Discover it Miles
- Best for: Travelers who want one no-fee card for a trip or two a year, with miles they can take as cash
- What Sets It Apart: Every mile from the first year matched; no foreign transaction fee
- Cost: $0 annual fee; $0 foreign transaction fee; 0% intro rate on purchases and balance transfers for the first 15 months (3% transfer fee), then 17.74% to 26.74% variable
- Features: 1.5 miles per $1 on all purchases; 5 miles per $1 on Capital One Travel bookings of hotels, vacation rentals, and rental cars; miles worth 1 cent as cash or travel credit
- Pros: Doubled miles in year one; no fee on purchases abroad; cash out in any amount
- Cons: Fewer merchants take Discover abroad than Visa or Mastercard; no airline or hotel transfer partners of its own; no travel credits or insurance
Get the Discover it Miles if you want a travel card that charges neither an annual fee nor a foreign transaction fee. Its first-year match doubles every mile, so everyday spending that year earns the equivalent of 3% back. If you want to move rewards to airline and hotel programs, pick a card with transfer partners.
The Discover it Miles suits people who travel once or twice a year and want one card that earns the same on airfare as on groceries. Capital One, which bought Discover in 2025, still takes applications for it and now runs the accounts through capitalone.com.
Key Features
- $0 annual fee and no foreign transaction fee
- 1.5 miles per $1 on every purchase, and 5 per $1 on Capital One Travel bookings of hotels, vacation rentals, and rental cars
- Discover Match, which doubles every mile you earn in your first 365 days, with no cap
- Miles worth 1 cent each as cash or travel credit, with no minimum to redeem and no expiration
- No interest on purchases or balance transfers for your first 15 months (3% transfer fee), then a variable rate of 17.74% to 26.74%
Pros
- Spending $1,500 a month in year one earns 54,000 miles with the match, worth $540
- No annual fee or foreign transaction fee to subtract from your rewards
- Cash pays the same 1 cent a mile as travel credit, so you never have to book travel for full value
- No penalty fee the first time you pay late
Cons
- Accepted in fewer places abroad than Visa or Mastercard, so pack a Visa or Mastercard as a backup
- No airline or hotel transfer partners of its own
- No travel credits, lounge access, or travel insurance
- Only 1.5 miles per $1 on dining, gas, and groceries
If you take a trip or two a year, it’s worth opening, and it pays most if you apply before a year of big spending, since the match doubles every mile you earn in year one. If you’d rather earn 5% cash back on quarterly categories you activate, up to a cap, look at the Discover it Cash Back instead.
Editorial & Advertiser Disclosure: The editorial content on this page is not provided, commissioned, reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser. Opinions expressed here are ours alone, not those of any advertiser. The offers that appear on this site are from companies that compensate us. That compensation may influence which products we cover and where and how they appear on a page – including the order in which they appear – but it does not influence our evaluations, ratings, or opinions. We do not include every company or offer available in the marketplace.
Related:
