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It’s back baby! Not only does Rakuten have a 10x promo going, but Lifelock is currently offering 95x or 95% back. H/T Pointswire.
At the end of 2019, Rakuten created an alliance with American Express which enabled members to earn Membership Rewards in lieu of cashback. For each 1% you see as cashback, you could opt to earn 1x American Express Membership Rewards. As a result, Rakuten has been one of my favorite ways to earn additional American Express Membership Rewards.
The latest deal has to do with cyber security and is featuring LifeLock, and it’s very, very good – get 95% off your order or 95x points. Effectively, you’re buying points for about 1.05c a piece. How? Let’s get into it.
How to earn Amex points via Rakuten
If you’re unfamiliar, read this article which lays out how to configure your account. The main reason I advocate choosing Amex points over cashback is how I value Amex Points. At the very minimum, I’d peg a 1.5c valuation on every point. This means you’re getting another 50% bonus on each point you earn, and since I typically redeem my Amex points via transfer partners to fly in business or first class, I regularly get in excess of 3 to 5 cents per point. That means the points earned on a deal like this one for LifeLock, where you earn between 22k and 44k points, you’re actually getting close to $330 to $660 worth of value on the low side. Not a bad deal for $240, and that doesn’t include the value of a year of LifeLock coverage…we’re just talking about the points you earn from it.
If you aren’t a Rakuten member, you can get $30 back after spending $30 by using our Referral Link. The best ever is $40, but this is very strong historically. If you want to max out the deal, buy the LifeLock Ultimate Plus For Family annual subscription and family plan. This will bill your credit card that full $395. You’ll earn 95x = 37,525 Membership Rewards or 1.05 cents per point. If you alternatively choose monthly billing, you’ll only earn the 95x on the first month’s charge, which means you lose out on a major opportunity. Each subsequent month would then earn whatever your credit card earns. It looks as though LifeLock has changed the ability to add family members until after you’ve paid your first year. In theory, as long as you populated the site again via Rakuten, you should earn on adding family members as well, but worst case, you can earn 37k points with the individual. The individual nets out at $395 = 37,525 Amex Points.
Some troubleshooting advice…
A Trick to help with getting an Annual Pricing to populate with 95x if yours won’t work
I’m using the deal I got, which was 90%…so this is why the graphics and earn rate will be different. When I initially populated the LifeLock deal via Rakuten, it wouldn’t let me go beyond the screen where I filled in my name, address, etc. I tried it 10 times at least. I even tried to go to Norton and populate there, but it would only show monthly subscriptions. It seems like that isn’t a problem anymore, but this is how I circumvented it. I had the idea to see if I could apply the 90% after I got to the annual billing screen. How do you do that? The Rakuten plugin for Chrome. I use it on and off, but it’s particularly beneficial in situations like this… It gives you a pop-up anytime you visit a site that you could earn cashback/Membership Rewards. Or, if you don’t have it always on, you just click the R and it’ll give you the cashback on the site. It stays populated the entire time you’re on the site until you either select activate or hit activate later. It’s that little “R” icon and the pop-up looks like this:
[Image: Rakuten pop-up]
In order to get the 90% to work on the full-year subscription, I filled out every single piece of information until I got to the screen with billing options. At this point, I hit Activate 90% cashback and voila…it did. I got a notification that it had credited as well. Note…this is the rate I got when I did it a few years ago, not the current rate.
What’s the best-ever LifeLock offer via Rakuten?
Apparently, in 2019, it hit 120x for a day, and every now and then, we see 100x. Usually, the earn rate is around 30 to 40x, but I took advantage of this deal in 2020 at the 90%/90x level and the points populated my Rakuten account within a day. I earned a quick 26k Membership rewards – 1.1c per point. I was also able to easily cancel the membership later in the year.
Don’t forget to cancel your LifeLock account when you’re done. I was able to do this on the site pretty easily without a phone call.
Recap + thank you for using our referral links. You keep us flying and staying in style!
This deal comes and goes, and if you’re wanting extra Amex points, it’s a quick way to get them cheaply. If you aren’t in need of them, don’t waste your time, and you’ll more than likely have a similar deal later in the year.
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities. Related