Discovery miles or Discovery FAST miles – that is the question

So you have finally seen the advantages of getting a Discovery credit card with all its cashback features: cashback plus miles that you can spend at the Vitality Mall or use them to pay for your travel arrangements… but when you were filling in the application form, there’s a question on the form asking you whether you want to activate the “Discovery Miles benefit”.



The standard “Discovery Miles” costs R295 per year (not per card) and for every R120 you spend you earn 10 Discovery miles which is the equivalent of R1.  Doesn’t seem like much, but it does add up – and before you know it, you could be buying your children’s next Wii game console on the Vitality mall using those miles.  Nintendo Wii Sport Resort pack: R2,199.00 = 21,990 Discovery Miles.

There’s another option – which costs more, but earns you miles faster: “The Discovery Fast Miles” costs R2,450 per year (not per card) and for every R60 you spend you earn 10 Discovery miles which is the equivalent of R1.

So, is the hefty, up front cost of R2,450 per year worth it? – this was a question which one of my readers (Richard Crawford) asked me.
I put together another famous HTT calculator to try and figure out what the per month spend would need to be to benefit from the fast miles option.

Bear in mind that once you’ve paid your R2,450, you will need to start spending the miles on stuff at the Vitality Mall or travel arrangements… there’s no way of cashing in the points for Rands again.


Small print from the Discovery web site:  http://www.discovery.co.za/portal/loggedout-individual/miles-card
Cardholders can activate the Fast Miles option for an annual fee of R2,450 and earn one Discovery Mile for every R6 spent on the first R100,000 qualifying spend in each billing cycle.
They will thereafter earn Miles at the normal Discovery Mile rate of one Discovery Mile for every R12 spent.
DiscoveryCard holders earn Discovery Miles for every qualifying transaction every time they swipe their DiscoveryCard.  The Miles earned are, however, limited to a qualifying spend of R100,000 per store per billing cycle.
Your Discovery Miles expire after five years from the date these Miles were earned. This applies even if you don’t have any Discovery products at the time.

I put some figures into the HTT calculator, and created the charts below:

  For “Normal Discovery Miles” option: it seems that the monthly cost of R25 for the miles is recouped if you have a monthly spend of about R5,000 per month – which is pretty easy these days… So, it’s a no-brainer that everyone takes the “Normal Discovery Miles” option and spends their miles at the Vitality Mall.

For “Fast Discovery Miles” option: it seems that the monthly cost of R204 for the miles is recouped if you have a monthly spend of about R15,000 per month… So, it seems that if you spend that on your card, then it’s time to look at upgrading your miles option to a faster one - and get ready to spend some miles at the Vitality Mall, and go do some travelling!








Using HTT’s calculator:
Download the HTT calculator from here: DiscoveryMilesCompared to FastMiles CalculatorFeb2012.xls
Edit purple cells if necessary.
I have used formulas to allow you to change the “Rand equivalent” cells – I find that the prices of goods on the Vitality Mall are slightly inflated (ie: more expensive than the shops) – so, the R10 per mile is more like R13 per mile.  So, you can tweak how much you think the points are actually worth.
Get your Discovery Card statement out and look at your average monthly spend and see what your profit is for both the “normal miles” option (column E), and the “fast miles” option (column I).
From that you can decide whether it’s time to upgrade to the fast miles option and take the plunge and pay your R2,450!