Not every store out there offers a student discount, but another way to get a pseudo-student discount is by using a student credit card that gives you automatic cash back on purchases at certain merchants or for certain purchase categories. One of the best cash back student cards out there is from Discover. The Discover Student Card has the following major features:
- 5% rebates on different categories depending on time of year:
- January – March: Travel
- April – June: Home and Fashion
- July – September: Gas, Hotels and Movies
- October – December: Restaurants and Fashion
- 5% – 20% cash back rebates at over 100 online retailers such as Gap.com, Dell.com, BestBuy.com, Target.com and many more
- Double the value of cash back rebates by redeeming the cash back for gift cards at certain merchants such as Starbucks.com, Lenovo.com and Borders.com
- Up to 1% cash back bonus on all other purchases (.25% for first $1,500 spent, .5% for second $1,500 spent and then 1% back on all purchases over $3,000 in a year)
In my opinion the 5% – 20% rebates at the 100 online retailers you can find on ShopDiscover.com is the most powerful feature of this card. All you have to do is go to ShopDiscover.com and then select the merchant you want to shop with, you click on the link to go to that merchants site and then use your Discover card at checkout and you’ll get a cash rebate on your Discover card statement. Cash rebates can be anywhere from 5% to 20%, some of the best stores online you can get this deal are:
- Apple.com, get 5% cash back, includes all purchases!
- Gap.com, get 5% cash back on all purchases
- AmericanEagle.com, get 5% back on all purchases
- Barnes & Noble.com, get 10% back on all purchases
- Target.com, get 5% cash back bonus on all purchases
So how does this whole cash back thing work you ask? What happens is that after you make a purchase at one of these online retailers (after clicking through from ShopDiscover.com and using your Discover Student Card) the charge will show up on your Discover card and then a few days to weeks later the cash back reward will show up. You can redeem the cash back rewards in the following ways:
- Turn your cashback into bigger rewards by redeeming them for gift cards at over 100 online merchant Partners. For instance, you can redeem $40 of cash back rewards into an $80 Lenovo.com gift certificate or $45 of cash back rewards into a $50 Oliver Garden gift certificate
- Get a Discover Gift Card that can be used in any store that accepts Discover Cards
- Credit your Discover Card account
- Electronic deposit to your bank account
With all the options for getting extra cash back rewards from certain retailers on top of the default 1% cash back you get on any purchases there are some major savings to be had. Just think, if you’re buying a MacBook Pro from Apple.com for your school needs you’ll automatically save $60 on a MacBook Pro purchase of $1,199 with the cashback reward. I haven’t been able to confirm this, but some have also told me they’ve been able to get the Apple Student Discount in addition to the Discover cashback reward bonus for Mac purchases.
The Student Discover Card has NO Annual Fee and balances 0% APR for the first six months with a current 14.99% APR for any balances not paid off within the charge period. There are several different design options for the Discover Student Card, two of the most popular are “Mixed Tape” and “Tropical Beach”.
To apply for the Student Discover Card just Click Here to apply online!
No comments yet.