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Rakuten is offering $75 cash back (which can alternatively be 7,500 Membership Rewards points if you are set up to earn membership Rewards points) when you open a Betterment checking account. The only requirement is to deposit $1 (or you can open an investment account and invest $10).
The Deal
- Rakuten is offering $75 cash back
$127.50 cash backor 7,50012,750Membership Rewards points when you open a Betterment checking account and fund it with at least $1 or you open a Cash Reserve or investing account and fund with $10. - Direct link to Rakuten
Key Terms
- Cash Back is only earned for a funded Betterment Checking, Cash Reserve or Investing account of at least $1.00 for checking products and $10.00 for Cash Reserve and investing products, and is not available for other Betterment products or current Betterment customers.
- Posting Time: Cash Back will be automatically added to your Rakuten account tomorrow.
Quick Thoughts
The Betterment checking account looks excellent in that there are no fees or minimums and it reimburses both ATM fees and foreign transaction fees worldwide, making it an excellent option for travelers who don’t already have a Schwab account. My initial hesitation with this is that I am into opening a fair number of accounts for bonuses and I usually don’t bother with accounts worth under a hundred bucks for fear of it eventually leading to difficulty opening an account with a larger bonus. Still, I’m intrigued here since it’s an easy 12,750 7,500 Membership Rewards points and I’ll eventually use those to much better than face value. Now I will definitely open this account even though it doesn’t fit with my 2021 Master plan. I’m not too interested in the investing side as I recall relatively high fees from previous looks at Betterment, but the checking account is probably worth it.
Note that some members of Frequent Miler Insiders reported not having received cash back yet for this deal despite the fact that Rakuten terms say cash back will be deposited “tomorrow”. I think this might be an issue of very slow funding. When I set up my account just now, I connected an external bank account by logging in to my external account and verifying ownership of the account, so I may have assumed that the $10 transfer I made would happen quickly. However, I noticed in the details that they said my $10 deposit pulled from an external linked account would be available a week from today. That is epically slow in 2021, especially when I have several bank accounts with Real-Time Payments capability where I can send $2,500 at a time up to $5,000 per day instantly from one bank to another. I assume that the Rakuten payout likely won’t shop up until funds clear – hopefully this one tracks properly. I’ve kept screen shots as usual, so I will be ready to follow up if it doesn’t.
H/T: Doctor of Credit
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is it safe to close these now? my cash back sat in rakuten for some time but became available on 5/15 and cashed out to paypal.
Opened Betterment checking accounts via Rakuten for both my wife and me on 2/13 with $2 opening deposits. The “shopping trips” tracked. Still no points. I contacted Rakuten and they said they will check with Betterment to confirm we met the requirements and that it would take 8+ weeks. I hope this works out.
Same here.
7500 points posted to Rakuten a couple weeks ago. Probably safe to close the account now? Any clawbacks from Betterment/Rakuten/MR? I guess I could wait until Rakuten deposits to MR just to add another layer of clawback protection?
Today On rakuten website it says on 5/15 that 12,750 points will be transferred to Amex membership rewards. On 2/14 deposited $1. Staggering ROI!!! Thanks again FM crew. I doubt any of you will ever need to buy a round again! All future rounds on me and fellow milers. Ty.
Signed up for Betterment through Rakuten on 2/14 with a $1.00 deposit from Capital One 360 Checking. $127.50 posted on Rakuten today (2/22).
Nice! The 12,750 points for P2 finally posted tonight also. Used the same Rakuten account for both sign-ups (P1 + P2) wondering whether it would work to get all 25,500 points in one account. Glad to report it worked.
DEAL IS DEAD ! Not getting the Rakuten to show 125 or 75 anymore.
Appears to be back to $75. Was hoping if I procrastinated it would go up even more!
Did anybody else catch how much Rakuten will get for each successful referral? We are such suckers! Hope you bloggers got a little extra other than pay clicks.
Where is this listed?
@Steve I don’t think it ever was.
Obviously Rakuten gets more than what they give you. That’s how the shopping portal model works — they earn a commission and pass a portion of it on to the customer who clicks through their link. I haven’t seen Betterment offer anything better directly, so I don’t think you’re much of a sucker since I don’t think there was a better option that you missed. No, we don’t get anything from Rakuten for this (except I suppose if a reader didn’t yet have a Rakuten account and took it upon themselves to go to our “Resources” page, find the post about ways to support the site by signing up for shopping portals and things of that nature, found our referral link for Rakuten, and used it to set up a new Rakuten account first, which is something I neither mentioned nor linked to in the post in this case). You must be new to Frequent Miler — we always write about good deals for readers whether or not there is anything in it for us.
So, I opened up the checking account. Am I ineligible for the Investment and Cash Reserves account bonuses thru Rakuten? It says not available for existing customers. Am I an existing customer since I opened the checking?
I think you’re ineligible for the others.
Do you know if we can use the same Rakuten account to open up Betterment accounts for both my wife and me so that we can get the MR points all in my account? Sometimes these things state on the portal that it’s only good for one, but there’s no such language on this offer.
I think it’s iffy, but I tried it to see if it would work.
If I open one for DH as well, is it ok to fund thru the same checking accouts?
I don’t know the answer to this. I always fund through separate accounts.
how do you set up to earn AmEx points?
See this post: https://frequentmiler.com/rakuten-formerly-ebates-now-change-from-cash-back-to-membership-rewards-points/
[…] terms say points or cash back will be deposited in your account the next day, but data points from Frequent Miler and Doctor of Credit indicate it may take a bit […]
Ahh bummer looks like I have an old betterment account with a cash reserve account attached to it, guessing not eligible then based on the terms (someone correct me if wrong)
Anyone else getting stuck (when signing up) on a page that says “Looks like something went wrong. Reload”?