Many cardholders have received a targeted June promotion on the Rakuten co-branded credit card offering an extra 3x or 5x on supermarket, dining, and mobile wallet purchases. Note that this is extra, meaning you would earn a total of 4x or 6x! If you have the MR version of Rakuten (Ebates), then purchases in these three categories would earn 4x MR or 6x MR. The terms also do not mention any cap. Since mobile wallet payments can be used so broadly, the extra rewards may extend well beyond just those few categories.
This card already earns 3x on purchases through Ebates, so it is already a strong online shopping card. This month, it basically turns into an all-around great card. One interesting point is that some online merchants support mobile wallet payments. So if you shop online through Ebates, could you end up getting 6x or even 8x MR at those merchants?
If you have recently moved, or need to buy a lot of electronics, this card is especially useful this month. You can click through from the Rakuten app to the Best Buy app, then check out using a mobile wallet such as Apple Pay. You can also use Apple Pay on a Mac with the Safari browser. Since Best Buy is no longer available through Shopping Portals, earning 6x MR or 8x MR there is pretty remarkable. (Even the usual 3x MR for online Best Buy purchases is already very good.)
It is unclear how rewards would be determined when using mobile payments at supermarkets or restaurants. For online shopping, I think the mobile wallet bonus should not conflict with portal earnings. But for supermarket and dining purchases, it feels unlikely that they would stack too, since that would bring the total all the way up to 11x MR.
There are quite a few DPs on Reddit suggesting that this card does not always work smoothly with Apple Pay, and transactions may fail fairly often. In short, YMMV.
If you received this offer, feel free to share more details with us! If you have a screenshot of the 5x version, please leave a comment as well. I could not find one online.
If you apply now, you probably will not get these extra bonus offers. If you are interested in this card, see:
https://www.uscreditcards101.com/how-to-use-ebates-to-get-cashback/#Rakuten