When I do a credit card “hustle” as I call it, I make sure I do it quickly and simply.
From October – December, Discover will pay me 5% cash back on the first $1,500 at Amazon.com, Target and Walmart.com. That is $75 tax-free (because it is technically a rebate).
Now, I could take my Discover card out of mothballs and put it in my wallet. Then I could hope to remind myself to pull it out at Target, Walmart and Amazon.com. But that takes WAY too much brain power. And my brain is full. It’s dinosaurian. I regularly have to delete something I know before a waiter tells me The Specials.
So, after activating my 5% cash back categories at Discover, I simply log into my Amazon account and replenish my account with $1,500. Done and done. 5% of $1,500 is $75. That $75 cash back will show up when my Discover statement closes.
It goes without saying that you should only do this if you plan to pay off your Discover card in full when the statement arrives. Otherwise interest will soon devour your 5% bonus.
It also goes without saying that if you don’t shop at Amazon, don’t do this! My Quicken software tells me that I will use up that $1,500 credit over the next several months.
If you do not have a Discover card…
They double whatever cash back new cardholders earn in the first year. You could get the Discover it Cash Back card, activate the 5% cash back category for the last quarter of 2019, earn $75 doing this 5% cashback “hustle”. You could max out 5% categories each quarter or just earn 1% cash back on everything at any time. At the end of the year, Discover will double your cash back earnings.
At the top right side of this website under “Chip’s Favorite Credit Card Offer$” click “Cash Back Credit Cards”. That will take you to a secure site where you can get more info on this bad boy. The “Discover it Cash Back” card is the 2nd card down. Email me if you have any questions. Full disclosure: I may get a commission if you use my links so… Thanks for clicking through my links!
If this information sounds familiar, it should. Discover seems to have Amazon as a 5% category annually. Here’s my post from last year:
If you have a Discover it or Discover More card, you still have time to activate the 5% cashback bonus and make a fast $75, tax-free.
Do what I did! Go here to activate your 5% cashback bonus. You have until 12/31/18 to activate. This quarter, you can get 5% cashback on up to $1,500 in purchases at Amazon.com and Wholesale clubs.
Instead of whipping out my Discover card every time I visited Amazon, I simply purchased an Amazon eGift card and loaded it into my Amazon account. Choose the denomination.
Get your Amazon eGift card here. It’s legit. I grabbed the fine print:
I decided to buy a $1,500 Amazon eGift card to max out the 5% category. My Quicken software revealed that I spent almost that much in the past 12 months at Amazon.
I bought the $1,500 eGift card at Amazon. It showed up via email a several minutes later.
I applied it to my Amazon account. After that, every time I made a purchase at Amazon, it ate away at my $1,500 credit balance.
When my Discover card statement closed, the cashback dough dropped. $75 tax-free smackers! Tax free because it is technically a rebate.
I decided to cash out. I sent my $75 to my linked checking account.
I also made sure to pay off my credit card’s new balance of $1,500 in full. If I did not, the 16% interest rate would quickly eat up my big $75 windfall in less than four months!
