Rakuten
Background
Founded in 1997, Rakuten is the first dedicated cashback service I ever used. With 17 million members (who have earned over $3.7 billion), Rakuten is a cashback heavyweight.
How it works
Rakuten partners with over 3,500 stores to earn a commission for sending customers their way. Rakuten then passes on some of that commission to you.
Simply open their app or website, search for the store you want to shop at, and see what Rakuten will give you for cashback. Most of Rakuten’s activity is from online shopping, but they also support in-store cashback.
Be sure to check what categories the cashback is for, especially for larger, more general stores like Walmart or Lowe’s. These larger stores often have varying cashback amounts for various shopping categories, and some categories may not even have any cashback.
Rakuten provides different cashback amounts for different shopping categories at Lowe’s.
Click “Shop Now” and you’ll be routed to the retailer’s website. Make sure you’re not using an ad-blocking browser extension, since that could prevent Rakuten from giving you cashback!
After your purchase, the cashback will be deposited into your account within a few hours to a few days. Once your account exceeds $5, your cashback will be sent to you, either via PayPal or check. The Rakuten payment is known as the Big Fat Check, and it is distributed once per quarter, 45 days after the quarter ends.
How much cashback can you expect to earn? Like many cashback services, the cashback offers will vary over time. Like other money-saving services (such as CardCash), larger stores like Target and Walmart usually have lower cashback amounts of about 1%. That said, anything to slow the flow out of your money pond is a good thing. Also, during special events like Black Friday, I’ve seen these stores at 12% cashback.
Smaller retailers, on the other hand, often have cashback levels of 5%+.
Then there are the ever-present specials and holiday deals. On Black Friday and Cyber Monday of last year, cashback ranged from 15%-20% at hundreds of stores! You can certainly slow the flow out of your money pond with deals like these.
Rakuten provides high cashback amounts for smaller retailers.
Like I mentioned briefly above, Rakuten also supports in-store shopping by allowing you to link offers to your credit card. Then, you simply shop as you normally would, being sure to pay with your linked card.
One personal charm to me is that CardCash participates on Rakuten, allowing you to stack Rakuten cashback with CardCash savings.
The final notable perk is the generous refer-a-friend program. There’s a $40 two-way bonus: one for the referrer and one for the referred. This unlimited two-way bonus is among the best referral bonuses I’ve seen.
Click the button below to receive a $40 signup bonus.
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