RetireJapan

adamu wrote: ↑Thu Feb 03, 2022 2:21 pm
To be pedantic, the actual breakdown is:

0.5% from Rakuten Card for charging Rakuten Cash
1.0% from Rakuten Pay for using Rakuten Cash
0.5% from Rakuten point card at Family Mart.

So you're getting a total of 2% points - 0.5% of which comes from the point card. Here are the places you can use the point card:
https://pointcard.rakuten.co.jp/partner/

Viralriver wrote: ↑Fri Feb 04, 2022 7:11 am Screen Shot 2022-02-04 at 16.08.58.png

Rakuten just nerfed their SPU for 楽天証券 as well,

Viralriver wrote: ↑Fri Feb 04, 2022 7:11 am now it will be +0.5x SPU and only on 30,000 JPY+ per month.

TBS wrote: ↑Tue Feb 01, 2022 1:42 pm

zeroshiki wrote: ↑Tue Feb 01, 2022 8:17 am Basically you can invest 50k in Rakuten Cash per month completely separate from the CC Tsumitate so they've effectively made it 100k a month for the CC except that you have to invest using Rakuten's funny money that's not tpoints. Buying Rakuten Cash using your CC gets you 0.5% points (and then Securities gives a temporary boost of 0.5% during the initial period making it total 1% points)

It is a shame that Rakuten are making this 1% -> 0.2% cut.

But there's one more positive side to having another 50k/month (up to 100k/month total) you can funnel through the CC. It is a point that is not mentioned much, but there is an opportunity benefit to investing via credit cards. In Rakuten's case you receive the investment at the start of the month (usually 2nd or 3rd), but only have to pay for it via the CC bill at the end of the month (27th). So it helps cash flow, and means effectively you can gain an extra month of investing. For an investment product with say 6% average yearly growth, this is a ~0.5% benefit.

So even after the new Rakuten Cash promotion ends and that part drops to 0.5%, anyone who would be investing 100k/month+ anyway and manages their cash flow diligently could be slightly better off from this change* in the long run. Or at least until Rakuten next change the rules.

* before was 1% points + 0.5% opportunity benefit for 50k/month, which is 750 yen/month
after is 0.2% from CC 50k/month, 0.5% from Rakuten Cash 50k/month, + 0.5% opportunity benefit on 100k/month, total 850 yen/month

adamu wrote: ↑Tue Feb 08, 2022 12:26 am Assuming you are going to be investing on Rakuten anyway and you have 100k/mo to invest, it seems the prudent* thing to do for the time being is:

1. Set up the Rakuten Cash dance in June to take advantage of the 1% points (¥500/mo), at least until the end of the year.
2. Keep the 50k/mo card payments, reducing to 0.2% (¥100/mo) points from September.

If you were investing 50k/mo via card and don't plan to increase it, then switching to the Rakuten Cash scheme for now, and be mentally prepared to either switch back or lose benefits. I can't imagine they are going to keep both schemes running in parallel for long (if they are going to permit it at all).

*working on the assumption that selling your free time to Rakuten for a few thousand yen is prudent...

RetireJapan wrote: ↑Tue Feb 08, 2022 12:39 am Well, I'm annoyed. I went to all the trouble of getting a Rakuten card just to take advantage of this points for purchase thing.

Validates my 'I am not interested in your points card/scheme/program. The meagre rewards are not worth the mental bandwidth' usual policy, which I foolishly deviated from this time...