Update 8/20/26: INK Cash and INK Unlimited both have the $100 bonus now. (ht Monty) INK Cash is new – it was never available on Rakuten in the past.
Update 8/14/26: Ink Unlimited back at $100
Update 7/3/26: bonus is back for the INK Unlimited at $100. Freedom Unlimited is still $50/$90.
Update 6/2/26: $90 for new Chase customers, $50 for existing Chase customers exclusively for the Freedom Unlimited
Update 5/2/26: Now $25.
Update 4/18/26: Now $75 for new Chase customers for the Freedom Unlimited, $25 for existing.
Update 12/5/25: Now only Freedom Unlimited has an offer on Rakuten. It’s $65 for new Chase customers and $30 for existing.
Update 5/13/25: Rates reduced to $25 for all three cards. (If you have a friend with a referral link, they can often get 10,000/$100 for referring you to the card instead.)
Update 5/8/25: Rates reduced to $100/10,000 for Sapphire Preferred/Ink Unlimited and $75/7,500 for Freedom Unlimited.
Update 5/4/25: Rates have been DRAMATICALLY increased. $300/30,000 for Sapphire Preferred/Ink Unlimited and $150/15,000 for Freedom Unlimited. If you’ve ever wondered how much money we give up by not using affiliate links on this site, this gives you some insight.
See this follow up post: FAQ On The $300 Rakuten Credit Card Bonus (Chase Sapphire Preferred, INK, Freedom)
Original Post:
In a surprising move, Rakuten is now promoting a $50/5,000 bonus when signing up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Freedom Unlimited, and Chase INK Unlimited.
Sapphire Preferred | Freedom Unlimited | INK Unlimited
This is perfect timing on the Sapphire Preferred card which is already offering an excellent 100,000 points bonus (ending soon).
Typically shopping portals are not allowed to offered kickbacks for credit card signups. While the affiliate can sometimes earn well in excess of $50 per signups, the banks and affiliate networks don’t typically allow incentivizing signups in that manner. Apparently Rakuten negotiated this deal specially with Chase. (We don’t use credit card affiliate links on Doctorofcredit ever.)
A lot of us apply using the referral link of a player-2 or a friend which might be better than with using Rakuten. Still, many people prefer an easy bonus like this, especially if you value Rakuten/MR points at more than 1 cent each. (There’s yet another option of buying a card signup bonus on eBay.)
It’s kinda strange to earn Membership Rewards points for signing up on a Chase card. 🙂
If you’re new to Rakuten, it’s a good time to sign up now with their $40/4,000 bonus. You can find our referral link in this post.
Hat tip to Greedyenthusaism91
The first biz credit card: applied Chase ink on Aug 25th through rakuten. We are unable to approve your request. Will receive decision in 7-10 days. No track in rakuten either. Chatgpt said the case was strong. Called back in the afternoon. The rep opened a new application and approved with 3k credit. Reached back a week later for CLI and got declined.
Any update for Rakuten?
John H Yes, that is why. Change from Amex points and you should see.
Is there a trick to this? Been clicking for a few days but on Rakuten it show “No Points” for all the Chase, Citi, BOA, etc. on my account. I’m setup to receive American Express points if that makes a difference?
Shows “no points” now
Yeah, I forgot about my car insurance. I always pay the 6 month policy in full and that’ll be late September so that’ll be another ~$1,500 on it. If I can find a full 12 month policy again I’ll do that which would be $2,500+. Spectrum lets me pay in advance/build a large credit if I want, and really helps me on ~$1 debit card pre-payments back to back to satisfy checking account debit spend requirements. I just hate to pay them more than a few hundred up front at a time lest they randomly overcharge me severely or something. I also thought about paying estimated taxes or whatever it’s called up front since I usually owe a few grand to to the IRS. I just haven’t looked much into the “paperwork” aspect of that.
Finally got into this offer. I waited last few years from getting any new card with construction of new home, so wanted credit in best standing. FICO score was 850 most of the time. Plus little hesitation on getting business card. Now that home is done, applied for this, got new car loan and going on spree. Rakuten tracked easily and is pending till Nov 15.
I was denied for the sapphire reserve business 8/2/26 at 4/24, but have 5/24 business cards also. I have 3 as sole Prop, 2 as a llc with separate tax ID # Recon underwriter specifically referenced the business credit report and cards in upholding the denial. No idea if that would hold true for the reserve personal card, im gonna let things age and wait til November to try, have a trip in December I could really take advantage of sapphire lounges for…
I didn’t think about ATT. I thought you got a discount for using a debit card, which would be my only reason why I wouldn’t want to use credit card.
I don’t think it’ll stack
Try some of this: paying anything in installments? Car insurance, a phone, etc? Use the card to pay off the remaining balance in full. Spend a certain amount monthly on Amazon? Buy a gift card for several months worth. Same goes for Uber/Lyft/Doordash/grocery store gift cards/etc. Some monthly bills can be paid in advance (ATT for example). Depending on where you live, gas and electricity services these days charge a fixed fee of $1.75 or something for credit card payments no matter how high your bill is. If all that fails, paying a 3.75% fee for housing/taxes/etc is worth it to get you over the finish line.
I think I can spend about $4-5k just fine normal bills/expenses. The other $3-4k or so hopefully find a bank I can fund. Maybe another US Bank (assuming Chase works for that – I haven’t researched)? I still have to do that LLC. Too bad Teacher’s closed their gravy train lol.
What’s your deal?
Any game plan?
think this stacks with the chase referral?
think i read on facebook that you can still get multiple inks if you have an s corp or something
referral bonus (40k) can’t be combined with rakuten bonus (10k) right?
Alright.
You are having a hard time spending $8k over 4 months, you don’t know what 5/24 is, so… you are not really of the “on this forum” kind in the same sense as the rest of us (not that there’s anything wrong with that!).
ink CASH is now $100 Chuck
pedro That comment you linked to didn’t say they had business cards or even specified that it was only Transunion.
Yes, 5/24 is 5 new cards within 24 months. Business cards are mostly not included in that number so many took advantage of Chase Ink’s generous SUBs often, until Chase started cracking down on repeat holders of the cards. It’s not that hard to hit those spending numbers for some with estimated taxes, property taxes, insurance, the big bills. But not everyone has those. James
I have to say I don’t really understand what the 5/24 stuff people are talking about here lol. Are they saying 5 cards in 24 months or what? This is my first and only so far Chase Biz CC. I’m going to have a hard enough time spending $8k organically; I couldn’t imagine trying to do it multiple times simultaneously or back to back.
Yes.
Man, lucky you. Was it P5 or P6 lol? P1, P2, and P3 have maxed out our Ink train.
I did
Who on this forum can even partake with this offer?!
so there’s business card accounts that only get reported to one bureau? i did think it was strange that only transunion was reporting 5 accounts… first time i’ve heard of that and assumed if an account reports to one personal credit bureau then it reports to the others
That second one has Transunion listing 5 cards, it’s not Chase. Few biz cards are reported to the personal credit report. Capital One Spark Cash I think is the only one I’ve heard of that does that.
Do you need to be under 5/24 for Inks & co-branded business cards? Thanks!