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Rakuten is once again offering 10% / 10x Membership Rewards points back at many stores, including Holiday Inn Express (which may work for any IHG brand), Sak’s, and many other retailers. This is valid 12/26 only.
The Deal
- Earn up to 10X at many retailers through the Rakuten shopping portal.
- Direct link to offer.
Key Terms
- Available 12/24 only
New to Rakuten?
- Earn Membership Rewards
- Sign up with this link: www.ebates.com/american-express
Deal: Sign up with the above link and make $25 in qualifying purchases in 90 days to get 1500 bonus points.
- Sign up with this link: www.ebates.com/american-express
- Earn cash back
- Sign up with our refer-a-friend link
Deal: Sign up with a refer-a-friend link and make $25 in qualifying purchases in 90 days to get $10 bonus.
- Sign up with our refer-a-friend link
Quick Thoughts
10% cashback is a great rate for some of the participating retailers, although you’ll want to shop around with a tool like Cashbackmonitor.com to be sure you’re getting the best rate. 10x Membership Rewards is an even better return if you prefer Membership Rewards points. In case you missed that news, you can now switch an existing cashback account to a Membership Rewards account. For more on how to do that, see Rakuten (formerly Ebates): now change from cash back to Membership Rewards points.
That said, we have previously seen 12x or 15x, so this isn’t the highest you’ll ever see (but those even higher payouts aren’t so commonly available outside of the holiday shopping period).
Holiday Inn Express makes the cut this time around, though other IHG brands are not showing 10% back. However, I think it might be possible to click through to Holiday Inn Express and then just book any IHG brand. I can’t guarantee that you’ll get the 10x HI Express payout if you book a Crowne Plaza through the HI Express link, but I think it’s possible that you will. If anyone has direct experience with this, let us know in the comments. Keep in mind that you do not need to book an advance purchase rate in order to earn portal rewards. You can book a regular reservation where you pay at the hotel directly when you stay and portal rewards should show up a few weeks after your stay (and you’ll also earn hotel points, elite credit, etc).
If Canada is in your travel plans, note that Rakuten is also offering 8% / 8x at Marriott hotels in Canada right now (though only 1.5x on hotels in the US).
Surely there are some other values to be found, particularly when stacking with Chase Offers or Amex Offers.
Other recent Rakuten flash sales have included many stores at the advertised rate have included:
- 10x on 12/16/19
- 12x on 12/13/19
- 10x IHG on 12/10/19
- 15x on 12/2/19
- 10x on 11/22/19
- 11x on 11/11/19
H/T: DoC
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It’s very handy to receive an email On 12/27 for an offer that is only good on 12/26.
It sounds like you would perhaps like to change the subscription setting you chose when you signed up for our email list. You must be on the daily subscription — where you receive one email morning with that day’s latest analytical post and all of the other posts from the previous 24 hours. We offer several different subscription options so that readers can choose how much email they would like to receive from us:
1) Daily: one email each day with that morning’s analytical post and all of the other posts from the previous 24 hours. This is best for those who want to read the latest analytical post each day when it’s “hot off the presses” and prefer not to receive multiple emails throughout the day.
2) Instant: An email each time we post on the blog. Whether a longer analytical post or a hot limited-time deal, you’ll get an email every time we post. This is best for those who don’t want to miss those 5K awards to New Zealand or a first class mistake fare or one-day-only portal payout increase and don’t mind filtering through email on their own to decide which deals apply to them and which they’d rather delete.
3) Weekly: One email each week with summaries of the major analytical posts and deals expiring soon. This is best for those who want to keep a finger on the pulse of the industry, but don’t need to know about each story as soon as it breaks.
If you prefer to find out about limited-time deals right away, I’d recommend hitting “unsubscribe” at the bottom of your daily email and then going to our subscribe page to subscribe to instant alerts. You may also or alternatively prefer to follow us on Twitter or Facebook and turn on alerts. Again, everyone has different preferences, so we try to leave it up to the reader to decide what fits for you. Here’s the subscription page again:
https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/
Problem solved. Thanks, Nick! I’m now signed up for Instant emails.
post says 12/24
Whoops. I got 12/26 in the intro, but apparently my desire for a Christmas do-over had 12/24 in the key terms. My bad.