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PSA: Check Posting Date of Discover It Purchases Near End of Quarter (Don’t Miss 5% Cash Back Transactions)

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Updated 11:30am PT on 8/5/20: My August Discover It Credit Card statement showed the $16.00 cash back adjustment that I was missing on my July statement below.


Good morning everyone, I hope you all had a great Fourth of July weekend.  Yesterday, I was reviewing my Discover It Credit Card statement and noticed that I only earned $4.05 cash back on my last statement.  After reviewing my transactions, I saw that my $400 Costco online purchase posted on July 2 (2 days after the end of Q2).  In Q2, Warehouse Clubs (like Costco) were providing 5% cash back, so my $400 purchase should have earned me $20 cash back ($400 x 5% = $20).  I did some research and called Discover for help.

a screenshot of a receipt

Some people may find it annoying, but I set up an alert on my Discover It so that I receive an email alert for every purchase I make with that credit card.  As you can see by the email, I made the purchase with Costco on June 29 at 3:02pm PT.  I can’t control when Discover posts the transaction to my card, but as long as I made the purchase before 11:59pm on June 30, the transaction should count toward Q2 bonus categories.

Armed with that information, I called Discover and pleaded my case.  The rep immediately understood my concern and agreed with me.  After several short holds, the rep said she was able to manually add an adjustment to my cash back balance, but that the adjustment would not appear until my next statement closes (in early August).

a screenshot of a credit card

I’m fairly confident that the cash back adjustment will post to my account, but this is a friendly reminder to check your Discover credit card statement (and all other quarterly or monthly reward earning cards) to ensure that you earn the correct amount of cash back or miles / points.  If you have any questions about the Discover It Credit Card or the 5% cash back categories, please leave a comment below.  Have a great day everyone!


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18 thoughts on “PSA: Check Posting Date of Discover It Purchases Near End of Quarter (Don’t Miss 5% Cash Back Transactions)

  1. JBC

    Interesting, I got my 5% for the first two billing periods from Sams Club. I’ll wait until my statement closes on the 10th for this billing period. The current activity doesn’t show how much I’ve earned this month yet.

    Reply
  2. Jack

    Hi Grant,

    The same thing happened to me. I placed an order on June 26th for a Costco cash card with my Discover to finish the 5% category, but it didn’t post until July 1, thereby paying out 1% instead. I ordered a few days early to allow for this potential delay, but I have to wonder if it was truly coincidental that they waited until the day after the quarter closed to process the order? Could they have an understanding with Discover to delay these types orders for this reason?

    Reply
    1. Grant Post author

      Hi Jack, that is really suspicious that it took Discover 5-6 days to post the charge. Did you contact Discover to ask about the missing cash back?

      Reply
  3. Jere B

    I have the exact opposite problem with Discover. I ordered July 2nd using Paypal to get the 5% bonus and Discover only paid 1%. I am calling them to fix the issue but last time I had a customer service agent promise adjustment “next statement” it never happened

    Reply
    1. Grant Post author

      Hi Jere, that is strange. I would have thought any PayPal charge would have triggered the 5% cash back. Was the charge a peer to peer transfer or a standard purchase on eBay / online?

      Reply
  4. Oliver

    Thanks for posting this! I just want to share a datapoint as well.
    I have two discover cards. I made 1x $800 costco.com purchase on 6/28 and 1x $700 on the other card, also 6/28.

    Both didn’t post until 7/1 so i didnt get the 5% on either card. Thanks to this post, i called them.

    This representative apparently spoke to their supervisor, but they didnt want to make an adjustment. After this 7 minutes phone call, i felt dejected.

    But i thought i should call again after some time passed. This second rep pulled out all the stops for me. He was more understanding. 20 minutes of a phone call later, after he informed me he had to pull some strings for me, he affirmed i would get a credit posted in 1-2 months.

    TLDR: Dont give up if the first rep doesnt want to give it to you and this late posting scenario applies. Push harder or get a diff. rep.

    Reply
    1. Grant Post author

      Hi Oliver, thanks for sharing your experience. You did the right thing by calling again. I think making the second call was definitely worth your time ($1500 x 5% = $75 vs. $15). Now we play the waiting game for the cash back adjustment to post to our accounts.

      Reply
      1. Oliver

        Hi Grant,

        Just want to update everyone. 4% credits posted Jul. 15 to both of my accounts as “Reward Redemption Credits,” not as rewards points ($32 and $28 respectively for the $800 and $700 purchases above). I double checked my rewards points — they weren’t touched.

        Seemed this means was the only way the reps could find to credit me something

        For reference, my billing cycle just ended: June 13 – July 13.

        I’m a happy camper. Makes sense the credit is only 4% because i already earned the default 1%, so they just credited the difference. True, i lose out on the ability to cash out reward points at a higher rate (since Discover has that $5 bonus on several redemption options), but this is good enough a solution.

        Reply
        1. Grant Post author

          Hi Oliver, thank you for the update. I am still waiting for my Discover It CC statement to close at the end of this month, but hopefully I get a statement credit similar to yours. You are right, the statement credit is not as good as the cash back since you can redeem the cash back for gift cards at a discount. Oh well, I can live with the small loss.

          Reply
          1. Grant Post author

            Hi Tom, here is the update from the top of the post: “Updated 11:30am PT on 8/5/20: My August Discover It Credit Card statement showed the $16.00 cash back adjustment that I was missing on my July statement below.”

  5. Jack Johnson

    Looks like this is a pattern with Discover, they are doing this to everyone for the transactions that are occurring close to month end! I understand that a transaction can take a few days to post fully, but the “transaction date” should be correctly captured along with the “posting date”. How can the computer just change the transaction date to a future date. Each one of us is spending several minutes on Interaction with Customer Service and then also following up in the future to confirm they corrected the issue. This is cheating and should be reported to the Consumer authorities. I have to figure out which one. I am going to send them an email.

    Reply
    1. Grant Post author

      Hi Jack, I totally agree with you. This happens every quarter but I’m not sure how many people actually call in to complain to Discover to get this fixed.

      Reply

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