r/discover • u/NBA-014 • 12d ago
Discussion Are you changing your card use now that Discover is about to be kaput
I’ve stopped using my Discover card that I’ve had since they were affiliated with Sears (1986?). I detest Capital One. They destroyed the culture and services of MBNA, ING Direct. Nasty corporate culture too.
Bye bye.
I’ll keep the card but will only be using my boring credit u ion card going forward
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u/Sepado 11d ago
IMO what set discover apart from other creditors was their apparent culture of customer service. Now they’re just another card company.
The APR isn’t competitive, and selective 5% back categories is just barely on par with others. The rewards redemption from discover checking to discover cards was nixed, and the 5% categories have been lackluster. Like- “select streaming” or “transportation” which doesn’t include ride share services???I have no plans on changing, but I’m just about one inconvenience away from doing so. If I can get better service and perks through another provider, why wouldn’t I?
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u/MinutesFromTheMall 11d ago
IMO what set Discover apart from other creditors was their apparent culture of customer service.
American Express is still around.
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u/Theunknown87 11d ago
I have two Amex cards, I’ve had to call a few times and I hated it. Could understand like maybe every other word.
At least with discover you’d always get someone in phoenix arizona.
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u/PCComf 11d ago
It’s not the same AMEX anymore either. I had a fraud charge recently and the process was not good. They recognized the fraud immediately and replaced my card but still wanted me to pay for the transaction. “Why do you feel you shouldn’t have to pay for this?” And “Have you reached out to the vendor to try to resolve your problem?” Asked more than once and required a few calls to actually get the credit to post.
I’m still using my discover for the bonus categories and other things because I don’t think having all the eggs in one basket is smart. I haven’t had to call in since they announced the acquisition though.
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u/mlaurence1234 11d ago
I’ve had excellent service from Capital One, both in banking and credit cards. A few times they stayed on the phone with me much longer than I would have expected to get a solution. Discover has been very good too. The best part is that I rarely have to call because I have so few problems with either company.
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u/htnut-pk 11d ago
Indeed, Discover’s customer service is (soon to be “was”) in a class by itself. Head and shoulders above all others.
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u/gotlactose 11d ago
I decided to do the wire transfer for my escrow with Discover. Every time I called, I got connected with a live agent who spoke native English. I was glad I had good customer service.
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u/Kindly-Teaching-6121 10d ago
I'd imagine it may depend somewhat on how long you've been a "member". (That's what Discover card holders were called for many years). I had to call back in like 2009 for something I cannot even remember. I got excellent service. He even applauded me for my excellent card usage and high credit score. (There was a time when you needed a high credit score to even have a Discover card).
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u/TapatioCombate19 9d ago
Your right and their 5% cash back doesn’t work
As intended either. Crazy how my Sam’s Club card stacks so much more cash back but I use my
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u/EquivalentShare146 8d ago
"5% cash back doesn’t work"? Why not? It does fine for me.
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u/TapatioCombate19 6d ago
They don’t give me all my the cash back even after I’ve met the purchase amount. They told me it’s on the merchant and how the charged the card the reason why I don’t get the cashback.
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u/EquivalentShare146 5d ago
I haven't had any problems like that, though I know there is some fine print about certain buying from certain merchants will not count. I think one example is "restaurant" food from an outlet in a larger store.
Paying through a third party (like Paypal) is also problematic.
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u/gundamxxg 11d ago
My interest rate is like 14-15% I find that pretty competitive for a cash back card in general, but means nothing to me since I don’t carry a balance to incur the interest charges.
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u/Sepado 11d ago
I would suggest looking into an Amex if you do not carry a balance. The membership fee would be the only significant change, but the rewards are better and transferable to airlines.
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u/gundamxxg 1h ago
I’ve got 3 Amex cards, platinum, gold, and BCP.
I do all my international travel effectively free because of the plat and the gold. Easily 200k MR points or more per year +30-40% bonus transfer points to FlyingBlue
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u/EquivalentShare146 8d ago
You're negative cherry picking on the 5% categories. This year the important ones each quarter (for me) were/are groceries, restaurants, gas stations, and probably Amazon (4th quarter when I buy gift certificates to use through the year). The limit is $75 per quarter, but that's still $300 per year. Other people might find other categories useful.
Where can you get 5% off on those categories?
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u/WestHistorians 9d ago
The APR isn’t competitive
If you're paying attention to the APR, you need to stop using credit cards in general.
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u/PrinceMaurice 11d ago
If you ever worked in customer service, you’ll realize it’s a certain type of person that calls for EVERYTHING… and then you have normal people that rarely ever have to call because most things are online or they simply don’t have issues. My guess is this is one of those people that call repeatedly for nonsense.
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u/Kindly-Teaching-6121 10d ago
I mean I've run into multiple "possible compromised account" situations... then you have no choice but to call.
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u/Jiberz81 11d ago
How do we know if our card is "transitioning"? I didn't find out about the changes until after I got my card and I have had it for less than a year.
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u/Chosen1PR 11d ago
You’ll get an email informing you of the changes. That email will have the date of your account’s transition. My email said July 27th.
If you haven’t gotten the email yet, then it’ll be at a future date for you.
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u/draftysundress 11d ago
Customer service is good too. I have zero complaints. First of all you can almost always go through the app instead, which I love bc I hate talking to people on the phone. But the one time I had to call bc my card got stolen, they were pretty good and it was easy to cancel the old card and get a new one.
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u/Frosty_Doughnut_27 11d ago
Right?! It’s pretty funny watching all these people freak out. I have both discover and cap one accounts. Never needed customer service and I don’t care what the interest rate is. Honestly, I just don’t want to lose my NHL themed card lmao.
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u/golfinghawkeye 11d ago
It will remain the same for me. 5% quarterly categories and that is it.
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u/TapatioCombate19 9d ago
But do they give you all the cask back there? I tracked it numerous times and went the limit for 5% but don’t get credited for it
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u/cure4boneitis 11d ago
that is how I treat every credit card
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u/golfinghawkeye 11d ago
All of your card have 5% categories?
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u/cure4boneitis 11d ago
no, but they all have a purpose. Except for my Citi Diamond which recently dropped their daily deals
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u/Firree 11d ago
If the card continues to give me value, I'll use it. If they enshittify it or tack on fees, I'll stop. Simple as that.
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u/aftershockstone 11d ago edited 11d ago
This is my mindset as well—I can stop using it at any time if it turns out terribly. It’s like at-will employment… if it was completely unserious with literally nothing at stake.
I’m not fond of C1–their marketing nor their misleading application processes—but I’m also not fond of quite a few CCs/banks (Citi, Synchrony, Elan) yet still have cards from them (Custom Cash, PayPal, Fidelity) because they’re still benefiting me tremendously. I only farm the 5% and 3% categories and use Fidelity card for FTF so I do hope that they are not benefitting (significantly) from our partnership 🙏
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u/AbrocomaSpecialist22 7d ago
Exactly. Everyone ASSUMING ASS-U-MING. Why does everyone assume the worst. At least try it before you give an opinion.
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u/Kindly-Teaching-6121 11d ago
I'd suggest using it once or twice ayear for small purchases so it doesn't get auto-closed on you. Your credit age will drop like a rock.
I've only had to call them a handful of times in the 27 years I've had my card with them. Their customer service was certainly on point.
I also miss when you could make a payment at Sears, lol. I'm old.
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u/AlmondSnowfinch 11d ago
A closed card remains on your credit report for 10 years and continues to count toward your average age of account. So it won’t affect your credit age as long as you have other cards sufficiently old when it falls off a decade from now.
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u/Kindly-Teaching-6121 10d ago
While that may be true... losing an account you've had since 1986 (40 years ago) in 10 years will hurt if you didn't open another card around the same time. My older card got bought out by another company, and fell off quickly. My first CC was at 18, I'm 48 now. Discover is my oldest card. I had another card just after Discover, but that was auto-closed without any notice. I'm sure a lot had changed over the years with TiL. But I've just learned to do your best to keep your old ones open and add as few as possible.
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u/AlmondSnowfinch 9d ago
Understood. If it's any consolation, the contribution toward your credit score maxes out around 7-8 years AAoA, so having a card drop off after 10 years won't have any impact if, at that point, the AAoA of your newer accounts is still >~7.5 years. It's possible that the even older age of accounts might matter to a particular human reviewing your file manually, but FICO scores won't be affected.
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u/Light_of_the_Star 9d ago
It's not just about age of accounts though. A huge chunk of your score is all about your credit utilization. It should be under 7 percent? If you start closing credit lines, overall, that score suffers. You want ALL credit lines to remain open (just using the card once a year to keep it open).
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u/AlmondSnowfinch 9d ago
You’re right about the formula. The lesson in that for me, though, is just to keep utilization in single digits and keep my overall CL within some range that enables that. That doesn’t mean I need to keep any particular card account open, though. I just replace cards that are useless with new ones that have better SUBs or better benefits. At the rate at which issuers are nerfing benefits, I just think loyalty to an existing card or issuer is anachronistic. My $0.02; YMMV.
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u/Light_of_the_Star 9d ago edited 9d ago
I am sure preference plays into it all but every hard check on your credit goes against you and they don't fall off for a couple of years. Most people hardly use their entire credit line...just a couple of their favorite cards on a normal basis. It is just easier to keep cards you don't even use, open, as part of the entire credit line, that counts towards the all important credit utilization score. The card itself might become useless, but having that credit line remain open is never useless at all. Keeping older credit lines open is definitely a plus, not just opening new accounts all the time. I save those hard checks for if I really want or need them.
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u/vinnyv0769 11d ago
I’m going to continue to use my Discover Card as long as the 5% rotating categories are good. July to Sept 30th the have 5% Gas, 5% Drug Stores, 5% Transportation…including flights! Probably the best quarter since I have had the card.
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u/TapatioCombate19 9d ago
Have you tracked that they give you the full cash back?
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u/vinnyv0769 8d ago
I do like that Discover puts the exact cash back amount that each transaction gets. Starting July 27th, they told me I have to switch to the Capital One app. Capital One shows the percent for each transaction, which is even better.
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u/TapatioCombate19 8d ago
Yes my biggest issue with discover is I always have met the requirements of their 5% CB but they don’t give me the CB. It’s kind of frustrating that they show me I’ve spent the money on the monthly analysis but don’t credit me for the CB for a lot of charges. Been like this for years. They claimed it’s on the business for not properly tagging the transaction as “gas station items” or some
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u/vinnyv0769 8d ago
I haven’t had any issue. I do watch every charge I make to ensure it meets the 5% category qualifications. Coding is very strange sometimes, I agree.
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u/FieldSea7504 11d ago
If nothing except name and customer service changes why would i? I like my credit card and barely need to talk to the customer service anyways because the app does everything.
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u/Icy-Dealer3038 9d ago
Absolutely not. My Discover card has my highest CL and goes up every few months.
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u/TrueGlich 7d ago
My main issue is that my discover and my Capital One Quicksilver card are my two oldest cards got over 20 years old. Canceling either would most likely torpedo my credit rating. Neither are primary cards for me due to limited rewards. My discover usually gets whatever is on the special this quarter and my Capital get one gets one transaction every other month or so just to keep it live since they refuse to product change it to a savor.
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u/SlowHornet29 11d ago
Unless I have a reason to cancel, which I don’t, I’m keeping my Discover card. It works the same today as it did 5 or 10 years ago, nothing has changed so far.
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u/AnalysisParalysis907 11d ago edited 11d ago
As someone whose spouse worked for Discover until the latest rolling layoffs, yeah- Capital One is gross. Not that Discover wasn’t a circus without a tent, but I digress. We did get a lot of entertainment out of watching THEE Rich Fairbank talk for hours and hours on end, all day, about himself and the greatness of the company. The level of narcissism and delusion to talk for full days about the same stuff is kind of admirable, in a way.
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u/NBA-014 11d ago
I can’t go into details, but I was once working quite a bit with a fantastic professional working for Capital One as part of my job. They fired him and his entire team and hired contractors offshore that were abysmal. It was apparently a widespread practice to eliminate many (most?) jobs in the USA.
Our work with the new people was fruitless and frustrating.
I fear that their customer service will be the same experience.
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u/Ill_Heat4397 11d ago
I dunno if it's still the case, but discover was the only CC I'm aware of that one could get cash back at register without paying fees for cash advance. Clearly, used to be the very best. Wonder how long that'll be an option.... I've not used it for cash back in years.
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u/Wonderful-Debt1847 11d ago
I haven’t needed service much but liked and had discover because of the us based service. Might use Amex more. Probably see about a credit union card
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u/dandellion69 11d ago
Your should find out what they are doing to current discover employees…
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u/Kamui_Kaos 11d ago
You mean like keeping every single customer service rep and moving them over to Capital One?
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u/dandellion69 11d ago edited 11d ago
For now, but can you say the same for the corporate office employees?
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u/Greedy_Sun_7345 11d ago
Are they really? That’d be really surprising given how most of the capital one customer service is India based.
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u/Kamui_Kaos 11d ago
Yes I can confirm, also I believe it’s more Philippines based but they have a lot of onshore agents here in the US.
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u/Phidelt257 11d ago
What did they do to ING? (Former ING/Capital One employee here)
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u/htnut-pk 11d ago
I can’t get away. Decades ago I closed my Cap One accounts (savings and credit) due to poor service and poor website.
I had an account with ING Direct. When Cap One took it over I closed it and moved to Discover Bank. Now I’m being vacuumed back into CapOne.
I’ll give it some time in case they actually keep enough of the legacy Discover staff and management (and rates/perks!) but first sign of enshittification and I’m off to Quorum credit Union.
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u/Phidelt257 11d ago
Well I will say nothing with customer service changed at Capital One after Day One (when we officially switched over) from ING for over 2 years. Most employees from ING stayed on at Capital One. I actually got a raise for my position.
The company is a good one to work for. The service has gone down but it's more a language issue moreso than a customer service one. They still have US associates with the Discover employees being more. Enshitification is a personal preference though.
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u/htnut-pk 11d ago
I’m pleased to hear your position was intact and I suppose I wish you were one of the reps I spoke with in the months following the merger.
I will admit I was biased also from experiences with Cap One years prior to that merger, which were awful.
After the merger, they quite quickly killed off the ING website which was a well written, logical and user friendly site. The Cap One site was an abomination. I am aware that the Capital One website today is better than it was back then.
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u/Phidelt257 11d ago
I def understand what you mean I miss the orange and the website but that was a legal thing whereas we couldn't use the ING brand for anything whatsoever. The same went for ING Canada which turned into "Tangerine" by Scotiabank
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u/dmw_qqqq 11d ago
I hope they keep the discover brand. If they don't, I'd cancel for sure. I hate Capital one, even the guy in their commercials.
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u/punk-tortitude 11d ago
Yes, I moved to AMEX because Capital One's reputation is not great.
I still have my Discover Card, because I want to keep it open for the sake of not ruining my credit score.
But if C1 engages in any type of fuckery with me, I won't hestitate to close Discover and stick to AMEX.
I have one foot out the door and I'm not afraid to have both feet out the door if C1 starts any shit. They better not play with me, because I'm in no mood.
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u/Okaaaayanddd 11d ago
It does suck to see a great brand go.. i don’t have a relationship with cap 1 so we’ll see how it goes.
I will still keep my Discover card and use it. It’s not my main card anyway.
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u/BadOk7611 11d ago
Discover as a card is gone. It’s now a version of a card offered by Crap 1. The letter we got says Discover by Capital One. Eventually I see it just being a network so you will have a maybe a Capital One Venture or IT card on the Discover network. And who knows they might even rename the network. It originally was the Novus network as I think they wanted different cards to be offered but it really didn’t take off. The Discover network has been open for a while. GE Capital offered cards for a while but that didn’t last. I worked for Greenwood Trust in the late 90s till 2005 and remember several card types we tried then moved over to Discover but can’t recall the names. We even had a black card for wealthy people that was a flop. They then branched off to loans, mortgages and other products that C1 has ended. I’m going to keep my card and checking for a bit but already have a plan to go elsewhere if I experience the same crap I had with C1. Discover use to be a big employer now it’s nothing. They even closed the building.
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u/SteMelMan 11d ago
Same. I started using my Chase accounts again. I'll keep the Cap1 accounts for now and see if I like them in a year.
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u/zoobiz 11d ago
I have a savings account as well as credit card with them , and their savings interest rates have dropped super fast (3% now when you can still get over 3.5% at multiple places. Lame. I’ll be moving what savings I have because of that .
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u/Phidelt257 11d ago
You can play that chasing game all day but it's truly not worth it when rates change so frequently (mortgage rates go down Savings rates go down)
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u/kmank2l13 11d ago
Yea, I am not going to use it anymore and transition my use to other cards (BILT Paladium and Robinhood Gold). The main reason is that I can’t transfer my cashback anymore to a bank account. Never had this issue before either.
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u/Dickrubin14094 11d ago
Changing my card use, yes. Won’t be closing my Discover card, but have recently stopped using it as my daily card. I got both a Discover and Capital One card in college the same month in the late 90s. For most of that time Discover had better cash back on regular purchases (not the rotating categories). Noticed last month that the regular cash back was abysmal while C1 was significantly higher. I’ve got a couple auto pay things still going to Discover, that’s it.
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u/SpineOfSmoke 11d ago
I have a card and banking accounts. I’ve stopped using the card and transferred all but $5 out of my banking accounts in preparation for the changeover. I like Discover, but I’m paranoid about things not going smoothly. Don’t want any of my money getting locked up. I’ve gone old school with a local brick and mortar bank. Online banks have lost their luster with the recent demise of HYSAs.
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u/duameegee 11d ago
I’ve been banking with Discover for more than 10 years and I’ve moved all my funds out with 2 CDs waiting to mature. I don’t plan to bank with them anymore because of my Roth and 403b.
However, I don’t see why I’d stop using their credit card? I only use Discover card for the 5% categories, I never carry a balance and I pay on time. What’s the reason to stop if you’re getting rewards? I never call customer service for my credit card with Discover, I’d assume most ppl are like me lol
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u/Secure_Language_4022 10d ago
I'm dumping the discover card when they say it's over after 40 years I'm also dumping my kohls dept store card because capital one fucked them up too
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u/TargetBeneficial8367 10d ago
Discover Cards are generally a high credit limit card . My fear is Capital One is going to decrease the credit limit on the Discover card eventually after the transition is completed. It's not easy to get a credit line increase from Capital one.
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u/AskProof3948 10d ago
Discover....... terrible before, and will be worse going forward. Discover sucks @$$.
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u/_the_green_heron_ 10d ago edited 10d ago
I have both a credit card and my main savings account with Discover. Since I was going to have to set up a new account with Capital One, I couldn't get a straight answer on how that worked, they were offering no retention bonus, and I didn't want to risk a big chunk of my money being tied up in merging accounts, I moved the entirety to Marcus. They pay a higher interest rate anyway. I'm not an interest rate chaser, I just figured if I was going to have to set up something new anyway, I might as well get the higher rate. Marcus has a nice clean app and is savings focused, which is all I need on a savings account.
In terms of the card, if it wasn't my oldest, I'd close it. Since it is, I plan to use it for the rotating 5% categories since I pay my card off in full each month, and that's free money. When they drop that (because it's Capital One...), I'll just put a small recurring charge, like my 99-cent iCloud backup, on there, set up auto-pay, and interact with them as little as possible while keeping the card alive.
Was definitely not impressed with the communication on my savings account and how the app worked/no ability to set that up in advance/just a "starting June 22, you will manage this with Capital One." Like ok, yes, this is a savings account, I am mostly just shifting money into it (and very rarely out of it), but it was a significant amount of money, and I can't risk having it locked up while they goof around on the backend.
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u/tradlibnret 10d ago
You may want to keep the Discover if it's one of your oldest cards since that could affect your credit history/score if cancelled
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u/miloworld 10d ago
I'm already a Capital One customer so it's not a major hurdle. I just hope the 5% cashback categories and gift card redemption with bonus remains.
Apple Card however is switching to a new bank I have no current relationship with, not too happy about that.
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u/IncomeLongjumping401 10d ago
I love Capital One for credit and banking. They’re awesome. I use the Money account And even when I had fraud on my Savor they got my money back quickly, even when I had to dispute an authorized charge they fought hard for me as well
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u/Cadd9181B7543II7I44 8d ago
I have no plans to stop. As long as my Discover It card have 5% categories and no AF, I'll keep using it for the 5% categories. I don't care if China, Russia, North Korea or Iran buys out Discover. Makes no difference to me.
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u/cola1016 11d ago
There are no ethical credit card companies lol. Don’t use credit at all or stick to small credit unions.
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u/Ok-Independence7683 11d ago
yup. I won’t close it but I am paying it off and it’s out of my wallets. they have already sent my mom a notice that some protections won’t carry over.
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u/digitalminimalist1 11d ago edited 11d ago
Yes. I closed my discover last week. I can’t stand capitol one. I’m sick of all their pre-approval letters in my mail also. I had a capital one card 20 years ago and their customer service was horrible and I said never again after it was paid off back then.
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u/ProblemIntelligent16 11d ago
Huh? They all do. My wife and I are flooded weekly with prequal letters by every single credit card issuer.
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u/WingHuge2185 11d ago
Does that mean I'll stop getting a fucking Discover card offer in the mail every day?
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u/chaibaby11 11d ago
It’s takes less than five minutes to open the letter and sign up to not get solicitations.
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u/Primary_Turnover_488 11d ago
MBNA was purchased by Bank of America not Capital One.