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November 2020 was a good month to use the Rakuten shopping portal. We saw the site offer its highest-ever referral bonus, and we saw it offer 15% cash back/15 MR points on no fewer than three occasions and now, in February 2021, a similar deal is back in honor of Presidents Day weekend.
Starting today and running through Sunday 14 February, Rakuten is offering 3x cash back on purchases made at a wide variety of retailers. This sees a number of retailers offering up to 15% cash back (or 15 Membership Rewards points per dollar) on top of the various own sales that they’re also running so in some cases the discounts, savings, and rebates on offer are fantastic.
Here are a few of the better deals I can see on Rakuten right now:
- Contacts Direct – 15% cash back
- Forever 21 – 15% cash back
- H&R Block – 15% cash back
- Hint – 12% cash back
- Lenovo – 10% cash back
- Nautica – 12% cash back
- New Balance – 12% cash back
- Olay – 15% cash back
- Overstock.com – 12% cash back
- Samsung – up to 10% cash back
- Skin Store – 12% cash back
- Sunglass Hut – 12% cash back
- Toms – 12% cash back
*The list of participating retailers is subject to change
More deals on the way
Rakuten has also confirmed that it will be running another cash back deal on Monday, 15 February, in which it will be offering 10% cash back (or 10 Membership Rewards points/dollar) at a number of retailers that are not offering big rebates in the current promotion. Stores like Saks 5th Avenue and Bloomingdales will be participating, as will Ray-Ban, Reebok and Dell so if you don’t see your preferred retailer offering at least 10% cash back right now, hold off making any purchases just in case that retailer appears in Monday’s promotion.
Related Reading: How to elect to earn Membership Rewards Points through Rakuten
Thoughts
As usual, there’s no trick to getting the cash back or points that are on offer (shoppers simply have to click through to the retailers using the links on Rakuten), but there are still two things that everyone should keep in mind:
Firstly, before making any purchases, make sure you check what Amex offers are available in your American Express account – a number of retailers participating in the Rakuten promotion also frequently appear among the Amex offers I’ve been seeing this year (e.g. Macy’s, Nike, etc…). Load your Amex card with any relevant offers and then use that card to pay when you’ve clicked through to the retailer(s) and finished your shopping.
Secondly, if you don’t have any relevant Amex offers to use, make sure you use a credit card that will reward you well. Most miles and points credit cards will only offer 1 point or mile per dollar at a lot of the participating retailers so this would be a good opportunity to use a good cash back card like the card_name (1.5% cashback on all eligible spending) or the card_name (3% cash back on up to $6,000 of online spending at US retailers 1% thereafter – terms apply) or to use a card on which you’re currently working towards a strong welcome offer (like this one).
Bottom line
For the next three days, you can earn 3x cash back at various retailers that you’ll find on the Rakuten shopping portal and that means that a number of popular outlets are offering up to 15% cash back (one or two appear to be offering even more). A new deal will appear on Monday where some of the retailers who aren’t offering boosted cash back this weekend will be offering 10% back so if you don’t see a deal that you love, waiting until Monday to do your shopping may pay dividends.
[…] the weekend, Rakuten has been offering up to 15% cash back (15 Membership Points/dollar) at various retailers but while there were a few good deals available […]