Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

The PayPal / American Express cashback deal definitely works with PayPal’s gift card shop

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

A couple of weeks ago, American Express launched a new cashback deal with PayPal which is well worth a look.

This is an offer which triggers when you pay for anything, on any website (in theory £ payments only), via PayPal.

With the offer available across supplementary cards too, the sums add up. Looking at my wife and I, we have a potential of £340 cashback available which we still have three months to trigger.

I am determined to get every last penny of the £340!

Good American Express cashback deal with PayPal launched

Our £340 of potential cashback is made up of:

  • My Platinum: Spend £70, get £15 back (valid three times)
  • My Marriott Bonvoy Amex: Spend £70, get £15 back (valid three times)
  • My Business Platinum: Spend £300, get £60 back (valid once)
  • My British Airways Premium Plus: Spend £100, get £20 back (valid once)
  • My wife’s Gold: Spend £100, get £20 back (valid once)
  • My wife’s British Airways Premium Plus: Spend £70, get £15 back (valid three times)
  • My wife’s supplementary Platinum: Spend £70, get £15 back (valid three times)
  • My wife’s supplementary Business Gold: Spend £300, get £60 back (valid once)

It is worth noting that, after our original article, Amex widened out the offer to more cards. If you checked when we first wrote about this and didn’t see it, you may want to check again.

All PayPal offers end on 31st October.

PayPal gift card shop

Cumulative spending counts

Whilst this wasn’t surprising, I can confirm from my own spending to date that cumulative spending counts.

However, the only time I received an email from American Express about triggering the cashback was when I hit a threshold in one purchase. For the others I have triggered so far, the money turned up after a couple of days despite receiving no email.

PayPal sells gift cards and they count for cashback

Not a lot of people know that PayPal sells gift cards for various retailers – see here.

I did some test transactions and they worked – the cashback was triggered.

These were done with Uber gift cards, which can be used across rideshare and Uber Eats.

If you have Netflix, you can buy a Netflix gift card and credit it to your account – your monthly direct debit is automatically suspended until the value of the gift card is used up.

I would image that Spotify gift cards work in the same way. The Spotify offer is more attractive than it looks. The 12-month Spotify Premium gift cards gets you 12 months for the price of 10, so you save £20 immediately and then get Amex cashback on top. Do note that Spotify gift cards are only valid for individual subscriptions and not family ones.

Airbnb gift cards are also available.

Other routes for triggering the cashback

There is an active thread on this offer in the Head for Points forum – click here.

You will find other recommendations there, including a gift card website which sells Amazon vouchers. I don’t want to publicly recommend sites which I haven’t tried myself but you will find details in the forum if you want to give it a go.

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2024 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current sign-up bonuses.

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback on your spending.

Barclaycard Select Cashback Business Credit Card

1% cashback uncapped* on all your business spending (T&C apply) Read our full review

Category

American Express Gold card, American Express Platinum card, British Airways American Express

Comments (134)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • grex9101 says:
    30 Jul30 July 06:25

    Perhaps this has already been mentioned, but a cursory scan through hasn’t revealed any chat…:
    There is a website called prezzee who offer a large range of gift cards. They accept PayPal as payment and (in my experience), gift cards are available to use immediately.
    They also appear to offer 10% off second orders, obviously don’t count on that. There are some 10% discount codes floating about on Google, but I couldn’t find any that worked.
    Anyway, just another option.

  • Tim says:
    30 Jul30 July 06:50

    It also works with thr esso app which you can pay via PayPal.

    • BJ says:
      30 Jul30 July 08:38

      Thanks for this. Are you saying you add funds to the esso app and then use balance on app to pay fuel? Presumably we can then stack with Nectar promotions?

      • Tariq says:
        30 Jul30 July 11:01

        No, you just set your payment choice as PayPal in the Esso app and then the relevant card as the default in PayPal itself (assuming you have more than one linked card). I assume the other petrol station apps work in a similar way with the ability to pay via PayPal – although have used successfully to trigger the offer with Esso.

        About ready to do another £70 fill this weekend.

        • BJ says:
          30 Jul30 July 11:37

          Cheers Tariq, might be simplest option for me so I’ll have a look.

  • Rich says:
    30 Jul30 July 07:02

    Booking.com accepts payment by PayPal too. You can choose for PayPal do the conversion into GBP.

    • wolf says:
      30 Jul30 July 08:35

      …if you like to waste 10-15% of your money. (PayPal has the worst exchange rate of any financial service I’ve worked with). Pay in native currency!

      • Harry T says:
        30 Jul30 July 08:40

        @wolf x2

      • Rich says:
        30 Jul30 July 13:26

        Not on this case.

        Paypal charged me £101.79 to my Amex for a €119.34 hotel.

        About 0.2% on mid market rate

        • Rich says:
          30 Jul30 July 19:40

          Just done another booking.

          Mystery solved. Booking.com lets you choose which currency to charge to PayPal in, and they use mid market rates

  • Carlos says:
    30 Jul30 July 07:09

    No point of buying loads of giftcards as some shops only allow one gift card (and not dual payment. I.e giftcard and card)

  • Leon P says:
    30 Jul30 July 07:16

    Don’t see this in my list of offers (Platinum + BA Premium). Is it not something I need to activate?

    • Chas says:
      30 Jul30 July 07:52

      If you’ve got the offer, it would appear in the normal list, which you would then need to activate. Sounds like you’ve not been targeted this time, but worth checking back periodically in case it gets rolled out wider.

    • John says:
      30 Jul30 July 11:17

      It was limited to 30000 cards. You’re probably too late.

      • Steve W says:
        30 Jul30 July 12:59

        A friend of mine has also just checked not showing on any of her cards so I guess the 30000 limit has been reached

  • PaulW says:
    30 Jul30 July 07:46

    Converted mine to multiple Apple vouchers via
    https://startselect.com/gb-en
    Then will combine these for an apple based birthday gift. Effectively 20%+ off

    • Carlos says:
      30 Jul30 July 08:33

      Not bad as Apple products are 20% overly priced anyway

      • BJ says:
        30 Jul30 July 08:43

        Closer to 70% on phones and laptops IMO, price on ipads (excluding pro) much fairer and realistic.

    • AndyC says:
      31 Jul31 July 04:35

      Many thanks for suggesting this website. Opened an account and used to purchase multiple Apple vouchers. Great idea!

  • Stephan says:
    30 Jul30 July 07:52

    The cumulative spend is good to know.

  • meta says:
    30 Jul30 July 07:53

    I’ve been using mine on Ocado shops (also had extra £10 and £20 off shops) and a few other online purchases. Don’t want to faff around with gift cards. I’m reluctant to purchase any bigger/important items via PayPal as the I don’t any S75 rights. Having dealt with PayPal in the past, it’s not a pleasant experience when something goes wrong.

    • L Allen says:
      30 Jul30 July 08:03

      I didn’t think of paying Ocado via PayPal! Thanks for the suggestion

    • Mycity says:
      30 Jul30 July 08:23

      What am I missing here? I can’t see how I pay Ocado by PayPal thanka

      • Mycity says:
        30 Jul30 July 09:05

        Found how to add it in account settings thanks for the tip off

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Latest Forum Posts

Get 40,000 bonus points (worth 40,000 Avios) and £300 dining credit with The Platinum Card

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get £10 when you spend £150 on your free Currensea card

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? EARN POINTS WORTH 10,500 AVIOS WITH CAPITAL ON TAP

Get 20,000 bonus points, four airport lounge passes and your first year free with American Express Gold

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!