No dog in this fight and let me be clear, it is not like I trust AC IT constructs in the least. At least this discussion has got me plugged in to Rakuten now. Unfortunately many of the higher end Rakuten rebates were truly Black Friday and have expired past 1200am EST. I am still working.
Dell and HP still look promising.
I would disagree with pts value. For me, I don't redeem rewards for less than 2c/pt relative value and sometimes do better. I keep a good balance between earning and spending amongst my family of 6 with those rules, so it works out. By that metric it's 28-32% minimum back to the family coffers divided by the probability I get it, whatever that is. Haven't been bitten YET, so I will probably keep going to the well.
This is of course predicated on my being able to return a defective item per the usual online store. Something we have never needed to do. Not quite sure on this reading the AE policy. Does anyone have any experience here?