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Mega Bonus on Lifelock via Rakuten – earn 90x/90%
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 a 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 insane – get 90% off your order or 90x points. Effectively, you’re buying points for about 1.1c a piece.
If you’re unfamiliar with how to earn Amex points via Rakuten read this article which lays out how to configure your account.
If you don’t have a Rakuten account – now is the best time to use our referral since Rakuten has matched their best ever $40 bonus after you spend $40. Obviously, we would recommend you choose 4k Amex instead of $40, but the choice is yours.
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 points 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 26,721 points, you’re actually getting over $400 worth of value on the low side. Not a bad deal for $296 and that doesn’t include the 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 $40 back after spending $40 by using our Referral Link.
This is hands down the best time to sign up for a Rakuten account. We’ve never seen a better offer and it rewards both of us with $40. Cyber high five.
If you want to max out the deal…buy the annual subscription
This will bill your credit card that full $296.60. You’ll earn 90x = 26,721 Membership Rewards or 1.11 cents per point. If you alternatively choose monthly billing you’ll only earn the 90x on the first months charge which means you lose out on a major opportunity. Each subsequent month would then earn whatever your cc earns.
A Trick to help with getting an Annual Pricing to populate with 100x 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. Then… 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 your browser. I’ve been using this for a few months now and it’s pretty awesome. It gives you a pop up anytime you visit a site that you could earn cashback/Membershipr Rewards. 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:
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% cash back and voila…it did. I got a notification that it had credited as well.
What’s the best ever?
Apparently in 2019 it hit 120x for a day, and we’ve seen flashes of 100x a couple times in 2020.
Usually the earn rate is around 40%/40x, but I took advantage of this deal earlier 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.
Recap + thank you for using our referral links. You keep us flying and staying in style!
Not sure how long this deal will continue, but if you’re needing a little boost to your Amex account and some credit monitoring this is a great deal
The Chase Sapphire Preferred is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based.
Welcome Offer
60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months
80k offer in branch currently – I think this should be online soon
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
Super solid welcome offer.
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.
- 3x on dining
- including eligible delivery services for takeout
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards – Chase Travel Portal
- $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Ultimate Rewards/Chase Travel
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred® continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel Portal and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including primary rental car insurance, purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 13 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in the Chase Travel center for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Primary rental car coverage is my favorite
There is currently an 80k offer after $4k spend in 3 months available in branch, and up to 90k after $6k spend in 6 months. I suspect some version of this will be online soon if you don’t want the hassle of going into a branch.
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 60k is a very, very good offer. 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.
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