Apart from that, internet account related services are also tagged along with the Discover Student Credit Card, with additional benefits such as no annual fee and a 0% introductory APR for the first six months or until the end of the billing cycle in December, whichever comes first.
Additionally, the Discover Student Credit Card also offers double cash rebates at participating stores through the Cashback Bonus award program. Fantastic! Plus, a 5% full cash rebate at participating retailers. Marvelous.
But all that glitters is not gold, and all that shimmers will fade away. Once the intro period is up, the APR for this credit card is found to hover on the high side of exorbitant rates.
Couple that with the demonic method of calculating finance charges called the “Two Cycles Average Daily Balance", this card will suck the lifeblood out of your fledgling student finances. You will probably be put you into economic servitude and shackles through debt servicing. The only way out is not to accrue any outstanding balances, paying them off before charges apply.
From that point of view, the rest of the reward program starts to lose its shine. With the exception of the promotional offers mentioned earlier, it seems unreasonable to spend $3000 or above just to earn 1% cash rebate. Unless you actually have that kind of money, this is just another gimmick. And if the fact that the 1% will only apply to the sum above the first $3000 doesn’t tell you that this is a gimmick, what will?
In a nutshell, the Discover Student Clear Card, as it is officially called, is ideal if you regularly spend above $3000 a month and pay off the outstanding balance each month, or if you plan to take advantage of the Cashback Bonus it offers. Otherwise this card will just take advantage of you.
Students have all the luck. As they do not have a credit history, they start on a clean slate and some credit card companies won’t hold this against them. This is why corporations such as Morgan Stanley offer the Discover Student Classic Card which is specially catered to meet the needs of students.
Some of the benefits that the Discover Student Card offer would be a cash rebate of 5% on purchases at participating merchant stores, double cash-back bonuses through gift redemption programs and rebates with partner discount stores. Points gathered through charges made to the card will remain valid if the account remains active for 3 years.
Apart from that, students who first apply for the card will also enjoy a 0% introductory APR for half a year in addition to a credit limit of $5000. However, even though there are no annual fees attached to the Discover Student Card, the finance charges are tabulated based on a two-cycle average daily balance system. This means that if a user with an outstanding balance for two consecutive months will be charged with an interest rate based on the average of the outstanding balance for these two months.
This means that interest charges are higher, an attribute where many past users of this card find to be a nuisance. Nevertheless, those who settle their balances on time will not be inconvenienced by this.
Another setback to this card would be the fact that Discover credit cards are not as widely accepted internationally unlike MasterCard and Visa, although widely used in the United States. This means that users one may need another card of that is more internationally-known for emergency purposes.
The card provider has a way to offset this Achilles heel through their excellent fraud protection program. Irregular use of the card immediately refers the card to the fraud department for examination, rendering the card useless temporarily until they have ruled out unauthorized usage of the card, providing Discover Student Card users with full protection against identity theft.