OT: Get points/miles with Paypal?
 

Anyone know if one can get points (on the Chase/UA card in this case) by making a credit card payment to someone via Paypal?

I need a few thousand UA miles and it would be much cheaper to make a Paypal "payment" to a friend with the card (and pay Paypal's 2.9% fee) rather than buying them from United at $75/1000.

Thanks!

Yes, you do get points. Or use Square - https://squareup.com/ - for 2.75% transaction fee.

Why don't you make a donation (rather than a payment) to the friend through Paypal? There is no more fee charged for receiving gifts, even if you have a Premier/business account. On another site, I'm involved in swapping hobby/collection items for my rockhound stuff, and when one of us makes a donation, just to pay the cost of shipping, by using the right Paypal button we don't have to pay a fee. If I sell an item, I'm still charged the fee of course. I have to admit the first time I got a gift and Paypal let me keep the whole gift, I about fell out of my chair. Not sure when they started this but it must be pretty recent for Premiers.

Correct me if I'm wrong here:

You can gift money fee-free, but the funds cannot be from a CC.

Also, make sure if you are going to be using Paypal to earn points to review the rules that they follow when reporting it as income to the IRS. There in a certain number of transactions and amount of money received that will flag your account for reporting.

That's correct. Fee-free only works when funds are coming from a bank account. So clearly this is NOT an option for miles/points earning.

PayPal does not play this game. Do not try it with any large amounts. Your account will be shut down in a heartbeat!!!

My evil twin says to buy gift cards. As an AMEX card holder who got religion, I would never say that myself. Nor would I say to investigate buying Best Western Hotel Gift Cards. Cardinal Fang - nobody heard this from me - it was from my evil twin, I swear.:p

Three cheers for Cardinals Fang, Biggles and Ximénez of The (AMEX) Spanish Inquisition. If being poked with their comfy cushions can't make you repent your evil giftcarding ways, nothing will.;)

Thanks everyone. :-)

Asked & answered. Thanks, all.