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*The biggest caveats here – you must be in the USA or Canada and spend $40 within the first 90 days.
I’ve written extensively about Rakuten and how using the Rakuten shopping portal is an easy way to rack up serious amounts of Amex points. I’ve earned over 250k+ Amex Points from Rakuten alone. One of the best ways to earn loads of Rakuten points is to refer your friends and family. Well, Rakuten has stepped it up, and is currently matching its highest new member bonus AND Rakuten referral bonus.
If you use our Rakuten referral, as long as you spend $40, you can get either $40 cashback. After that, you can begin earning Amex points. Let me explain. Notice, the best ever is spend $40 get $40. One thing to note – in order to get the $40 rebate, you need to spend $40 within 90 days of signing up AND THIS IS USA ONLY.
I would highly recommend you read our guide to using Rakuten, but essentially, Rakuten works like any other shopping portal except it gives you the option to earn your savings in the form of cashback or Amex Points. In my opinion, this is a massive leg up on the competition because I value Amex Points at roughly 2 cents, meaning I’m getting double the value by choosing Amex points vs cashback.
Now, you should take into consideration I also travel a lot, and I’m quite adept at using Amex points, but at the very minimum, Amex points are worth 1.5 cents.
Does Rakuten work like any other portal? Yep. After you sign up via Rakuten, you’ll be taken to their portal. The portal is filled with various retailers and when you click on one, you will generate a link to your desired merchant, and the rest is all behind the scenes. In fact, I just used Rakuten last week to make some amazing purchases at J. Crew. It looks like my deal of 50% off already reduced prices is now 40%, but I was able to get many items at 70-80% off retail. J Crew’s debt has dropped to junk and who knows what the future holds with retailers being closed for such a long time, but the deals are insane. I got a few t-shirts for $8 a piece. Nuts.
What’s a quick way to take advantage of Rakuten? The Rakuten Gift Card shop is a great way to quickly get your points: buy a gift card for $40+ and get your bonus immediately. Additionally, I think it’s pretty hard to beat stacking a Rakuten referral, or new member bonus with the Amex Platinum Saks 5th Avenue $100 credit statement credit which is split into 2, $50 statement credits, January through June, and July through December.
That means if you buy anything with those cards (don’t forget you can split payment) you’ll earn those statement credits alongside the Rakuten new member bonus AND you’ll also earn your normal Rakuten cashback. Keep an eye out for promotional weeks where bonuses will crack 15% or 15x.
Obviously, we’d love it if you’d use our referral since there is no limit to how many you can earn, but we also like to share the love. Earning points this way is how we are able to keep in the air, but it’s also how you can take the trips of your dreams. So leave them below if you’d like.
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.