RetireJapan

You guys should know that Rakuten made changes (for the worse, again) to some things.

• Rakuten Bank interest rate with money bridge is now capped. 0.1% for all amounts under 3M. 0.04% for everything else

• Rakuten has removed the monthly point bonuses for total assets on Rakuten Securities. Replacing them with one-time bonuses. This is a big step down. Its like 500 points max for 100M JPY holdings or something but it was something. SBI has something similar and they haven't nerfed it yet.

zeroshiki wrote: ↑Wed Jan 05, 2022 2:26 am You guys should know that Rakuten made changes (for the worse, again) to some things.

• Rakuten has removed the monthly point bonuses for total assets on Rakuten Securities. Replacing them with one-time bonuses. This is a big step down. Its like 500 points max for 100M JPY holdings or something but it was something. SBI has something similar and they haven't nerfed it yet.

I saw this. You still get points if doing some sort of tsumitate by CC, though, I think. The 500 poiints for 50,000 yen on the Rakuten card thing.

beanhead wrote: ↑Wed Jan 05, 2022 3:07 am

zeroshiki wrote: ↑Wed Jan 05, 2022 2:26 am You guys should know that Rakuten made changes (for the worse, again) to some things.

• Rakuten has removed the monthly point bonuses for total assets on Rakuten Securities. Replacing them with one-time bonuses. This is a big step down. Its like 500 points max for 100M JPY holdings or something but it was something. SBI has something similar and they haven't nerfed it yet.

I saw this. You still get points if doing some sort of tsumitate by CC, though, I think. The 500 poiints for 50,000 yen on the Rakuten card thing.

Yeah, that hasn't changed but at the rate they've been going, I wouldn't be surprised if tsumitate or SPU would be next on the chopping block.

Just got the email from Rakuten. They're massively nerfing their SPU program and even their credit card. It's actually unbelievable. They're reducing max limits (by like 80% in some cases) as well as doing a massive nerf on anything card related. Linking Rakuten Bank with Rakuten Card is now only 0.5x with a 1000 point max and the Premium card is basically useless now since they removed the +2% bonus on Rakuten purchases.

I think it's time to abort and find a different ecosystem. It was too good to last sadly.

I think the point systems are best used on the margins.

Vpoint/tpoint - SMBC card (Free or Gold)
Rakuten - Free
AMazon - Free or Prime

I use SMBC gold for konbinis where you get 5% or more, Rakuten for standard purchases and Amazon for Amazon.

For investing SMBC works well with SBI, and Rakuten with Rakuten.

My only "buy in" is the 5000 yen charge for SMBC gold, but I wanted a Gold card so it is not unreasonable.

All these cards also live on my phone with Id/Quickpay and Visa touch.