How To Double-Dip or Triple-Dip Your Earnings [My Experience With Chase Offers & Rakuten]

Whether you’re traveling, buying a new laptop, or even just ordering groceries, shopping online gives you opportunities to increase your earnings on top of whatever credit card bonus category your purchase might fall under. Combine 1 of these tactics with your credit card earnings and you’ve got a double-dip. Add 2 of these techniques to your purchase and you’ve got yourself a triple-dip.

On a trip to Thailand, my family wanted to go snorkeling, so in addition to browsing tour reviews across a few websites, I also made sure to see where I might earn additional cash-back based on my credit card shopping offers and cash-back portals. Read on to see how I added 13% cash-back to this 2x travel purchase on my Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card and how you can do the same with any major card issuer. 

Credit Card Shopping Offer Programs

All of the major card issuers offer some type of offer-based program where you can earn cash-back as a statement credit or additional points for your rewards balance for a purchase with a specific retailer:

• Amex Offers
• Capital One Offers
• Chase Offers
• Citi Merchant Offers

Amex, Chase, and Citi essentially run their programs the same way — you log into your account, see what offers are available for each card, then enroll in the offers you like by card and make the purchase with that card (generally online or offline, depending on the terms). After your eligible purchase, you should see the cash-back added as a statement credit to your account.

Capital One Offers is slightly different in that it functions more like a cash-back shopping portal — instead of adding the offer to your card, you must click through the offer’s link and make the purchase online. 

Cash-Back Shopping Portals

Websites such as Rakuten, TopCashback, and BeFrugal incentivize users to start their online shopping on their pages by offering cash-back from various retailers. These sites earn a commission on your purchase and pass a portion of that commission on to you as a cash-back rebate. 

Airline shopping portals and credit card sites such as Capital One Shopping and Shop through Chase are even in on the action, offering similar miles, points, or cash-back for purchases that originate on their site.

While you can certainly check a handful of sites individually, Cashback Monitor makes it easy to search by retailer and lets you compare earnings across several cash-back websites, travel loyalty program websites, and credit card shopping websites. This allows you to select the highest rate of return by website.

My Experience Triple-Dipping: Chase Offers and Rakuten

For my snorkeling trip to the Phi Phi Islands in Thailand, I scored a triple-dip on my purchase by using both Chase Offers and Rakuten to increase the cash-back I earned on my Chase Sapphire Preferred card.

I had a relative idea of the tour I wanted to book, and it was available to purchase through a few websites. As I find that most online retailers have some form of cash-back listed through Cashback Monitor, I started my search with the 2 credit card shopping offer programs available to me as a cardholder: Chase Offers and Capital One Offers.

I filtered my Chase Offers by Travel to see if there would be any offers for GetYourGuide, Viator, Tripadvisor, Klook, or similar sites that allow you to book tours. I made a similar search with Capital One Offers in the Travel & Entertainment category. 

I was able to see that Chase Offers had an offer for 5% back on Things To Do by Tripadvisor, which beat a similar Capital One Offer, so I added it to my Chase Sapphire Preferred card.

I then opened up Cashback Monitor and searched for Tripadvisor to see what shopping portals were offering the highest rates of return.

Rakuten was offering up to 8% cash-back, and because “up to” can mean a few different things, I clicked over to Rakuten to see what the cash-back rates actually were. 

It’s extra important when using cash-back shopping portals to review the categories and terms to see what to expect from your purchase. In this case, my Tripadvisor Experiences purchase would earn 8% cash-back. 

To recap, my expected earnings for this purchase would be:

• 2x Ultimate Rewards points from the Chase Sapphire Preferred card’s travel bonus category
• 5% cash-back from Chase Offers
• 8% cash-back from Rakuten

After the Tripadvisor Chase Offer was added to my card, I then clicked through the Experiences link on the Rakuten page for Tripadvisor and made my purchase. We set off on the boat tour a few days later, and I felt that much better about my experience knowing I saved an extra 13%.

Following Up on the Purchase

When attempting a double- or triple-dip, it’s easy to add the offers to your card or use shopping portals and forget that you ever did either. It’s important to note to yourself or set a reminder to check your credit card statement or shopping portal account to make sure that the shopping trip was tracked properly. 

For my purchase, I was able to see via Chase Offers that my offer was showing as redeemed and at the proper amount. I was also able to see the credit post to my statement a few days later.

Rakuten sent me an email to alert me that my shopping trip had been properly tracked, and I verified by logging into the site that the cash-back was added to my balance. 

For the entire $303.68 transaction, I earned:

• 607 Ultimate Rewards points (worth $12.14 according to our valuation of Ultimate Rewards points)
• $15.18 cash-back from Chase Offers (5%)
• $24.29 cash-back from Rakuten (8%)

Not bad for a few extra clicks, and it didn’t cost me any extra to earn more on my purchase!

Final Thoughts

I never make an online purchase without first seeing how I can maximize my earnings with a double- or triple-dip. Adding offers to your credit card and/or making your purchase through an online shopping portal are easy and transparent ways to increase your cash-back. By using Chase Offers and Rakuten for my snorkeling tour purchase, I was able to earn my standard 2x Ultimate Rewards points and an additional 13% cash-back.