize interest charges if you have a solid plan to pay off the balance before the intro period ends. Once you receive your card, you’ll also want to fully use the fraud protection benefits by registering for the Discover identity alerts.

At the end of your first year, evaluate whether this card’s cash back program still adequately rewards your spending without the Cashback Match so you know if it’s worth keeping long term.

The bottom line

When you’re testing the waters of using cash back credit cards, the Discover it® Chrome makes it easy to get the hang of it with a simple rewards structure, no annual fee and streamlined benefits. To get this card, we recommend a credit score in the good to excellent range.

The Discover it® Chrome is worth it when your restaurant and gas station spending doesn’t exceed the $1,000 quarterly spending cap. If you notice your spending surpassing that limit, use a flat-rate cash back card or another card with high restaurant and gas rewards to help you continue earning higher rewards on your purchases. Overall, this card is a good introduction to the world of cash back credit cards, but you’ll want to re-evaluate how well this card works for you after the first year.