Rakuten is now offering users the chance to switch from earning cash back to earning Membership Rewards points. If you have an account earning cash back, you can now choose to earn Membership Rewards points instead. That’s huge for people with long-established accounts (from before Ebates added Membership Rewards earning as an option and changed the name of the site to Rakuten).
If you are currently earning cash back and would like to earn Membership Rewards points, simply click your account menu and click “Account settings”.
From there, under “How would you like to get paid?”, select “Switch to Membership Rewards points”.
It will then let you know that the cash you currently have in your account will be paid via PayPal and you will begin earning Membership Rewards points after connecting your American Express card.
This is great news for those who were stuck with an account earning cash back that wanted to convert to Membership Rewards points, especially those who already have the Rakuten cash back Visa credit card and couldn’t have previously converted without closing the card. After the switch, that card will earn 3x Membership Rewards everywhere when clicking through the Rakuten portal. That could be pretty awesome. Even for those who just hadn’t wanted to close and re-open their Ebates account, it’s great to now see the option to switch.
See Rakuten (formerly Ebates) Visa with Membership Rewards. Everything you need to know for more details on how Rakuten with Membership Rewards works.
H/T: Doctor of Credit
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If you have a new Rakuten account and haven’t selected a payout method, you’ll only see “Learn about Membership Rewards” next to the AMEX logo. You have to first choose either Paypal or check, then later can link your AMEX account to earn MRs instead.
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I checked two of my favorite online stores, Vitacost and Life Extension. Both have higher payouts with topcashback – high enough to make it better than even MR points.
I had created a second Rakuten account to use with Amex MR.
I tried to link my original Ebates/Rakuten account to my Amex account and it’s giving me errors.
Anyone else in the same situation?
I’m having the same problem. Did you find anything?
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Regarding the 20k raise limit: is the limit capped at a total spend of 20k regardless of cash back received or it is capped at a total of $200 cash back( 20k spend x 1%)? If its the latter, does that mean that ill be capped a 5k spend at 4% using the additional 3x from the ebates cc? And if your close to that 5k spend it would be better to open a new account and reapply… ANY THOUGHTS?
Fantastic. But how secure is this, since I have to enter my Amex login information to Rakuten?
Given Rakuten is the biggest, I get the feeling they aren’t going to have the best rebates. They spend a ton on advertising.
Am I wrong?
It varies. You can always check on Cashbackmonitor.com. Sometimes they have the best rates, sometimes they don’t.