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Have you heard me talk about Rakuten yet? Probably. This shopping portal allows you to earn cash back on your every day purchases by clicking through their platform before you head to your retailer’s website.

But here’s the cool thing. You can also earn transferrable points currencies that you can use for hotel and airline partners. Specifically American Express Membership Rewards® and Bilt Rewards. Both of these are great points currencies with fantastic partners.

Here’s what you need to know about Rakuten and exactly how to get started earning points.

But first, if by some chance you haven’t signed up for Rakuten yet – it’s free.

Here’s my Rakuten referral link if you haven’t signed up yet! You’ll always earn bonus rewards by signing up from my referral link, versus signing up on the website!

Okay. Let’s get started.

What Exactly Is Rakuten

So like I said earlier, Rakuten is an online shopping portal. When you click through Rakuten’s links before making an online purchase, Rakuten earns a referral commission from the retailer. They share a portion of that back with you as cash back (or points, if you set it up that way).

It works at hundreds of retailers including Adidas, Macy’s, Nordstrom, Gap, Sephora, hotels, and (a lot) more. If you choose to install the browser extension, it automatically pops up whenever you visit a participating site — so you never have to remember to go through the portal first.

Rakuten pays out quarterly — typically on the 15th of February, May, August, and November. This payment will cover purchases made in the previous quarter. So you don’t get paid immediately, but patience can pay off! You can earn a lot of points (or cash!)

So Why Do We Even Care About Rakuten

Earning cash back is nice. But earning points is where things get interesting. And you can earn a lot of points.

Elevated Bonuses Can Be Extraordinary

Rakuten regularly runs flash deals where specific retailers offer elevated earning rates — sometimes 5x, 10x, 20x, or more. There have been offers for services for identity protection, VPN’s and more at almost 100x points.

I try to time the purchase of items with previously known elevated offers. For example, black Friday weekend historically has top level offers. Usually in May, Rakuten offers a “Big Give” week where they have extremely elevated payouts as well. Often holiday weekends such as Memorial Day, Labor Day, Prime Week (haha not a holiday, but you get it), etc also have higher-than-normal payouts. If you keep a running list of things you know you’ll need to purchase, you can time your purchase to coincide with one of these elevated times. You’ll earn massive rewards for your patience!

It’s Easy To Use

Rakuten is really easy to use – especially if you have the browser extension installed. I’ve also found their tracking of purchases to be some of the most reliable in the industry. Their customer service is also consistently good. These two things mean a lot of people use Rakuten exclusively as their shopping portal of choice.

Take a look at the photo below. You’ll see I’ve earned over 200,000 American Express points just on Rakuten! That’s with NO sign up bonuses or anything! In this screenshot, you can see my points were just sent to my American Express account. Any points I earn now will be transferred on the next payout scheduled for 11/15/26.

So let’s get into the two ways to earn points through Rakuten:

Option A: Earn Amex Membership Rewards® Through Rakuten

This is the simplest setup and the best default for most people.

What You Need

Any American Express card that earns Membership Rewards® points. You link that card to your Rakuten account and every dollar of Rakuten cash back converts to Amex points at 1:1.

Popular American Express Cards To Use For Rakuten:

The Earning Rate

Amex Membership Rewards® earns at a full 1:1 ratio from Rakuten. A 10% cash back offer at a retailer becomes 10x Amex MR points. This is a great way to earn Membership Rewards!

How to Connect American Express and Rakuten

• From your profile, head to Linked Cards and add your American Express Membership Reward® earning cards
• Go to Account Settings and scroll down to How You’re Getting Paid. With your Amex card linked, you should have the ability to choose to be paid out in Membership Rewards®.

That’s it! From here on out, your Rakuten offers will display as “5x” points instead of “5%” cash back.

Option B: Earn Bilt Points Through Rakuten

This option unlocks some of the of the best transferrable points in the industry. But there’s an important catch you need to know about.

What You Need

• A free Bilt account — you do NOT need a Bilt credit card to have an account
• Silver status or higher for the full 1:1 earning rate (more on this below)

The Earning Rate

Okay so this is slightly more complex than Amex. How many Bilt Rewards you earn through Rakuten depends on your Bilt status.

Also, it’s worth noting that Bilt Rewards will show up as cash back in your Rakuten account. They’ll be converted to Bilt points on the Bilt side, not on Rakuten’s side.

• Blue Status (base): Earns 50 Bilt Points per $1 in cash-back (500 points per $10)
• Silver, Gold, & Platinum Status: Earns 100 Bilt Points per $1 in cash-back (1,000 points per $10)

If you don’t have at least Bilt Silver status, you’re now earning half the points compared to Amex MR on the same purchase. For most people without status, Amex is the better default.

How to Reach Bilt Silver Status

Silver status requires earning 50,000 qualifying Bilt points in a calendar year OR spending $10,000 through the Bilt ecosystem. Here are the most practical ways you would likely get there:

• Open a Bilt credit card — the Bilt Palladium Card welcome offer includes Gold status through the end of 2027.
• Pay rent through the Bilt app — earns qualifying points and is one of the fastest paths to status.
• Dine at restaurants within the Bilt dining network
• Book travel through the Bilt Travel Portal

I think realistically, most people will earn Bilt Silver status by opening the Bilt Palladium Card.

📌  Important: Points earned through the Rakuten partnership do NOT count toward earning Bilt elite status. Only points earned through Bilt’s own ecosystem (rent, Bilt cards, dining partners, etc) count toward status.

Read more about the Bilt ecosystem

(Bilt affiliate links)

How to Connect Bilt and Rakuten

You must link the accounts from inside the Bilt app — not the other way around.

• Create your free Bilt account at bilt.com (no credit card required)
• Open the Bilt app and go to Rewards → Everyday Rewards → Rakuten

• Confirm your Rakuten payout preference now shows Bilt
• Follow the prompts to link your Rakuten account

Make sure your Rakuten email and Bilt email are the same to avoid any lag in connecting the two.

Which Should You Choose: American Express or Bilt?

Here’s a fun little decision tree to help you decide:

Your Situation	Best Choice	Why?
Have an Amex MR card, no Bilt status	Amex	You get 1:1 from Amex; Bilt Blue is now only 1:0.5
Have Bilt Silver, Gold, or Platinum	Either	Both earn at 1:1. Choose based on which partners you want
Want Hyatt points specifically	Bilt	Bilt transfers 1:1 to Hyatt until 1/1/27, then it drops to 4:3. Amex doesn’t transfer to Bilt at all.
Have both Amex and Bilt Silver+	Rotate	Consider which trip you’re saving toward and optimize accordingly

Keep in mind, you can switch between Amex Membership Rewards and Bilt at any time inside your Rakuten account settings. The currency you have selected at the time of the quarterly payout determines what you receive as opposed to what you had selected at the time of purchase!

Conclusion

Rakuten is a great free tool to help earn points on purchases you were already going to make. (Christmas shopping is way more fun now that I am earning thousands of points on Rakuten!)

Whether you choose to set it up for Memebership Rewards® or Bilt Rewards is up to you – but you should definitely be using it! Plus it’s super simple to set up.

Rakuten Link: SIGN UP HERE

Create a free Bilt Account: Bilt.com

Sign up for our favorite Amex card: American Express® Gold Card

Questions? Reach out to Team Amber here.

-Jenn from @pointingthewaytomemories