Frequent Miler on the Air - Rakuten's shopping portal has a great new trick | Coffee Break Ep55 | 5-5-25

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

In today's episode, we'll talk about why we like the Rakuten shopping portal and also discuss a great new trick Rakuten has up its sleeve...(00:42) - What is a shopping portal?(01:15) - Choose cash back or Amex Membership Rewards points (must link Amex card)(02:55) - Great refer-a-friend promos ($40/4K)(04:08) - Frequent 10x, 15x, 20x promotions(04:43) - Portal includes travel sites like IHG, Marriott, Choice, Hertz, Avis, Expedia, some airlines(05:13) - Double dip with hotel / car rewards / airline miles etc.(06:38) - In-store offers(07:08) - NEW: read about new Rakuten credit card bonuses here.(10:26) - Our Rakuten referral links:Nick’s Referral LinkGreg’s Referral LinkStephen’s Referral LinkTim’s Referral Link

Welcome to Coffee Break, where we focus on a single topic related to miles and points. And each Coffee Break is limited to 20 minutes or less for your money back. On today's Coffee Break, we're going to talk about why we like the Rakuten shopping portal and a great new trick that it has up its sleeve. Yeah, so Rakuten is a really popular shopping portal and it's popular for a few reasons, but one of the reasons we love it the most is because you can choose whether to earn cash back or whether to earn American Express membership rewards points. You have to link an Amex account to it and then you can choose to earn membership rewards points instead of cash back. And so that makes it interesting.

But maybe I should back back up for anybody who's not familiar with shopping portals. A shopping portal is essentially a website you go to and then you click through their link to a retailer. Let's use Macy's as an example. So you can go to racqueton.com, log into my account there and then search Macy's in their search bar and click through from their link which will take me to Macy's.com and then I buy something and Rakuten earns a commission from Macy's for sending me to Macy's.com and Rakuten shares some of that commission with me. That's the basic model of how a shopping portal works

and so again Rakuten offers the option to choose to either earn that slice of their commission in the form of cash or in the form of American Express membership rewards points. So if you sign up for a Rakuten account you can go into your account and account settings and choose whether you want to get paid with a big fat check that they send in the mail via PayPal or via American Express and if you choose American Express membership rewards it'll prompt you to log into your Amex account. You need to be the primary card holder of a Membership Rewards points earning card.

And that's all you have to do. Once you log in, it brings you right back to Rakuten, says congratulations, you're linked up. And then quarterly, they send the points that you've earned from your purchases over to Amex. Yeah, and we love the option to earn Membership Rewards points. And because you weren't at the same rate as you are in pennies.

So if the portal is offering 10% cash back for a store, you'll get 10x membership rewards points, 10 points per dollar. And so, you know, American Express membership rewards points, you can transfer those points to a number of airline programs and a few hotel programs. And if you know what you're doing, you can often get incredible value for your points. So getting two cents, three cents, or even more value per point is not at all unusual.

And so, you know, when we look at the ability to get 10X points versus 10% cash back, we're seeing, wow, we're getting a lot more value by picking the points, or a lot more potential value, I should say it that way. And so that's really exciting just by itself. Yeah, but that's not the only reason to get excited about the Rakuten portal. They also often have great refer-a-friend promotions. At the time that we're recording this which is

temporary. They're right now offering either $40 or 4000 membership rewards points for both sides when you refer a new member and they sign up and earn cash back or points rewards. So for instance, if I have an account and if Greg didn't have a Rakuten account, I could refer Greg and he uses my link to sign up and then as soon as he makes any purchase that earns rewards, whether he chooses cash back or membership rewards points, I will earn a 4000 point bonus and he will earn a 4000 point bonus. So that's nice.

That's a great deal. Or again, $40 for both sides. I say as soon as he makes a purchase, of course, hold your breath for a few minutes because it does take maybe a day or two or three or a week or whatever it might be, but it's relatively quick. And that's one of the things that people like about Rakuten in general. They are pretty quick about paying out whatever it is

or at least tracking whatever it is you're owed, I should say. They pay out once a quarter, but you should see what you're going to be earning relatively quickly. Yeah, and they seem pretty darn reliable in that way. Another great thing is that they frequently have these really nice promotions where they have a slew of stores where they're offering 10 points per dollar, 15 points per dollar, sometimes even 20 points per dollar for a lot of stores. And so that level of rewards is amazing to get at places

that you might've been shopping anyway and not really expecting anything special back, but to be able to get 15 points per dollar or 15% cash back either way is really terrific. It is, and it includes lots of different places that you might be shopping if you're a traveler because the Rakuten portal includes travel sites like IHG, Marriott, Choice Privileges, Hertz,

Avis, Expedia, some airlines even are on there. Watch out because some of the airlines listed are actually just offers to buy miles, but there are a number of airlines on there where you can earn rewards on buying your airfare, et cetera. So that's great because this enables the ability to double-tip. Yeah, so if you book hotels through

like an online travel agency like Expedia, you don't earn hotel rewards on top of whatever rewards Expedia and your credit card offer you. But by clicking through from Rakuten directly to a hotel chain, like to IHG, for example, and you book your hotel stay, once you complete your hotel stay, you'll earn not just the extra points from Rakuten, but also from IHG, because assuming you're an IHG member, and you'll also, you know, earn elite credits and be able to use, take advantage of any elite status you have.

So that kind of double dipping is really special. It is, it is. And it's something that often surprises people who haven't used it before. So if you, again, you're clicking through from Rakuten directly to IHG's website or Marriott's's or whatever travel provider it might be. So you're actually still booking direct. It's just adding more rewards at the end of the day, which is a fantastic deal, especially

when there are increased rates, because we do sometimes see some of those providers in the 10, 15, 20 X categories. And so that's just incredible to earn that plus your hotel points, for instance. Right. Plus, I'd much rather earn membership rewards points than IHD points, right? I mean, you'll be earning both, but, you know, I much more highly value the membership rewards points.

So that's really cool that you can earn even more valuable points than the hotel itself offers. For sure. For sure. There's also in-store offers. There's a slight number of stores that will offer points when you make an in-store purchase. So you link up a credit card or two or three or however many you want to your Rakuten account. And then if you make an in-store purchase at select retailers, you'll earn

membership rewards points on top of whatever you're earning in your credit card. If that store has a loyalty program, maybe you're earning points in that store's loyalty program as well. It's just icing on the cake. So that's nice if you happen to be making a purchase at one of the included retailers. All right, so we already talked about how Racketin has quick tracking of rewards. They have these great promos and so on. But what's the great new trick that we teased at the beginning?

Well, suddenly now, Racketin is offering rewards when you apply for and are approved for select credit cards. Now it's only three different cards, I think, so far, but you can earn a bonus when you click through their link and apply for, at least at the time we're recording this, the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Freedom, or Chase Inc. business unlimited. And the bonuses, at least as we record this, are pretty terrific. Now, I don't know whether or not those bonuses will stick around. In fact, I'd bet on them decreasing. And we don't know, again, how long they'll be there.

But it looks like the ordinary earn rate now for a Chase Sapphire Preferred is set to be 5,000 bonus points or $50 when you apply through Rakuten's link. But at least for today, as we record this, whether or not it's still valid when you listen, I don't know. But they're offering $300 cash back or 30,000 American Express membership rewards points

when you apply for and are approved for a Sapphire Preferred or a Chase Inc. Business Unlimited through Rakuten. And that's on top of the welcome bonus on the cards I think that part needs to be stressed that that you know It's in addition to whatever the regular welcome bonuses So as we're recording this the Sapphire preferred card has its its own unprecedented 100,000 point offer available. It's ending soon. We don't know exactly when and

offer available. It's ending soon. We don't know exactly when. And so this means that you could qualify for 100,000 chase points on top of, if you got in on this while the 30K offer was available, on top of 30,000 points from Rakuten, 30,000 American Express points. So that's a bizarre, you know, blow your mind thing right there. But wow, that's, that's just insane. I do think it's very likely that by the time this show publishes, unfortunately, it probably the offer probably will have dropped to 5000 points. But still, that's better than no additional points for signing up for a new card. Right. And if you're new to Rakuten, and you sign up through

somebody's referral link, then you'll get that additional 4,000 points too. So even if the offer has decreased to the 5,000 points, five and four that's 9,000 if you're a new member, that's a nice little bonus for on top of again the welcome bonus offered on the card. Not a bad deal at all and usually when you're clicking through shopping offers like that and buying things or in this case, applying for a credit card. Those typically don't generate 1099s. So I assume that you would not owe any taxes on those points. Whereas when you refer somebody, when you refer new customers, if you make

enough referrals, then you will get a 1099 and pay tax on that. So so I guess that makes this potentially a slightly better deal, even at the 5000 point level at the 30,000 point level, it was just absolutely bananas. So you know, who knows whether that'll come back something like that again, but it's worth keeping your eye out for that kind of thing. Because if this isn't a one time thing, they could make for some really awesome opportunities. Yeah, yeah. So we'll include our referral links in case you want to earn the bonus points for signing up if you're new to

Rakuten using our links. And otherwise, if you're already a member, then you know, it's a good idea. While these promotions are going, find other people that might wanna sign up because it's such a good deal. It should be an easy sell to earn your own 4,000 points per person you refer. Very good.

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