Earning Points with Rakuten
-
AFFILIATE DISCLOSURE:
Packed with Points is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as MileValue.com and bankrate.com. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers.
EDITORIAL DISCLOSURE:
Opinions expressed here are the author's alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.
*Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more. *The content on this page is accurate as of the posting date; however, some of the offers mentioned may have expired.
If you’ve never used a shopping portal before, this is about to change the way you shop! 🛒
If you’ve been following along for a while, you know that the quickest way to earn a huge chunk of points and miles is to open up a new credit card to earn a generous welcome offer. BUT what can you do in between new cards (and while earning a welcome offer) to make the most of every dollar spent? That’s where shopping portals come in! And I’m going to break down my favorite shopping portal that has helped me earn tens of thousands of valuable points and miles! 👏🏻
What is Rakuten?
Rakuten is a shopping portal that allows you to shop through a variety of stores, find great deals on popular products, and you can easily find stores that carry the items or brands you’re looking for in their search tool. You'll find amazing elevated offers too, especially around the holidays! 🎁❄️
This portal is free for anyone to use and you can create an account at any time to start earning cash back (or points, which I’ll get to later!). No need to have a loyalty account with any other airlines, no specific credit card needed, and it’s SO easy to use.
How to Shop Through Rakuten
With just a few added steps at the beginning of your online search, you’ll essentially shop online like you normally would! But those dollars will be earning you a whole lot more than before. 😉
First things first, once you create your free account, log into Rakuten on your phone or desktop.
You’ll see on the homepage below that you can search for specific retailers, find in-store offers, or it can even suggest deals for you based on your shopping history.
All you need to do is click on the store you want to shop with, then Rakuten will redirect you to that site, and you complete your shopping as you normally would. Easy peasy!
➡️Then after you check out, you can head back to the Rakuten page and it will begin tracking that purchase and you’ll see your rewards in your account within a few hours, or up to a few days in some cases.
‼️There is a few exceptions to the rule and points might not always post once the purchase is processed. For instance, when you book an excursion or activity through Viator, you’ll earn the points for that purchase once you have completed the booking.
Like you see below, I made a purchase through Viator on 5/23/24. However, my cash back reward wasn’t deposited into my account until 8/5/24 once I had completed our activity. 👇🏼
Earning Points with Rakuten
One thing I love MOST about Rakuten is that not only can you earn cash back, but there are a couple of different ways where you can opt to earn points instead. Yay, more travel! ✈️✨
American Express® Membership Rewards®
For this option, you must have an American Express® card that earns Membership Rewards® points (think of the colored families of cards, like Green, Gold, Platinum, etc.).
You’ll link your American Express card to your Rakuten account for your shopping, and then you can choose in your settings if you want cash back (in the form of a check mailed to you) or points that will be added to your American Express Membership Rewards account (you’ll get an email notifying you of the points you have earned, like you see below). I have earned thousands of points for travel this way. And it’s free to sign up, so what are you waiting for?!
BILT Rewards
🫱🏻🫲🏽Your newest option for cashing in these rewards comes courtesy of a new partnership between Rakuten and BILT.
You first need to sign up for a free BILT Rewards account (*make sure to use the same email for BOTH ACCOUNTS) so that you can link these two accounts together. Then on your home page you should see a pop up or an option to link your account to Rakuten:
And you’ll follow the prompts to complete a few quick steps. It only took me about a minute! ⏰
Then you’ll go to your Account Settings and make sure you have selected how you want to be paid!
Why is This BILT Partnership SO Exciting?
If you don't know much about BILT, you’re not alone! It isn’t talked about as often in the points and miles world….until now. 😏
BILT has one of the best line ups of airline and hotel transfer partners (YES, you can transfer these points out to partners too! 👏🏻), so by earning BILT points, this gives you another opportunity to rack up points for loyalty programs like Hyatt, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, and so many more!
In my opinion, having another avenue for earning Hyatt points is reason enough for me to sign up.
Wrapping Up
Rakuten is an easy way to rack up those points and miles on the online shopping you would already be doing! Especially around the holidays, or when you’re making big purchases for appliances, upgrading your tech, and so much more.
It’s free for anyone to use, and no other loyalty programs required, so it makes it a no-brainer for my top choice for shopping portal. 👏🏻🛍️
Side note: I cannot say thank you enough for using my links to apply! I earn a commission for those applications at no cost to you, and it helps keep all the free resources and support coming! 🩷
EDITORIAL DISCLOSURE: Opinions expressed here are the author's alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.
