If you are able to use the Discover Open Road Card for your purchases, and pay it off each month without carrying a balance, it's possible to accumulate a considerable amount of rewards points which can be used in a variety of ways. You can get cash back, reduce your credit card bill, purchase merchandise, apply them to purchases at amazon.com, or buy partner gift cards. I like to get the partner gift cards because some of them give are great deals; for example, $45 in rewards points can be used toward a $50 Pottery Barn gift card. In addition, if you go to ShopDiscover.com there are several retailers that you can link to from the site and receive a higher percentage of rewards points. Not to mention the main perk, which is that you receive 5% cash back every time you use the Discover Open Road card to purchase gas. I believe it's up to $200 in gas per month. You get 1% cash back on other purchases. The only disadvantage (thus the 9 and not 10 rating) is there are some places that don't accept Discover, only Visa or Mastercard. It's still worth having. Customer Service I have never had a problem with them. They are always kind and professional. Available Rates I can't really speak to the rates, because I pay my card off before having to pay interest.

jmk1414

USA

I signed up for a Discover Open Road card sometime last year as my first form of formal credit. As a college student this card made the most sense with year long zero APR and generous benefits. This card offers double cash back on gas and restaurants, which as a college student make up the majority of my expenses other than alcohol purchases. This is coupled with a standard percentage cash back depending on the plan you have. Either way I could not be happier with the card. The Discover network and website is expansive and incredibly helpful. Using their features I have not missed a payment and have accrued a significant amount of experience and savings from the use of my card while protecting and enhancing my credit rating. The customer service department is friendly and very helpful whenever I have a question. The website is also incredibly easy to figure out and exploit to get you the most out of your card!

felixnpa

USA

DISCOVER is no longer customer-oriented to its customers using credit,but only to its "Partners" who want to huckster their products onto us.But will Macy's,for example,listed 2 days ago in the top 10 US companies likely to go bankrupt benefit from providing us with $25 worth of merchandise in exchange for $20 of our DISCOVER Cashback(the "cash__"part is merely a metaphor,now)Bonus.How much is DISCOVER even going to make.When will the corporations learn it is the spending public,call them what you will,that drives the economy.The American People's love affair with the automobile ended a few decades ago and cars improved,so will our love affair with 'Stuff' end as well and I think sooner than later.

bigdads

Beaver, PA

In college, my husband and I ran up a multitude of credit cards and debt.  After graduation, we were left with huge bills and felt we were about to fall behind.  We consolidated all of our cards and installment loans. After about a year of using no credit whatsoever, we got a Discover Open Road credit card.  The card features up to 5% cash back for all gas & automotive purchases.  As well as 1% on all other charges.  We planned to only use it for our monthly gas and misc. auto maintenance purchases.  That was great for us.  We held to that budget for a few months. While using it regularly, as well as paying it off monthly - we were able to build the cash rewards pretty quickly and routinely.  Using it as such, we learned how to budget and not reach for the credit card at every checkout counter.  Now, we use it for a lot of our normal living purchases, but continue to pay it off each month. We've had the Discover Open Road for over a year now, and have never paid any interest.  Though, we're still accruing the cash back.  It's a total lifesaver!  Or, perhaps I should say, "a total credit saver!"

miss-tasha

Oklahoma City, OK

Discover Card - Open Road card - The main reason I opened this account was for the opportunity to transfer a balance to a 0 percent for 12 months rate. The part that caught my attention was that the card had a $99 cap for the transfer fee. Most credit cards these days have dropped the maximum amount they can charge you for a balance transfer. When I found out that this particular card had a $99 cap I was very interested in applying for it. That would save me a lot of money for the balance I was going to transfer compared to other cards these days. The transfer rate is for a year which is average but helps when trying to pay off credit cards these days. Like with most credit cards they give you access to your account on-line which was very simple to set up. You can also pay your bill on-line. Another main feature on this card is the 5% Cashback bonus when you spend 100 dollars each month on gas and auto repairs.

DansAngel0212

Union, NJ

I was surprised to get approved for this card as a student with a short history in the middle of 2008. Regardless, I've enjoyed the card so far. The interest rate for me has always been high, around 20%, but I've never run a balance. The gas rewards though are great. With today's gas prices, why not save that money. It's a significant amount per gallon. The one tricky thing is that rewards on non-auto purchases are pretty shady. Discover advertises non-auto rewards of UP TO 1%. When I dug around in the fine print, the rewards on non-auto purchases are really small (fractions of percent) until you spend some large amount of money on the card. If you don't intend to run a balance, I highly recommend this card. Discover has pretty good customer service. They have a great web interface. Also check out ShopDiscover where you can save money for buying stuff from online retailers. I bought my laptop from Apple online and I basically got back all the money I paid in tax with ShopDiscover's 5% cashback at the apple store. Pretty sweet!

bravesboy786

Norcross, GA

I have never been a huge fan of DISCOVER because they ike to lure you in with a deal that seems "good" at the time, then they trick you. If you don't pay attention and read all notifications from them, you will surely get ripped off. Many people are under the assumption that you get 1% cash back on purchases. WRONG! You get lower than that UNTIL you have a certain amount in purchases within a year. Also, they offer the bonus rebates during certain months such as 5% back on gas purchases. The catch is that you have to remember to go to the website and sign up for it. Is that dumb or what?? As if the typical consumer dosen't have enough to remember already! Why can't they simply give it to you automatically?? Now, here's my big problem with them...I am not late with payments, and only recently was unable to pay the balance in full. So, what did they do? They went up on my int. rate from about 10% up to 14%!! They take FULL advantage of their customers, especially during one of the roughest economies in history! They also have the highest balance transfer fee of any other card that I have seen as of yet. 5% for a balance transfer is RIDICULOUS! They don't even offer a good int. rate to most people. Why pay 5% to get $5,000 at 5% for only 6 months? That makes no sense unless your interest rate is extremely high like 20%. I owe $200 more on my DISCOVER card, and when I pay it off next month, I won't be using it anymore. They have lost me as a customer! GOOD RIDDENS!! They can keep the measly .025% cash back! HAHA

donnajohnson92

Wilmington, NC

There are a lot of cards out there, of course.  I already had a VISA debit card through my bank, and I was using it all the time.  So I figured why not earn points/rewards on the purchases I make everyday. I chose Discover Card because I was working there at the time, and they only accepted Discover at my work cafeteria. The Open Road card gets me a certain percentage back on gas and car purchases.  I use it as much as I can, and ALWAYS make sure to pay the balance off in full each month.  If I were unable to do this, I would never use a credit card.  I hate hate hate the idea of paying interest. That being said, this card came with 6 months of zero interest, so I was able to make a large purchase early on, and pay it off within 6 months, interest-free.  Totally worth it. Aside from the everyday purchases I make on this card, I also shop through shopdiscover.com to receive an extra percentage of rewards points.  This works great for large travel purchases, or really anything over $100. When redeeming your Discover bonus rewards, I would recommend redeeming them for a gift card.  This way, you can redeem $40 for a $50 gift card somewhere.  Or $80 for a $100 gift card.  It's always worth it for me to get more bang for my buck.  

lunarviola

Centerville, UT

For those of you who have ever applied for a Discover Card you know how frustrating of a process it can be. Discover tends to be a bit more selective in who it will accept as a card holder than most other credit card companies, and when they give you a card, they tend to have lower credit lines than other cards you might have. The Discover Open Road Card is no exception. The one thing that makes this card stand out is the enhanced rewards on gas purchases. They were (they have begun to change this now) offer a full five percent cash back on all gasoline purchases up to two hundred dollars a month. This was very nice and allowed me to reach my first twenty-five dollar incentive award rather quickly. This is great for anybody who purcases a lot of gasoline as it is rewarding you for purchasing something you are allready most likely using your credit card for- so why not get some cash back for it? The biggest down side would have to be the high interest rate- Discover tends to have a higher interest rate than other cards- so it is to your advantage to pay your balance in full every month.

sacescience12

Kent, WA

I started using Discover when it was the only credit card I knew of that did not charge an annual fee. Back then Discover wasn't accepted a lot of places, so I always had a Visa card in my wallet, too. Nowadays, Discover is accepted all over, including online. Not only that, but Discover offers great incentives to encourage its use. They always offer  1 percent for every dollar you spend. But they also offer even more for some things. For example, if you click into certain online stores through Discover.com and buy from that store, Discover will award more than the standard 1 percent. Discover also has different offers during different months. For instance, they may award 5 percent if you use discover at a certain restaurant. Often, too, Discover will have special offers that are particular to the exact area where you live. For instance, I live in a small town with a old downtown area with little cafes and restaurants, a bank, a small cleaners, a little place to get your hair cut, a barber, second-hand clothes, etc. Discover will occasionally send me offers good at one of those local businesses. A wonderful incentive to use Discover was based on the type of Discover card. My card was a special one for gas--I got 5 percent cash-back points for what I spent on gas. This was great during that awful gas hike, when gas prices were higher every day, and I was paying almost $50 to put gas in my little economy car. I earned points fast at that time,. But starting January 2010 they reduced that incentive to 2 percent. That made me angry, and I've started using my Amazon Chase Visa more often as a result.  When I accumulate $20 in cash-back bonus points, I like best to get books. And Discover will sell me a $25 Borders Books gift card for those $20 in cash-back points.

ElizabethV

Romeo, MI