Updated 7:45pm on 5/1/19: I decided to redeem my cash back for a Nike eGift Card. Scroll to the bottom of the post to see the redemption process.
Good afternoon. Last year, I wrote a similar post: Expecting an Ebates Big Fat Check? Get up to a 20% Bonus with an eGift Card Instead! I decided to do an updated post with May’s quarterly payments. I just got the following email from Ebates / Rakuten with an option to select an eGift Card with a boost of up to 15% vs. waiting for my Big Fat Check to arrive in the mail. Let’s see if those eGift Cards are good deals and which merchants are offered. I clicked the See All E-Gift Cards button in the email.
After logging into my Rakuten account, I had the option to get my $159.24 cash back boosted with an eGift Card or to do nothing and get my Big Fat Check in the mail.
Here are all the merchants and their corresponding eGift Card boosts.
For a simpler view, here are the merchants. Left side shows the merchants sorted alphabetically. Right side shows the merchants offering the highest eGift Card boost (poor Walmart offering 0% boost at the bottom).
If you didn’t get the email today, you might get targeted later this week. I also saw the eGift Card popup on the Rakuten homepage and on the Rakuten shopping button.
I’m not sure which eGift Card I will pick, but I have 4 days to decide. If you are not a Rakuten member yet (you are missing out on cash back), please use my Rakuten referral link to join. You will get a $10 bonus after your first $25 purchase. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. Have a great day everyone!
Update: After thinking about it for a while, I decided to redeem my cash back for a Nike eGift Card with the 12% boost ($159.24 x 1.12 = $178.35). I clicked the Nike eGift Card option and then clicked the Confirm button.
My Nike eGift Card was being processed and should arrive in my email soon.
A few seconds later, the Nike eGift Card arrived. If you want to shop online, you can go through Rakuten and pay with the Nike eGift Card (you should earn cash back for the transaction).
Alternatively, I could use the Nike eGift Card in-store by clicking the Redeem In-Store button.
I could then print out the Nike eGift number, PIN, and barcode.
I then went to my Big Fat Check History and it shows that I redeemed my cash back for a $178.35 Nike eGift Card on May 1. As you can see, I have been a long time member on Ebates / Rakuten :)
If you have any questions about redeeming your cash back for an eGift Card, please leave a comment below. Have a great day everyone!
stopped using ebates when they stopped giving additional 3% at GCM and GC.com.. Stopped a few days ago
That’s a bummer, which shopping portal are you using these days for GCM and GC.com?
But if you’re getting the big fat payment as AMEX MR, I’m pretty sure I’d still go with that. i.e. $250 even with a 12% boost isn’t worth it for me if instead I’d get 25000 MR, at ~1.5c a piece.
That’s true, AMEX MR still beats a 15% boost.
I signed up chosing the WM giftcard bonus, but I cannot find anywhere to change that
Will I have a chance to change that later, I’d prefer cash through pp. We are moving soon and I am worried the GC will get lost in the address change and such.
Contact Rakuten’s member services and ask them to switch you from the Walmart GC bonus to the $10 cash bonus. Then make sure your PayPal email address is on file.