Current Rakuten Securities - RCash - RCard (gold?) situation.

[Crudzilla]

Hello again,

I finally got set up with Rakuten Securities this year and managed to fill my annual allowance.
Now that is all sorted, I'm theory crafting the most efficient way to fill next year's allowance.
Rakuten sucked me in and I ended up also switching my phone and signing up for the Credit Card (finally, my first in Japan!).
I just signed up for the basic card because, while I really want an ETC card, the shop lady suggested holding off for now due to the annual ¥550 fee.
She said I could get a free card from another company with the ETC included. I still want an ETC, but not sure if I want the hassle of dealing with another CC.

I was checking the process for maximising points (to re-invest) for tsumitate transfers.

It looks like you can get:

0.5% points on transfers of up to ¥50,000 with Rakuten Cash. (250 pts)
0.5% points on transfers of up to ¥100,000 per month with Rakuten Card. (500 pts)
0.75% points with a Rakuten Gold Card* (750 pts)
*¥2,200 annual fee, 'free' ETC, some other benefits...

From what I have seen those are basically the three options for earning points while buying mutual funds.
So by combining RCash & RCard you can make monthly payments of up to ¥150,000 while earning points.
Now I'm thinking of upgrading to the Gold card because:

Annual points with Basic Card = (¥)6,000

While:

Annual points with Gold Card = (¥)9,000
Minus the ¥2,200 annual fee = (¥)6,800
So you earn an extra ¥800 and get ETC and some other benefits for free...

Adding the points from RCash Tsumitate brings the total up to ¥9,800 of free mutual fund purchases per year... Not too shabby!

Lastly I have a question about charging Rakuten Cash. Browsing this forum, it seems it might be possible to earn 0.5% points from charging Rakuten Cash with a Rakuten Card, then using that RCash to earn an additional 0.5% points when purchasing mutual funds, giving a total of 1% points(!) on the RCash portion. But none of the Japanese materials I have read seem to mention this path... Is it really a thing? Perhaps it used to be a thing, but doesn't work any more? (If it was it'd bring that free total to ¥12,800, tasty!)

[zeroshiki]

Hello again,

I finally got set up with Rakuten Securities this year and managed to fill my annual allowance.
Now that is all sorted, I'm theory crafting the most efficient way to fill next year's allowance.
Rakuten sucked me in and I ended up also switching my phone and signing up for the Credit Card (finally, my first in Japan!).
I just signed up for the basic card because, while I really want an ETC card, the shop lady suggested holding off for now due to the annual ¥550 fee.
She said I could get a free card from another company with the ETC included. I still want an ETC, but not sure if I want the hassle of dealing with another CC.

I was checking the process for maximising points (to re-invest) for tsumitate transfers.

It looks like you can get:

0.5% points on transfers of up to ¥50,000 with Rakuten Cash. (250 pts)
0.5% points on transfers of up to ¥100,000 per month with Rakuten Card. (500 pts)
0.75% points with a Rakuten Gold Card* (750 pts)
*¥2,200 annual fee, 'free' ETC, some other benefits...

From what I have seen those are basically the three options for earning points while buying mutual funds.
So by combining RCash & RCard you can make monthly payments of up to ¥150,000 while earning points.
Now I'm thinking of upgrading to the Gold card because:

Annual points with Basic Card = (¥)6,000

While:

Annual points with Gold Card = (¥)9,000
Minus the ¥2,200 annual fee = (¥)6,800
So you earn an extra ¥800 and get ETC and some other benefits for free...

Adding the points from RCash Tsumitate brings the total up to ¥9,800 of free mutual fund purchases per year... Not too shabby!

Lastly I have a question about charging Rakuten Cash. Browsing this forum, it seems it might be possible to earn 0.5% points from charging Rakuten Cash with a Rakuten Card, then using that RCash to earn an additional 0.5% points when purchasing mutual funds, giving a total of 1% points(!) on the RCash portion. But none of the Japanese materials I have read seem to mention this path... Is it really a thing? Perhaps it used to be a thing, but doesn't work any more? (If it was it'd bring that free total to ¥12,800, tasty!)

The points for RCash are earned through charging through the card and not through purchasing the MF. If you check, you will notice that your points are given out by Rakuten Card and not Rakuten Securities. So its basically a benefit to using Rakuten Cash and NOT buying mutual funds through Rakuten Securities.

[Crudzilla]

The points for RCash are earned through charging through the card and not through purchasing the MF. If you check, you will notice that your points are given out by Rakuten Card and not Rakuten Securities. So its basically a benefit to using Rakuten Cash and NOT buying mutual funds through Rakuten Securities.

I see! Thanks for explaining it.

[nanaya]

Also remember that rakuten may change the point rewards at their convenience...

If the point difference compared to regular card ever dip below 0.19% it means the gold card costs actual money to keep.