RetireJapan

frodesky wrote: ↑Fri Aug 13, 2021 2:33 am There's another trick I've seen mentioned for temporarily changing the ribo-barai setting and getting points during campaigns, but I couldn't quite figure out what the Japanese articles were saying, plus I didn't want to risk paying interest on the card if I screwed things up.

So sometimes they have campaigns where they say they'll give you X points if you put Y amount in yen in "pay later" (リボ). Or it can be setup your account so default when using card is to go to "pay later" instead of your monthly bill and get points. For every yen you put into リボ, you pay ~18% annualized rate monthly, so about ~1.4% (I don't remember the exact numbers).

You have to read carefully the campaign, but for example once I put 20,000¥ in リボ, and you pay interest rate on it at least once => ~300¥ at most, but you receive 2000 points for it. So that one time I made like 1700 points in profits. They basically pay you to get familiar with their credit line service so you are more likely to use it one day I guess.

You have to understand what you are doing too, because the default reimbursement amount is very low, and if you don't change to pay all your リボ in 1 month, then you will pay more in credit, etc... So it's all about more hassle for more points.


An important note about doing furusato during a marathon: there is a maximum amount of points you can get from SPU during a marathon, read the campaign carefully and spread your furusato over several months if needed.

frodesky wrote: ↑Fri Aug 13, 2021 2:33 am - Charge Rakuten Cash using your Rakuten card for normal card points
- Change Rakuten Pay to use Rakuten Cash
- Get extra points when paying using Rakuten Pay

This gets you an extra 0.5% but it's worth mentioning that it's not normal card points. Normal card points are 1%, but if you use it to charge Rakuten Pay, you get 0.5% in points of the charge value (according to this). So you get a total of 0.5% from the charge, and 1% from the spend. I'm not sure how that works though, I thought Rakuten Card always just gives you 1% of the monthly balance - I didn't check if they adjusted to 0.5% for Rakuten Pay charges.

The downside is that now you've converted real cash to rakuten cash. So if you get any time-limited points, that's yet another thing to think about, as you'll want to temporarily prioritise the time-limited points over the r-cash to spend them quickly.

Rakuten always prioritizes limited time points when you use them so I think you're fine there.

I do think some of this (especally the revo payments part) is a bridge too far for some people. I don't think I'd want to touch that myself.

My first Tsumitate (non-nisa) payment went through. A sweet free 500 points. Pretty good deal. More than covers the fund fee.

It is part of the road to investing automation (iDeco+Tsumiate Nisa+Tsumiate).

Now, do I simply buy 500 points worth of mutual funds every month or let them accumulate?

Seems you can also buy domestic stock and binary options! lol

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention - a lot of places that take Rakuten Pay also support Rakuten points, so you switch over to the point tab first, have them register your point card, then pay using Rakuten Pay, you get a total of 2.5%.

Interesting. I didn't know you needed to do the Rakuten Cash step first to get the extra 0.5% from Rakuten Pay. Thats a bummer.

Since the Rakuten Securities site is basically a maze, I figured I'd ask in here. I finally got them to successfully link my Rakuten card to it (had to phone them to fix my middle name), and I went through マイメニュー, 申込が必要なお取引, 投資信託, 楽天カードクレジット決済 and set it there. Do I need to configure/set it up anywhere else? Will Tsumitate Nisa automatically use the card instead of money bridge from now on? I assume I can't set it to be used for iDeCo, right?

frodesky wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 2:26 am Since the Rakuten Securities site is basically a maze, I figured I'd ask in here. I finally got them to successfully link my Rakuten card to it (had to phone them to fix my middle name), and I went through マイメニュー, 申込が必要なお取引, 投資信託, 楽天カードクレジット決済 and set it there. Do I need to configure/set it up anywhere else? Will Tsumitate Nisa automatically use the card instead of money bridge from now on? I assume I can't set it to be used for iDeCo, right?

No, you need to go to whatever fund you want and purchase it there. When it asks you what payment method you want (there's 3 choices), credit card will be the first one.

If you have an existing T-NISA using your bank account and you want the CC to be used for T-NISA only then you'll have to cancel your current one (it will be in 積立設定) and then redo the T-NISA purchase, this time using CC.

I got some time limited points from an Ichiba purchase that expire at the end of September.

I've set Rakuten Energy to use points of exactly that amount, which gets applied "next month".

Will see if it works out.

Precarious, because if I use any points before then I think it'll prioritise the time limited ones, meaning I have to go back and adjust the amount to use in Rakuten Energy. But you can only change it until the end of the month. You still have about two weeks between the 1st and when the points are deducted to avoid using the points, and you can't change it if you do, meaning it'll either user regular points, Rakuten Cash, or revert to your regular payment method. Once again doesn't seem worth it but something draws me into the game.

Rakuten has a bonus point campaign (upto 200 points) if you buy eMaxis ETFs.

Its a great deal for everyone since we love eMaxis here and hey, free points.