While on our recent trip to Ireland, we scheduled a few Viator activities. This is something we were planning to do because Viator makes finding local activities so easy and, so far, nearly all of my reservations have gone off without a hitch. But this post is not about Viator, it is about Rakuten. Rakuten is a shopping portal and is associated with American Express. It is much like the Capital One shopping portal except you can chose to get your rewards in either cash back OR American Express Points (you do have to have an American Express Card that earns membership rewards points to make this work – like American Express Gold or Platinum). A few times a year, they run bonkers specials where you can get 15-20x points on your spend made through their portal. Back in December, they ran such a special for Viator reservations and I made our trip arrangements during that time. Now, just for booking those activities by passing through the Rakuten site first, I get over 12,000 “free” American Express points. Rakuten business model is that they direct you through their portal to select merchants. If you then make a purchase, Rakuten gets a kick back which they split with you. If you want to sign up, use my referral link so we can both get extra points – please and thank you. Happy Shopping!
https://www.rakuten.com/r/KIMBAI125?eeid=44749
If you are interested in opening an American Express Card to start earning points, again, we can both get extra bonus points if you use my link!
https://americanexpress.com/en-us/referral/gold-card?ref=KIMBEBdyde&XL=MIMNS
When applying for a new credit card, always be sure to check and make sure the link you are using gives you the best possible offer for a welcome bonus. If you find a better bonus than the one in my link somewhere else, please use that one! The Frequent Miler website does a great job of tracking best offers.
The Wandering Koi 
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