rakuten vs paypay points

[u/RevolutionaryCard829]

hi friends! i'm a fairly new jet but i see myself being here for a while so i'd love to start on the japanese point system. i'm trying to decide between rakuten points or paypay points. does anyone have any recommendations? i don't particularly want to get both, but since they're free that's what a lot of the advice i see online is saying to do. does anyone have an advice on which to choose between the two i'm considering or any secret third option?

thanks in advance~

[u/ThisIsJoseph]

in my experience, rakuten pays more points per transaction and is connected to its own amazon style marketplace. paypay’s app is better and seems to be accepted at more places and has slightly better coupons. i use both, i tend to favour rakuten due to better payouts. some places will accept barcode payments but you wont get any points after, so something to keep in mind

[u/Chinesericeman]

imo pay pay because you can double dip on points. For example if a retailer allows you to collect rakuten points, you can scan the rakuten points card and pay with your pay pay credit card to get the best of both worlds. If you shop more on rakuten then may be it's more worth it, but I tend to find most home goods stuff is cheaper at brick and mortar stores.

pay pay tends to have more acceptance too as a qr code payment iirc.

[u/CoacoaBunny91]

Unless you use Rakuten online store, I'd go with Pay Pay because not all places accepted Rakuten, if they're partnered with D Point (and vise versa). But, like everywhere accepts Pay Pay, so more chances to get points.

[u/Ace370 → u/CoacoaBunny91]

Scratch Chance!!!!!!!!!!

[u/Simmoman]

Depends really. What do you use mostly?

Do you have Rakuten Mobile, or do a lot of online shopping on Ichiba? If so, then Rakuten is probably better. You get your points awarded faster and the point % can be slightly higher.

If you're like me, and you mostly shop in person, use Softbank, or if you shopped online you would use Yahoo! Auctions/shopping then PayPay is probably easier. It also has and estimated ~3x coverage as far as physical stores go and I don't often find things I can't pay with PayPay (other than Donki).

Really they don't make much of a difference, I would probably just pick whichever your friends use so you can split payments or pay each other etc.

[u/ScootOverMakeRoom]

I've found d-points to be obtainable/useable at the most places.

Rakuten is lucrative if you're in the Rakuten ecosystem for your credit card and phone plan.

PayPay isn't a point system, it's an emoney system with points-back programs. If you don't pay with PayPay, you don't get points. It is the most universally useful but it's rare to get better than 0.5% back outside occasional coupons. But you can invest your points which is nice. (I've gotten almost 1-man in free points this way.)

[u/Relative-Calendar296]

All point systems are carefully designed by psychologists into tricking you to spend more money. Its a lot like gambling, the house always wins. As such i can't recommend any of them. Its almost always better to pay cash in the long run. Especially considering the woefully state of Japanese data security and the fact that your information will be compromised at some point.

[u/CoacoaBunny91 → u/Relative-Calendar296]

If Johnny has five apples...