Since last summer, Rakuten barely tracks/honors CB. There are lots of complaints by various users and at different forums. So, it might not be straightforward to count on it to accumulate more MR points.
Fico8: EX~EQ~TU~840 (12 month goal~850).
@xenon3030 wrote:Since last summer, Rakuten barely tracks/honors CB. There are lots of complaints by various users and at different forums. So, it might not be straightforward to count on it to accumulate more MR points.
I've not experienced that. I think there have been maybe 3 times the entire time I've used them that I needed to ask for credit, and I always got it. Most likely it's either user error (like using coupon codes that invalidate the earnings) or privacy settings are too high and they're unable to track through to the completion of the order. I have made "slight" use of Rakuten. 
(I've seen some screenshots with much more than me.)
If you are up for business cards, Blue Business Plus is my default non-category card since it earns 2x on everything. EDP or ED as mentioned can be decent catch-all cards for everything else, although I'd certainly do the math to see if EDP made sense for you since you'd need to make a lot of purchases on the card to get the 50% bonus each month and with groceries you'd basically only earn 3,000 MR points a year more than Gold on groceries for the maximum $6k cap on EDP.
Since last summer, Rakuten tracked only a handful of purchases (including Black Friday and Christmas). Only some ticket submissions were honored.
I moved all my groceries to Instacart to get 32% CB (20% Instacart GC from Costco, 5% cashback from a CC for shopping at Costco, 2% Costco executive discount, 5% discount for Instacart pickup). The portal CB might not stack here, if I pay by Instacart credit instead of a CC. So, this configuration might work better than Amex Gold. Anyway, it depends on the amount of groceries per year, since adding 10k GC to Instacart might be an awkward thing to do 
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@K-in-Boston wrote:
@xenon3030 wrote:Since last summer, Rakuten barely tracks/honors CB. There are lots of complaints by various users and at different forums. So, it might not be straightforward to count on it to accumulate more MR points.
I've not experienced that. I think there have been maybe 3 times the entire time I've used them that I needed to ask for credit, and I always got it. Most likely it's either user error (like using coupon codes that invalidate the earnings) or privacy settings are too high and they're unable to track through to the completion of the order. I have made "slight" use of Rakuten.
If you are up for business cards, Blue Business Plus is my default non-category card since it earns 2x on everything. EDP or ED as mentioned can be decent catch-all cards for everything else, although I'd certainly do the math to see if EDP made sense for you since you'd need to make a lot of purchases on the card to get the 50% bonus each month and with groceries you'd basically only earn 3,000 MR points a year more than Gold on groceries for the maximum $6k cap on EDP.
I was waiting on someone with a few Amex cards under their belt. That screenshot definitely showed what's possible. I just signed up for Rakuten after reading the responses. Definitely some opportunity their.
So the blue business plus earns uncapped MR on ALL spend? If so that may be a good option. I do have a small consulting business so I can get a business card if that is the case.
@Vash1 wrote:
@K-in-Boston wrote:
@xenon3030 wrote:Since last summer, Rakuten barely tracks/honors CB. There are lots of complaints by various users and at different forums. So, it might not be straightforward to count on it to accumulate more MR points.
I've not experienced that. I think there have been maybe 3 times the entire time I've used them that I needed to ask for credit, and I always got it. Most likely it's either user error (like using coupon codes that invalidate the earnings) or privacy settings are too high and they're unable to track through to the completion of the order. I have made "slight" use of Rakuten.
If you are up for business cards, Blue Business Plus is my default non-category card since it earns 2x on everything. EDP or ED as mentioned can be decent catch-all cards for everything else, although I'd certainly do the math to see if EDP made sense for you since you'd need to make a lot of purchases on the card to get the 50% bonus each month and with groceries you'd basically only earn 3,000 MR points a year more than Gold on groceries for the maximum $6k cap on EDP.
I was waiting on someone with a few Amex cards under their belt. That screenshot definitely showed what's possible. I just signed up for Rakuten after reading the responses. Definitely some opportunity their.
So the blue business plus earns uncapped MR on ALL spend? If so that may be a good option. I do have a small consulting business so I can get a business card if that is the case.
Unfortunately it's capped to $50,000 per calendar year, but it does earn 2x for everything and has a modest Welcome Offer. For household non-category expenses (Amex really doesn't seem to care; I only report $1500 in gross annual revenues selling on eBay when applying but have numerous business cards with them including one that had a $30k spend requirement for the Welcome Offer) that's fine for a lot of people.