Not in the programming or technical sense of course but in the sense of couponing. Still relatively new to Japan and have my Ponta, D Point and , T-Point (slowly racking them up). Not the least bit knowledgable in Japanese but Korean was similar so I’m giving it a shot. To the point where I know have the most important Kanji memorized …. é…’
Anyways, yeah point cards tips? I’m SOFA so I can’t do a whole lot compared to those of you who have My Number or Zairyuu cards but LINE Pay got me a card I could top up on and I just move the money around between that, cash, and my IC Cards.
If there’s any other SOFA members who have figured out to do things most SOFA members couldn’t (i.e JP Post) – as far as that goes I just need to get a Passport…iirc.
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It’s best if you stay within one eco system the most. If you use Rakuten, get the most out of that. If Tokyu, get a Tokyu credit card etc.
The more you stick to one system, the better.
You already have 3 of the most common points (well, you could add rakuten to that list) so just use them. Don’t forget that they do expire (usually in a year?) so collect + use them up as needed. Don’t spread across too many of them, pick like 1-2 that you’ll constantly collect and don’t bother too much with others. LINE points can be exchanged to paypay points 1:1, so that might be a usable combination, if you can get paypay working on your status.
If you’re paying with IC cards (like suica) you’re not getting any cash back, so if you can get something that turns payments into points, like the LINE prepaid card, you should use that instead. It supports iD contactless payment, so try to use that as much as possible instead of paying for stuff (other than transit) with suica.
If you can charge suica with your line pay card, that’s even better because then you’ll get points for the amount you charged. It’s an extra step to do cash -> line pay -> suica but hey, free points.
Get the point cards for the two main grocery stores you use, and keep track of when their double, 5x, or 10x point days are. Also, keep track of specials they have weekly, like half price egg day or bread day.
If you only go to a store once a month or less, it’s not worth it to sign up for their card/point system because you’ll likely never earn that many points, or never earn enough to really use either. Stick to the main stores you use daily/weekly.
Sign-up during campaign duration, when they offer bonus miles, spend enough yen within given time period, especially when you plan bigger expenses (e.g. I use my new CCs during kakutei shinkkoku, paying for taxes, which cost me 0.6% transaction fee, but generated some 50K miles on one of the ANA Amex cards) – then cancel them afterwards. Other cards – Amazon/Rakuten/Mercari/Mitsui Sumitomo I use for online shopping and groceries respectively. Revolut/Wise cards for international traveling, when I need to cash out at better rates.
Moppy モッピー is good for accumulating points.
An unrelated aside, the fact hacking now seems to be the word for “use common sense to take advantage of programs to incentivize something” as opposed to use your technical knowledge to get something the manufacturer likely wouldn’t have thought of or wanted you to do.
Like phone phreaking back in the day where you could wire a diode in series with the phone line and all your incoming calls were “free” because the telephone exchange didn’t realize someone had picked up (it kept the line voltage constant rather than dropping when the phone was picked up so they had no way of knowing the line was connected).
Or the old captain crunch whistle trick.
Or using a variable resistor from radio shack to make a cheap cable decoder…
I think your best bet it is to just pick 1 or 2 that are used at stores you frequent, and don’t worry about others. It’s kinda hard to save up points anyway, so if it’s a point card you only use once in awhile, it’ll take way too long to accumulate any points. Personally, I use Rakuten and Ponta since those are the two credit cards I have, and there are lots of shops around where I live that take either of them.
Possibly all the point cards do this too, I dunno, but for Rakuten there are other ways to build up extra points; like by logging in once a day for the ‘daily mission’ thing, or buy using a Rakuten card on certain days to earn X number of extra points. And by buying from Rakuten instead of Amazon, of course
If you are SOFA and making money in dollars (or have money in $ back home to pay the bill), you should be looking at getting a good American credit card that gives a great bonus for hitting a sign up spending amount and that has no foreign transaction fees.
I recommend the chase sapphire preferred and/or Citibank Premier.
I got huge bonuses when spending $3000 to $4000 in three or four months (which I do anyway) and with the Citibank card, I get three times bonus points on all supermarket, hotel, restaurant and airline spending. I get three times bonus points with the Chase card at restaurants, and two times for anything travel related like rental car, train pass, hotels etc. etc.
These points are best used to transfer to airline frequent flyer miles or in the case of Chase, Hyatt hotels are a fantastic deal.
Just doing my everyday shopping and living in Japan, I’ve racked up points to have numerous free flights and free hotel stays. It’s great to use these when cash prices are high. Last December, round-trip tickets to San Francisco were about Â¥320,000 each on United economy. I got two tickets for free.
You can even double dip if you have certain set ups. Having a Softbank phone, I pay my phone bill with my American credit card getting points. Pay pay is owned by Softbank, and I can charge my PayPay account and send the charge to my SoftBank phone bill, therefore indirectly paying for that charge with my American credit card. Then every time you use PayPay you get cash back.
Of course if that store has a point card then you can even triple dip-point card points, pay pay discount, and points on the credit card.
(Note that I use my credit card like cash. I pay my bills 100% every month. People who don’t have any discipline in using a credit card, or money to pay off the bill every month shouldn’t use one)
I get so much money back from Rakuten in the course of a year, I don’t know how they stay in business.
T-Point, Nanaco Point, and Rakuten Edy point can all be converted into ANA Miles and/or Sky Coins. That’s primarily what I do.
You can get tons of T-Points with just regular shopping at Welcia/HAC. They have all kinds of promos, and a daily coupon gatcha. Welcia also allows you to score BOTH T-Point and WAON Point for the same transactions, but I don’t use WAON Point.
If you have a credit card that offers bonus points/cashback for “travel” category, you can use it to charge your mobile Suica, which (being originally a JR product) counts as travel, no matter where/how you spend the Suica. I do this with Amex, and earn tons of MR points which …. surprise! …. I convert to ANA miles.
If you’re on Android, there’s an app called Osaifu Raifu Plus (the PLUS is important) that gives you the chance to earn bonus points across the various IC card systems each day (as long as the cards are used — but merely charging them counts as a use for the bonus).
Those are the broad strokes.
I can convert points on my credit card (called EPOS) into Amazon points which is pretty handy. I have my local drugstore, supermarket and electrical store as my 3 shops to get 1.5times more points. After spending 500,000yen you get 2500yen worth of amazon points and a `10,000yen when you spend 1,000,000yen. By the time it’s Christmas i usually have around 30,000yens worth of amazon points.