Credits cards in Japan with greater than 1.5% cash back?

8 comments

1. All those points have to come from somewhere. In the US, there’s alot of people that pay the minimum balance and carry debt over, accruing interest that the bank profits from. So the awards themselves come from the losses of someone else. Here, that’s not really a thing

2. Don’t have it, but I heard about AirCard, from recruit, having 1.5% without high fees, not sure if it’s free.

   Also for Epos card, you can select certain shops to get extra points at them.

   Finally, not sure if you wanna count it or not, Rakuten can have slightly higher points if you follow some weird scheme connection between Rakuten bank, credit card, pay, edy, etc.. basically pass the payment through many places to increase points.

   I’ve only read about those schemes and cards.
   So might wanna check yourself or wait to see if anyone have experience with them

3. Not >1.5% but you can get ~1.5% cashback with no annual fee by getting a Bic View card and setting Suica to auto charge. You then pay by Suica. You get 1.5% points when you auto charge which then can be used to add funds to the Suica.

   Yes, it can only be used for day to day, restaurants, and not flights etc but still, it’s fee free.

4. You’re better off getting a card with benefits you’ll use. For me that’s an Amex because I travel just enough to make the card worth the annual fee on benefits alone.

5. American express gold preferred is giving you a lot of points the first year if you spend enough money. It covers the annual fee.
   You get 1% most of the time, but 3% at some shops including Amazon.

6. I love how much people think they are “saving” by getting these points despite the many studies that show people spend WAAAY more than 1.5% when buying on credit vs debit/cash.

7. Marriot Bonvoy Premium is effectively 1.25-1.5% cashback, as you get 3 points per yen (can transfer this to United, 2 Marriot points = 1 United mile). I know its not over 1.5% but United offers domestic flights on ANA at 5k points, so often this means the United miles are worth more than 1 yen each.

8. Hi, I actually have done extensive research on this. This is based on maximising the cashback rate without considering the annual fee as I spend a lot for my business annually. And all the numbers are just off the top of my head.

   I believe the cashback rate does depend on how you redeem each specific point. When you said 1.5% for ANA miles, do you mean that 1.5 miles are equal to 1.5 JPY in this case?

   For me personally, I tried to find ways to maximise the point value as much as possible. For example, for ANA miles, recently there has been really high fuel surcharge for ANA award flights. I bypass this by booking a Star Alliance flight with ANA miles instead. This also depends on the airline. I usually book a Singapore Airlines flight and forcing a transit in Singapore to several cities. Eg. TYO-SIN-MEL, TYO-SIN-CDG. TYO-SIN-CDG maybe around 50,000-60,000 miles + 30,000-40,000 JPY for an economy flight that usually could be around 130,000-160,000 JPY. So the mile may be each worth 1.8-2.2 JPY. When you can find deals for business seats, it could even be worth more than 3+ JPY.

   For example, I booked multi-city flights previously.

   HND-SIN-DPS-SIN-BKK-HND

   HND-SIN-DPS Flights were in economy and the rest was in Business. I paid 50,000 ANA miles and 30,000 JPY for this whole itinerary.

   Even though difficult to compare directly, I believe it would cost at least over 200,000 JPY with cash.

   So I believe the ANA Platinum could be one of the best cards if you travel with Star Alliance frequently.

   JAL is a little bit more difficult to book Oneworld flights.

   Other than that, the Marriott Bonvoy Premium is probably the one that provides the most value. This card really shines when you redeem points for stays at Marriott affiliated hotels. It is 3 Points per 100 JPY. (You can transfer to 3 Points to 1.2 ANA or JAL miles)

   I generally consider this one at 1 Point = 1 JPY so it is 3% cashback. But if you really aim for some of the luxury hotels, the value per point can go up very much higher. If you use Marriot Bonvoy points to book 5 nights, you get one night for free.

   So this could end up at around 120,000-150,000 points per night at for example St Regis Maldives, St Regis Venice, Ritz-Carlton New York where it could usually cost around 250,000-350,000+ JPY a night in cash.

   The Hilton Honors Premium also gives you 2 free stays after you spend a certain amount where you can redeem them at the Waldorf Astorias.

   The Amex Green/Gold/Platinum gives you x3 when you shop at specific shops eg. Amazon, Yahoo Shopping/Auctions. Then you can transfer 40,000 points to 40,000 ANA miles annually. For other airlines, it is mostly 1 point = 0.8 miles.

   Then there is a JP Bank card where you can get 5+% cashback when you use it at Japan Post.