Middle_Seat

I searched but didn't find the answer to this: If you use a mileage credit card to make a PayPal payment, do you get miles?

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Middle_Seat

MoreMiles

yes, but paypal charges transaction fee of at least 2.5%

if you thinking of free miles... forget it, you will lose big on fees

paypal also issues it own bank/debit card so it is very easy to withdraw money from them

but, you guess it, there are fees invoved

Stefan Daystrom

Yes (assuming of course your card gives you miles for every dollar spent, not just on certain kinds of purchases).

And the other answer you got is not quite correct! While PayPal does charge a processing fee, they charge it to the SELLER, not the buyer. If you are making a payment, you are obviously the buyer at that point, not the seller.

Furthermore, the transaction fee is not charged to the seller depending on whether you pay by credit card or not; it's charged depending on whether the seller's account ACCEPT credit cards or not! Thus, if the seller's account already accepts credit cards, they get charged the same transaction fee whether you pay by credit card or from your bank account. (The only way the seller can avoid the transaction fee for you paying from a bank account and yet accept credit cards is to have TWO PayPal accounts, one that accepts credit cards and one that doesn't.)

The typical eBay seller (the #1 place where you run into PayPal as a payment option) charges exactly the same whether you pay by creidt card via PayPal or by any other method the seller suppoorts. Only a tiny fraction make the distinction. So in the majority of cases, I find that I can pay via my Southwest Airlines Visa via PayPal and it costs me no more than paying any other way electronically and one stamp less than paying by personal check.

By the way, the "absolute" way you can tell if a user accepts credit card Payments via PayPal is to start the pay process and get to the second page (the one where you would choose the payment method). If it says the seller is a Premier or Business member, they accept credit cards (and are charged the transaction fee whether you pay by credit card or not). But if they say the seller is a Personal member, you can only pay from a bank account or from your PayPal balance (unless the seller has explicitly told you that it's ok to pay by credit card, in which case that means they plan to upgrade to Premier or Business as soon as you make your payment).

Finally, PayPal likes to collect that transaction fee from the seller but avoid having to pay it to Visa. So you'll find that they'll ask you an annoying "are you SURE?" screen EVERY time you change your payment method to credit card. Unfortunately, I've found no way around that. But I find it worth the mileage to deal with that screen...


[This message has been edited by Stefan Daystrom (edited 01-12-2003).]

Stefan Daystrom

A clarification based on some other threads I read: Apparently there MAY be some cards out there that treat purchases at PayPal as cash advances rather than purchases. (I know from those threads that that's the case for similar service C2It, but don't know for a fact if it's the case with PayPal right now.) I have a Southwest Airlines Rapid Reward card from First USA (Bank One), and every one of my PayPal purchases (I've never done a non-purchase money transfer to date, so dunno about those) gets treated as a purchase and gets me mileage credit. So I would presume at the least it's the same for other cards through First USA/Bank One.

If you already have such a card, the simplest thing would presumably be to try it once for an eBay purchase. Then look at your statement, and make sure it got counted as a purchase and that there's no discrepancy between the total purchase dollars that statement and the points that statement shows you earned. If that all matches, it sounds like it should work for all your true purchases through PayPal. (But again, it is quite possible it'll be completely different on non-purchase transfers.)

swag

One more twist.

I've got a citi visa that i've used on both c2it and paypal, and it has always posted as a purchase. Until my latest transaction, when I sent money with Paypal and it posted as a cash advance.

When you send money with paypal, you indicate whether the payment is for
- Goods (auction)
- Goods (non-auction)
- Services
- Quasi-cash

Apparently, if you indicate "quasi-cash" and use a credit card, then Paypal codes it as a cash advance.

There's no difference in the transaction between "service" and "quasi-cash", so make sure not to use the quasi-cash option with Paypal.