Update 4/23/25: Deal is back
Contents
The Offer
Direct link to offer (my referral link)
- Shopping portal Rakuten (formerly called eBates) is offering a referral bonus of $40. When you invite a friend to become a member and they spend $40 you’ll both earn a $40 bonus.
Our Verdict
The best referral bonus in the past has been $30. The nice thing about eBates/Rakuten is that you can convert cash back into American Express membership rewards as well at a 1¢ = 1 point rate which is nice. A lot of readers also seem to have less tracking issues with eBates/Rakuten than other portals, but the rates they offer are generally lower as well (use cashbackmonitor to compare). Definitely worth signing up for an account if you don’t already have one
Please do not share your own referrals in the comments below, instead you can share them on this linked post (if using one of these, make sure it says $40 and not lower).
Post History:
- Update 11/27/24: Offer is back. There is also a better $50 offer for signing up via SoFi if you’re in P1 mode.
- Update 4/29/24: Back again
- Update 11/20/23: Deal is back
- Update 5/8/23: Deal is back through 5/15/23. (Rakuten is also currently offering this week 15-20x back at online retailers such as Dell, Saks, Zappos and more.)
- Update 11/30/22: Offer ends tomorrow, 12/1/22 at 11:59pm ET
- Update 5/9/22: Deal is back for May 8th through May 16th.
- Update 11/19/21: Deal is back Reposting 5/14/21 as this deal is back (might be targeted to some links, our link below works). Also a good time to sign up now for Rakuten if you want to take advantage of the 15% stores deal and the free hat/shirt deal. Hat tip to Chase-ing UR points
Targeted email from SoFi for SoFi Plus members: $50 for $50 of spend
Subj: SoFi Plus members: Join Rakuten for free and start saving 💰💰
I tried signing up using some of the referral links. None is working. Always getting this error message from Rakuten:
“Oops. There was a problem. Please refresh page and try again.”
I will say the one time I did have an issue with Rakuten was because I made over $600 and they wouldn’t send the payout to me. I thought they banned me or something but turned out I needed to sign a w2. Once I did they sent the $700 payment. (random email asking for it one time and it got lost, then support never mentioned it the several times I emailed them, I had to dig into it and find out myself)
Mine are tracking and then being marked as not eligible. Shows the qualifying purchase date and the sign-up date as the same date and this message “You aren’t eligible to receive the bonus because your friend didn’t make a qualifying purchase within the given timeframe..” Had this multiple times and makes no sense, as they are within the time-frame.
Account frozen.
Are you referring yourself or someone in your household?
Nope. I posted my referral link publicly – that’s it. Based on Rakuten’s response, there must be people opening up multiple accounts, likely from my link. So they are grouping my link to those idiots, even though I have no idea who they are or what they’re doing. Oh well.
Yeah, they don’t allow that. In their restrictions… (v) posting your referral link on any page that is not owned and controlled by you, including, but not limited to, any merchant, Facebook, or forum page;
Made over $850 in cashback with Rakuten. Tracked fine for me so far. If I had issues then support has been helpful.
Nothing but a great experience with Rakuten here.
Rakuten works well for me. $40 link referral of mine is now live. Made $1k+ from it. I like to use it with meal kits to get lots of discounted or free meals.
I just wanted to add my comment here that Rakuten does not let you refer and earn easily. They were asking many questions and denying me for no reason with eligible purchase.
Bummer. They’ve been the most reliable one for me.
Rakuten is a big scam.
My P2 referred me and I made a purchase from Walmart of $30+. The bonus was pending and a few days later changed to ineligible. On my end, it says the purchase don’t qualify (I don’t read that anywhere) and on P2 account it says that I didn’t make the purchase within the time frame (I made the purchase a few days after getting the referral). I sent an email and I didn’t get a response and the phone number doesn’t work.
So be aware, they won’t pay.
This hasn’t been my experience
Sometimes you have to follow up twice. Come bearing screenshots of the terms, etc., for that specific store and cashback “event” and explain, and it usually works out
Been using them for years, never had issues
Very likely your accounts will be frozen now. Apparently all of these has an automated system…..
P1 and my P2 both have $40 links so I’m pretty sure everyone does.
Seems like it. Expires 12/8