Rakuten is paying $100 to $250 in cash back on approved credit card applications, and because the money comes from Rakuten rather than the bank it stacks on top of the card's own welcome bonus. On Bank of America Travel Rewards the portal's $250 equals the entire welcome bonus, taking $1,000 of required spend to about 50 cents on the dollar. Six cards are paying today, with the terms quoted, including a same-browser-session condition unique to Citi and a one-bonus-per-Rakuten-account limit most people miss. Checked August 14, 2026.
The short version: Rakuten is paying between $100 and $250 in cash back when you are approved for certain credit cards, and that money comes from Rakuten rather than the bank. So it lands on top of the card's own welcome bonus instead of replacing it. On the Bank of America Travel Rewards card the portal is currently paying $250, which is the same as the entire welcome bonus. No "best card" ranking counts this, including ours, because it is not part of the card's offer. Six cards are paying today, checked August 14, 2026.
There is a layer of credit card value that essentially every comparison table ignores, including the one we published this morning.
Shopping portals pay you for sending them a sale. Most people know that for shoes and hotels. Fewer people notice that a credit card application is also a sale, and that the portal pays for it in exactly the same way.
The reason is in the first line of Rakuten's own terms on each card's page. For the Chase Ink Business Cash card:
"Cash Back provided by Rakuten, not Chase. Cash Back only available for new, approved Chase Ink Business Cash® Credit Card customers who keep the account open for a minimum of 3 months after approval. Only one cash back bonus per Rakuten member account."
The money is Rakuten's, not the bank's. It is a share of the referral fee Rakuten earns for sending your application. Nothing in it is conditioned on giving up the card's welcome offer, because the two payments come from two different companies.
The Bank of America page carries the same construction: "Cash Back provided by Rakuten, not Bank of America," plus a residency limit, "U.S. residents only."
Six cards, from our daily scrape of Rakuten's own store pages. Card bonuses and fees are from our card database. The last column is what one dollar of the required spend returns once the portal bonus is included.
| Card | Card bonus | Rakuten pays | Spend needed | Per dollar, with portal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bank of America Travel Rewards | $250 | $250 | $1,000 | 50.0c |
| Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards | $200 | $150 | $1,000 | 35.0c |
| Citi Strata Premier | $1,020 (fee $95) | $100 | $4,000 | 25.6c |
| Chase Ink Business Cash | $1,000 | $100 | $8,000 | 13.8c |
| Chase Ink Business Unlimited | $1,000 | $100 | $8,000 | 13.8c |
| Chase Freedom Unlimited | $200 | up to $100 | $500 | see note |
The Bank of America Travel Rewards line is the one worth staring at. The card pays a 25,000-point bonus after $1,000 of spend, which our database values at $250. Rakuten is paying $250 for the same approval. The portal bonus is not a rounding error on that card, it is the entire welcome bonus a second time, on a card with no annual fee.
For context on how large 50 cents per required dollar is: in our ranking of business card bonuses published this morning, the best card in the entire set returned 24 cents.
On the Freedom Unlimited line. Rakuten quotes "Up to $100" rather than a flat amount, and our most recent read of that page is August 7 rather than today. We are showing it because it is live, and flagging both facts rather than presenting it as equivalent to the others.
Every one of these offers carries the same three, quoted from Rakuten's pages:
That last condition is what turns this from a checklist into a decision. If you can claim it once, claim it on the largest one you would have applied for anyway.
Citi adds a condition the others do not, and it is the kind that quietly costs people the payout:
"To be eligible for Cash Back, you must click the 'Learn More' link on the Rakuten store page and complete the entire credit card application online in the same browser session."
Start the application, wander off, come back tomorrow and finish it, and by those terms you have not qualified.
We are not telling you which card to apply for. A welcome bonus is worth nothing if the card is wrong for your spending, and a hundred dollars is not a reason to open an account you would not otherwise want. Applications also affect your credit, which Rakuten's own terms note.
What this changes is narrower and worth knowing: if you have already decided to apply, the order of operations decides whether an extra $100 to $250 shows up. Going to the bank's site directly earns nothing from the portal. Going through Rakuten first earns the same card, the same bonus, plus the portal payment.
If you want the card-side rankings that this layer sits on top of, business card bonuses ranked by what a required dollar returns covers the comparison this article is a footnote to, and what a point is actually worth covers the valuations used above.
Rates and terms above were read from Rakuten's own store pages and our card database on August 14, 2026, except the Freedom Unlimited rate, last read August 7. Portal rates change without notice and carry no published end date, so confirm on the store page before you apply. We earn a commission if you join Rakuten through our link, which does not change the figures above.