This site is part of an affiliate sales network and may earn compensation when a customer clicks on a link, when an application is approved, or when an account is opened. This relationship may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers. Zachary Abel is also a Senior Advisor to Bilt Rewards. 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 Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Personally, Rakuten is now my go-to portal since they allowed you to earn Amex Membership Rewards. Now…you can choose to earn Bilt points as well. This undoubtedly makes Rakuten the best shopping portal if you’re looking to earn points that can easily be redeemed for more than a penny a points.
One way to think about this mentally is if you see 10% Cash Back listed you’ll be earning 10x Membership Rewards or Bilt Rewards ( however, starting next year, if you maintain Bilt Blue Status you’ll only earn half that rate – all other tiers of Bilt will continue to earn 1:1 ) Spend $100 get 1000 Amex or Bilt points which I value both of them at roughly $20. I’d lean toward valuing Bilt points higher than Amex tho.
Join Rakuten with Highest Ever Bonus – spend $50 get $50
You can use our referral link here
Rakuten is a shopping portal and this is how shopping portals work:
When you login to your portal you’ll see something like this below…
When you click on any of those offers, you’ll be directed to the site you wish to buy from. If that were Finish Line, you’d arrive at the very same Finish Line that you’d see if you didn’t first go to Rakuten. The only thing the portal does is code your purchase as being routed via Rakuten, and as a result you earn the cashback advertised in the Rakuten portal.
This cashback, Bilt, or Amex Points, is then paid to you every 3 months on the 15th.
- Feb
- May
- August
- November
Why should you select Bilt Points instead of Cashback
The main reason I do it is because I love travel, and value Bilt points at over 2 cents. You can directly transfer them to Hyatt and Alaska as well as over 20 other partners shown below, but those two are the best hotel and airline points around.
This means instead of earning 8% cashback on every dollar I spend via the portal, I’d be earning 8x Bilt Points. If I spend a $100 and earn 800 Bilt Points, I’m earning points worth $16+ or more than double the cashback rate.
Not everyone values points like I do, but I almost always redeem my points for a higher than 2 cent valuation. On the low side, I can redeem my points in Bilt Travel in Amex Travel for 1.25 cents – so regardless, I feel comfortable I will extract value in excess of a penny.
.
Here’s a step by step guide
First create an account – you can get $50 back on a $50 purchase when you use my referral
Link your Bilt account to Rakuten here
Then account settings where you’ll find this:
If you don’t have a Rakuten account, you’ll need to select either PayPal or Big Fat Check to get going. You may need to sign out and back in for the Bilt account to actually populate. If it doesn’t go here for Help which has a chat function to see why your Bilt isn’t populating.
Once you start earning points how quickly do they populate?
Long and short of it….you accumulate points over a 3 month period, and then 6 weeks after the close of that period, on the 15th of month, you’ll be credited. My period from January to March closed, and I was due to be credited May 15th, roughly 6 weeks later, and as you can see below….it hit same day. That is fantastic.
Don’t have a Rakuten account? You can use our referral to get $50 cashback after you spend $50
A quick way to take advantage of Rakuten – must earn cashback though.
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. The big caveat is that the gift cards must earn cashback, and recently, many cards won’t earn them. If it says no cashback you won’t get your bonus
Rakuten compared to other shopping portals
This is a big consideration. I have almost exclusively used Rakuten because I factor in the underlying value of Amex or Bilt Points into the equation. However…if you’re looking for cashback I’d recommend that you check out cashbackmonitor which gives you the best rates across all of the shopping portals.
Overall
Rakuten has captured my business and will continue to do so as long as it offers Amex or Bilt points as an earn option. Rarely do I see another portal offering double the cashback which is about the only circumstance I’d consider another portal based on value.
Hope this helps and as always, please ask any questions you may have.
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 75,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Points Boost
- each account anniversary you’ll earn bonus points equal to 10% of your total purchases made the previous year
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Complimentary DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees & lower service fees for a min. of one year when you activate by 12/31/27. Plus, a $10 promo each month on non-restaurant orders
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.