ust received an email today from Paypal who I spend tons of money with when it comes to paying advertisers and freelancers not even including the purchases from Ebay. My mood went to super excited that Paypal would offer 3x points on restaurants, double the points on eBay and Paypal, triple on gas and 1 point per all the rest of the purchases. This was a deal I have been waiting for mostly for the 2x on Paypal purchases.
Spending over an hour looking through the terms I could not find anywhere that they listed how many points you could transfer to get the $50 in cash credited to your Paypal account. Looking up and down the site and doing searches the number was easily available so I called it and spoke to a few reps. The first person was with their redemption program and may have been a seperate company he acted like he was not to familiar with the new card. He also could not tell me redemption amounts to transfer points into dollars and thats what we really care about when it comes to rewards cards not all the marketing numbers they throw at us. He said I would have to talk to customer service to find out this information and that he would have to pull up my specific card account to tell me my individual rewards redemption so that tells me he mostly deals with the older program they had before the change this week.
I then spoke with customer service and they told me it would take 6,000 points to redeem $50 into a paypal account. I asked how much would it be if I wanted $100, they said the same rate at 12,000 points. This is not 1:1 ratio of redemption it almost makes it where you are only earning 1x on Paypal and 2x on restaurants which isnt bad but I can get far better on other competiting cards.
Another problem we have with this Paypal MasterCardis that you cannot access Paypal funds sort of like Epassporte worked. This would have been a nice benefit to get paid through your Paypal MasterCard as a credit and get to avoid any Paypal fees or pay a lesser fee if we choose this way of money transfer instead of the deposit into the bank account. Although, You can pay your statement balance with money from your Paypal account but only Paypal seems to win out of this since they are still getting their fees there is no real consumer benefit.
The Paypal Extras MasterCard rewards program says it will get you 3x points on each dollar spent on Gas andRestaurants, 2x points on Paypal and eBay, 1x points on all other MasterCard purchases. You can redeem points for gift cards, merchandise, and other travel deals and do this online through your Paypal account. The card comes with no annual fee and has Platinum benefits you get with all MasterCard products.
My particular offer is telling me I can get 4,000 points after spending $100, as a sign-up bonus. I then would need to spend another $1,000 on Paypal to earn the additional 2,000 needed to redeem $50. A spend of $665 or so in restaurant purchases could also get me the 2,000 points needed. Thats about six trips to the Sushi restaurant at happy hour. It may be a little too much trouble for $50 when there are better MasterCard products out there that redeem at truer ratios.
Do not get the Paypal Extras MasterCard confused with the Paypal SmartConnect Product which only allows purchases with places that take Paypal not all MasterCard locations. The SmartConnect card does not offer the benefits or rewards as the MasterCard version. Your best best is to try to call customer service and switch into the Paypal Extras card even though they say in their terms you cannot.
