The Deal
- Earn 2.5% cashback/2.5x Membership Rewards when paying with a linked card in-store at the following retailers:
- Safeway
- Albertsons
- My Rakuten referral link.
- Direct link to offer.
Key Terms
- Offer valid through December 31, 2023.
- In-Store offers not valid for online purchases and cannot be combined with other offers.
- Offer not valid for gift card purchases.
- Debit card purchases must be processed as credit to be eligible for Cash Back. When using a debit card, do not enter your PIN.
- If you add the same merchant on more than one rewards site or platform, you will only receive rewards through the most recently added Offer.
- Once you add an Offer, you may make qualifying transactions for up to 1 hour after initial redemption before needing to re-add the Offer.
- An added offer that has not been redeemed will automatically expire 75 days after it is added or on the date the offer itself ends, whichever is sooner.
Tips & Ideas
An unlimited 2.5% cashback or 2.5x Membership Rewards at grocery stores is an excellent deal seeing as it’s on top of credit card rewards you can earn by paying with a card that earns more at grocery stores.
Gift card purchases are listed as being excluded, so there’s no guarantee that you’ll earn anything for those kinds of purchases. I imagine regular purchases of gift cards with your regular grocery shopping would fly under the radar, but I wouldn’t be surprised if purchases of $500+ get some kind of scrutiny from Rakuten. If spending large amounts like that, at least make sure that you’re not spending in multiples of $500 or $505.95.
Unfortunately it seems like Safeway and Albertsons are the only two brands eligible for this offer, not any of the other brands Albertsons owns like ACME, Tom Thumb, Shaw’s, etc.
Limiting the promotion to Safeway and Albertsons may have been intended as a geographic filter, but it will not work that way in at least some markets. In Southern California and Southern Nevada, for example, Albertsons shares the footprint with other banners like Vons and Pavilions, so limiting the promotion to Albertsons makes absolutely no sense.