‘Tis the Season to Stack: How to Turn Holiday Shopping Into Travel Rewards
Your holiday shopping could give you enough points to shop at this Christmas market in Vienna that we visted last Thanksgiving.
Holiday shopping can take a toll on your wallet—but if you play your cards right (literally), it can also fund your next getaway. Let’s talk about how stacking credit card rewards with Rakuten can turn your everyday spending into thousands of valuable travel points.
Step 1: Your Credit Card Does the Heavy Lifting
Every time you use a rewards card, you earn points or miles based on the purchase category:
A general-spend card like the Capital One Venture X earns 2× points on everything.
Cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® or Amex Gold offer higher multipliers for dining or travel.
Those are your baseline rewards—what you’d earn no matter where you shop.
Step 2: Add Rakuten for a Second Layer of Rewards
Rakuten is an online shopping portal that gives you extra rewards when you start your purchase through its site or app. Normally, Rakuten pays cash back, but you can choose to have those earnings paid as American Express Membership Rewards® points instead—turning shopping into travel currency.
During Rakuten’s annual Big Deal Reveal, the portal lights up with limited-time offers from major retailers—think 20% back at Ulta Beauty, 15% at QVC, and even 22% at LG Electronics. The 2025 version runs November 1–10, with a new deal dropping each day.
In short: your credit card earns its usual points, and Rakuten adds another layer of rewards on top.
Step 3: How Rakuten Becomes Amex Membership Rewards
If you hold an Amex card that earns Membership Rewards points, you can link it to Rakuten so your portal rewards convert directly into MR points instead of cash back. Be sure to use my referral and get a $50 bonus.
Here’s how:
Log into Rakuten and open your account settings.
Under “How would you like to get paid?” choose Membership Rewards points.
Link your eligible Amex card.
From that point forward, any “cash back” you earn through Rakuten becomes Amex points—1% cash back = 1 Membership Rewards point. Rakuten typically pays out quarterly, so you’ll see those points arrive a few weeks after each quarter ends.
Step 4: Real-World Example — The $1,000 Viator Tour
Here’s how I recently used stacking to turn a big purchase into a big win.
I booked a $1,000 Viator tour for the four of us—the kind of bucket-list experience that normally just hurts the credit card bill. But Rakuten was running a 15× Viator offer, so by clicking through Rakuten first and choosing Amex points as my payout option, I earned 15,000 Membership Rewards points on that purchase.
Then, I paid with my Capital One Venture X, which earns 2× points on every purchase, for another 2,000 Capital One miles.
That’s 17,000 total points from one $1,000 spend—enough for a domestic round-trip flight in many cases.
Step 5: Why This Works Especially Well During the Holidays
Rakuten and other portals launch elevated bonuses for holiday shopping.
You’re likely already spending more on gifts and travel, so stacking magnifies those purchases.
Amex Membership Rewards points are among the most flexible currencies out there—great for airline transfers and premium-cabin redemptions.
Also don’t forget to check the shopping offers and portals on all your cards. The Capital One offers are exceptional and can earn you thousands of points just for buying something you planned to buy already.
Stacking is one of the simplest ways to turn everyday spending into future travel without changing your budget—just your approach.
Step 6: How to Get Started
If you don’t have a Rakuten account yet, it’s easy to sign up and start earning today. Use my referral link below to join, and you’ll get a bonus when you make your first qualifying purchase:
JOIN RAKUTEN WITH MY REFERRAL AND GET A $50 BONUS
Once you’ve joined, switch your payout settings to Amex Membership Rewards (if you have an eligible card), and start browsing your favorite retailers through Rakuten before you buy.
