Using Paypal to generate miles?
 

Just wondering, would it be possible to send money to yourself (or a friend you trust :)) from your credit card, only to get it back in your bank account a few days later in order to pay off the bill? It wouldn't be a cash advance since Paypal charges show up as purchases and you would still get the points since you're not refunding anything...

Any ideas?

It would work but PayPal charges you fees to withdraw money from your account so your friend/yourself will have to pay a little for taking that money out from PayPal. It all depends on much the fees rack up upto and if its worth it.

Remember the ~3% paypal charges to receive funds from credit card

In my opnion this option is only worth it when you are a few thousand points or miles away from acheving the next tier in a program. For example American Express HHonors and SPG offer gold status to those who eather spend 20/30k a year. How ever otherwise to get a large amount of miles or points one is better off going to the airline or hotel directly. For example American Airlines sells miles for a typical 2.5% and if you pay with the citi advantage card you would also bring in extra miles. One other option that has been talked about is sometimes certain banks will let you open checking accounts by doing a credit card deposit.

Not true. There's a fee for receiving funds, but NOT for withdrawing to a bank account:

Withdrawl fees shown below:
Transfer funds to your bank account: Free!
Request a check from PayPal: $1.50 USD
Get cash out of an ATM: $1.00 USD
Shop online with a Virtual Debit Card: Free!
Buy from over 42,000 PayPal Shops: Free!

this was extensively discussed on FatWallet when Google checkout was free for merchants. I think that deal is now gone, and the merchant fees that PayPal charges would eat up any rewards - I think. If you can find a way around that, pls post away!

Google Checkout is free until 12/31/07.

THe fee's range from 2.5 to 2.9% depending on how much you purchase from your friend.

So 100k would cost you 2500-2900 dollars.

Not worth it, unless there is a promo, or you have a specific reward in mind where you were going to pay 4-5k for a J ticket or something like that.

Esp. as many airlines will let you buy miles for ~2.5 cents per mile. So not even worth the hassle for J/F.

Would this be worth to get miles if the charge is only 1.9% ? I know of a way to do that.

ONly you can answer that. Are you going to redeem them for a ticket that give you > 1.9cpm value out of them? and just becuase you are, is there no alternative that you would normally do for cheaper?

For instance, F to OGG Can cost $2000 so you could use 75k miles for that. But lots of times it is $1200 if you are flexible, or if you are on the West coast, most people will take a cheap coach Fare as an option as well...

All up to you

This is based on AdWords spend, though, right?

I don't spend any money on Adwords and it's still fee-free for me.

It seems like on the merchant side, you have to spend $1 on adwords for every $10 worth of transactions going through your store. Anyone else experience this?

Not through 12/31/07.
https://checkout.google.com/support/...y?answer=30724