Rakuten is a shopping portal that rewards you for clicking through their site to the merchant site before making your purchase. This year it has been my #1 choice for shopping portals for two main reasons: consistently elevated payout percentages at useful retailers, and the ability to choose how you earn between cash back and Amex Membership Rewards (MR) points.
I personally earn MR points with Rakuten since I value them closer to 2 cents per point value, effectively worth double the value of the cash back option. But even for those without an Amex MR earning card to link your account, the cash back rates can be very attractive!
My personal experience this year has been very positive, both in terms of total points earning, bonus offers at stores relevant to our family, and good customer service in a case where a high value offer (SoFi, 35k points) didn’t track correctly.
In total, I’ve earned over 89,000 MR points (vs $890 cash) which is more than enough for a business class ticket to Europe through Amex transfer partners like Air Canada or KLM/Air France Flying Blue.
Act now for a best-ever bonus!
Rakuten is currently offering $50 (or 5000 MR points) for new accounts. You just need to join through a referral link and spend $50 in the first 90 days. You can look at that as a free $50 shopping trip, but the longer-term earning potential is much higher. If you have an existing Rakuten member in your household, have them make you a referral link to join and take advantage of this offer. If not, support this site and use my link to get your $50 bonus: www.rakuten.com/r/ASELVY7?eeid=28187
TL;DR: Rakuten is a great shopping portal to earn cash back rewards or Amex MR points for your normal online shopping. If you haven’t joined, now is the best time as you can earn a $50 (or 5000 MR points) bonus!
How does this compare against topcashback?
I don’t care about ease of use, more about max cash back.
Topcashback can also be good but does not have the option to earn Amex points like Rakuten. I typically check cashbackmonitor.com or Savewise to compare rates from different portals. Sometimes a specific airline portal will be running a special offer with increased earning rates and I might use that portal if I value the points highly, like Alaska.