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One of our favorite shopping portals, Rakuten, is back with a offer for holiday grocery shopping: 2.5% cash back or 2.5x Membership Rewards at Safeway or Albertsons in-store. Rakuten in-store offers work by adding the card you want to use to your Rakuten account and then adding the offer as well. Once you make a transaction at the store with that card, the cash back or points are added to your account.
There’s also an online option for each store that’s 1.5%/1.5x. The in-store offer lists an expiration date of 12/31/23.
The Deal
- Get 2.5% cash back or 2.5x Membership Rewards at Safeway, Vons or Albertsons in-store with Rakuten card-linked offers
- Online shopping at each store gets 1.5%/1.5x
- Must add offer and link card to Rakuten before paying in order to get bonus
Direct Link to Albertsons Offer
How to add the in-store offer
1.When on the left side of the landing page, you’ll see button for 2.5% cash back in-store:
2. After clicking that, you’ll get a pop-up with an “add” button
3.Once it shows “added,” you’ll get the in-store bonus by using any card that you have linked to Rakuten.
If you’re new to Rakuten
If you’re new to Rakuten, there is a current referral promotion to get $30 back when you sign up and spend $30 or more within 90 days. Feel free to use one of our referral links with our thanks.Tim’s Referral Link
Greg’s Referral Link
Stephen’s Referral Link
Nick’s Referral Link
For more detail about setting your earning preference with Rakuten, see Rakuten (formerly Ebates): now change from cash back to Membership Rewards points.
Terms and Conditions
- Offer valid through 12/31/2023.
- In-Store offers not valid for online purchases and cannot be combined with other offers.
- Offer not valid for gift card purchases.
- Debit card purchases must be processed as credit to be eligible for Cash Back. When using a debit card, do not enter your PIN.
- If you add the same merchant on more than one rewards site or platform, you will only receive rewards through the most recently added Offer.
- Once you add an Offer, you may make qualifying transactions for up to 1 hour after initial redemption before needing to re-add the Offer.
Quick Thoughts
This is a terrific offer, as it simply adds 2.5%/2.5x to whatever normal credit card rewards you’re getting on grocery shopping at Safeway/Albertsons(see our list of the best cards to use for groceries here). So, if you link your Amex Gold card to Rakuten and add the offer, you’ll a total of 6.5x Membership Rewards points per dollar (4x from the card, 2.5x from Rakuten).
There is an offer for Von’s as well, but it’s online-only, unfortunately (and so limited to 1.5%). It’s worth checking back to see if the in-store option gets added later this month.
During previous versions of this offer, folks would sometimes have to add the offer after each use (and there’s notes in the terms that indicate that might happen). So, jump on the app and make sure it’s loaded each time before you check out at the cashier.
The terms state that the 2.5x will not apply to gift card purchases. In the past, many folks have not found that to be accurate, but YMMV. If you do decide to try it, add at least some groceries so that the charge isn’t $506.95.
(h/t: DOC)
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Safeway allows payment through PayPal in store, so you may be able to stack the 5X Chase Freedom Q4 category with this. I’m not sure if the coding through PayPal will pass through correctly – it did not work to get 9X by stacking with the first year grocery 5X offer on my FF, so could see a similar limitation here.
We primarily use P2’s Chase Custom Cash for Groceries. I tried to add it as a card in P1’s Rakuten account and while the card shows up in the Wallet it keeps giving an error message when I try to activate it for Safeway In-store Shopping.
Is this because of the name mismatch or should I wait for a day or two and try again?
Just wanted to note that Albertsons/Safeway is also on Chase’s shopping portal. I’ve been using it to get 5 UR points/$ of spending on my CSP for about a year now.
I know that you can get 6.5 MR points/$ with Rakuten + Amex gold right now but figured I’d shout this out in case there are others who aren’t in the Amex ecosystem like myself.
That’s good to know! I saw that, but I think I assumed it was online only. Good to know that you can use it in store!
It’s unfortunately online only which prevents gift card shenanigans. I still get good mileage out of it because I really don’t mind online grocery orders. Only thing I have some pause about is produce but I usually got to farmer’s markets for that.
Are you able to use your Safeway for U offers with this? If not, no way would I use online grocery.
So how are you getting 5x for in store shopping? I see the 2x for Safeway.com through the portal. I have the CSP and would love to know to get 5x for in store.
Will this work for Randall’s?
I’m not sure, unfortunately. You could always try a small purchase and see if it tracks. If I remember correctly, I’ve seen that some people got credit during past promotions for associated stores.
Is the Albertsons offer valid at Albertsons affiliated stores like Jewel-Osco?
I’m not certain. You could try a small purchase and see if it tracks?