Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

***EDIT JULY 2015: At the time I wrote the review, the bonus included a $100 Amazon gift card. The terms may or may not have changed at the time you apply for this card. Please keep this consideration when reading my review; and become familiar with the (current) terms before applying for the card.*** I'm writing this review to clarify some things that seem to have caused problems for other reviewers. In short, the "free" Amazon GC *does* work, but there are conditions that have to be met first. I applied for the "Discover It" card about a month ago and was approved. I received the code for $100 in Amazon credit this morning. So YES, it does work -- for those who didn't get the card, it's possible that you may not have met certain requirements. I'll outline what I learned during the process. 1) "Offer only available to new cardmembers." This is stated clearly on the Amazon product page. You must be a new Discover card holder to get the Amazon gift card. If you've ever had a Discover card in the past, even if it was 20 years ago and you never even activated it, your name, SSN, and credit history will still show you've already had a Discover account. Furthermore, you don't get the gift card simply by applying -- you have to actually be approved to receive the benefits. I'm not intending to be condescending here because I can truly see how this could be confusing. I remember in college various CC companies would throw all sorts of free gifts and stuff at me just for filling out the application. I believe it was Mastercard who once gave me a $25 Starbucks card just for writing my name on an application and I never even opened an account. 2) Once you've been approved, you'll get a call from Discover to set up your account. So use a current and reliable phone number on your application. I received a call from a Discover representative about 3-4 days later. If you didn't include a phone number on your application, or you regularly ignore calls from unknown numbers (we all do it), you won't complete the approval process and therefore won't get the card. Rest assured, if you're approved, Discover WANTS your business so they'll continue to call even if you missed the first couple calls (I was at work when they called first few times so I didn't actually speak to the representative until the third or fourth call). As I recall it was about a 5-10min conversation. 3) Once you are approved and receive your Discover card, you must make a purchase. It doesn't matter how big or small. Just buy something. I bought a $12 vinyl LP right here on Amazon. You just need to make the purchase. You don't have to pay the balance right away (but seriously? just buy something cheap and pay it off. don't get burned by interest and late fees!). You can't just activate the card to get the GC, you actually have to make a purchase. 4) This is probably where most of the confusion comes from: You have to establish an online account with Discover. You applied, were approved, received and activated the card, made a purchase...now where's the Amazon GC? You must go to Discover.com and register online. It's easy, takes like 2 minutes. And once your transaction has posted, you can pay the bill right there too. The Amazon gift card, if you are eligible, will be EMAILED to you as a claim code. You won't be getting a physical gift card in the mail. So if you have a strict spamblocker, double-check your junk folder. You should be receiving an email from a "@service.discover.com" address. So to reiterate: to get the Amazon GC you must be a NEW Discover account holder, you must be approved for the card, you must make at least one purchase, and you must establish an account at discover.com. If you meet the requirements you'll get an email with a claim code for $50-$100 (depending on which Discover card you were approved for) within 8 weeks. I received mine about 3 weeks after activating my new Discover card. In general, just be aware that things advertised as "free" rarely are. Banks aren't in the business of giving away free money so there will always be conditions with this sort of thing. If you feel you've met all these conditions and still didn't get the gift card (after 8 weeks), call Discover and get them to explain why. Maybe you'll luck out and get the CG after all. As far as the Discover card itself: I don't know, it seems good enough. It looks like you get a decent cash back bonus if you regularly buy things on Amazon. Just be aware of your APR and credit limit -- this will be different for different costumers and can fluctuate. I have a good credit score, and they gave me an APR of 10.99% and a limit of $12,500. I guess this is good? My very brief discussion with a service representative was pleasant and helpful. But I have the Amazon rewards Visa and am quite happy with it, so I plan on sticking with that one instead of Discover. Inevitably, some frustrated customers are going to accuse me of simply being a Discover shill or whatever. I don't know how to avoid that, but let me just say I have no intention of actually using this card. I signed up solely to get the Amazon gift card and was not actually interested in the Discover card itself, so if I didn't receive either it was no big loss. It was more of an experiment, really. But I *did* receive the Amazon GC once I completed the above tasks, hence the positive review. I made a minimal purchase ($12) and paid my balance right away, beyond that I have not used the card for anything. In fact, I sent it through the shredder when I was done.