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

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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.

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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.

  • Ready2go says:
    30 Jul30 July 09:14

    Does anyone know if payment via the friends and family option works? Sounds too easy… but just a thought

    • Louise says:
      30 Jul30 July 10:42

      Yes it works

    • Gordon says:
      30 Jul30 July 11:47

      100% not and that comes from experience

      • Rob says:
        30 Jul30 July 12:34

        I have heard otherwise.

        • Gordon says:
          30 Jul30 July 12:46

          Well it didn’t work for me, Don’t be disappointed if it does not work….

          • Gordon says:
            30 Jul30 July 12:51

            TBH I will be surprised if this can be done as people would theoretically just be sending money backwards and froward,
            Instead of asking in the comments if buying gifts vouchers etc etc works. They would be obtaining the cash back free.
            Also it says “Online businesses”….

          • Gordon says:
            30 Jul30 July 12:52

            Forward*

          • Kevin C says:
            30 Jul30 July 13:19

            Didn’t work for me.

          • Rob says:
            30 Jul30 July 14:26

            Nothing lost though.

        • Paul says:
          30 Jul30 July 14:47

          I tried on 3 accounts and it never worked for me, heard someone said it worked at the beginning but the loophole must me closed

    • Devils Advocate says:
      30 Jul30 July 14:17

      100% so. And that comes from experience.

      • Gordon says:
        30 Jul30 July 15:49

        @Devils Advocate, Exactly my sentiments above….

        • Matt B says:
          30 Jul30 July 19:48

          Gordon. I was disagreeing with you. In my experience, and others I can confirm it does work.

          • Gordon says:
            30 Jul30 July 23:27

            Well not In my experience and many others so it seems. So we will agree to disagree….

    • Ronster says:
      30 Jul30 July 14:19

      Good afternoon all

      From my experience, the answer is no.

      I tried this after seeing a few people bring this up in the previous articles.

      No amex email was received.

      The only credit to land in my account has been after cumulative spend.

      Regards

  • Kevin C says:
    30 Jul30 July 09:16

    Can confirm it doesn’t work for a payment in euros – at least no refund so far for buying Venice water taxi trips with PayPal.

  • mark2 says:
    30 Jul30 July 09:29

    On the PayPal gift card site you can also buy Access All cards.
    These are spent at https://www.youchooseagift.co.uk/category/access-all and the range includes Sainsburys and many travel related companies.
    I have bought Sainsburys through them and ‘misused’ the cards.

    • DJ says:
      30 Jul30 July 13:44

      Just ordered £70 as a test transaction … Still waiting for the giftcard from Paypal.

    • CM says:
      30 Jul30 July 14:19

      I got one of these. Went on the you choose website to convert it to a sainsburys gift card. No email arrived, awful website and now having to wait while their CS ‘investigate’

    • Wc10aar says:
      30 Jul30 July 16:42

      How does one ‘misuse’ a sainsburys gift card?

  • Nick says:
    30 Jul30 July 10:05

    Adding the usual caveat about not using PayPal for anything on which you might want card protection. Speaking from horrible experience, I’m now in a three-way battle with Amex, PayPal and the retailer to get my money back for an item ordered online that wasn’t delivered and am really struggling to get anywhere with any of them. “Oh it’ll be fine” I said, greedily wanting the credit 😂

    • meta says:
      30 Jul30 July 10:14

      That’s similar to what I said on the first page. Not using it for anything other than a well-known and verified merchant and not for big ticket items. I had really bad experiences with PayPal. On one occassion a merchant charged me £600 instead of £60 and PayPal sided with the merchant and it took three months to get to speak to someone other than a robot. Then I had to threaten PayPal with legal action before they returned the money. I rarely use it nowadays apart from this offer.

      • CarpalTravel says:
        30 Jul30 July 10:37

        Paypal only made sense to me back in the day when buying stuff on eBay was an absolute chore, and ultimately, risky. Western Union, anyone?

        I never use it now except for offers like this or for contributing to a group purchase (e.g. present for someone in the office). Why would anyone choose to pay for a product via paypal (financing excluded) for something, voluntarily losing S75 protection. Very odd.

        • Gormlesstraveller says:
          30 Jul30 July 10:55

          Because they might not want the website to have their credit card details

          • John says:
            30 Jul30 July 11:13

            Disposable virtual cards solve that problem now.

          • Rob says:
            30 Jul30 July 12:38

            Because of how it works.

            When you pay by PayPal, it imports your address to the merchant. You also don’t need to pull out a credit card.

            It lets you place orders in seconds, not minutes, even if walking down the street at the time.

          • CarpalTravel says:
            30 Jul30 July 15:17

            @Rob – with the way google pre-populates fields and allows you to select card payments I would question whether there is much (if any) time saving over having to be redirected to Paypal and back. Certainly not enough to justify the compromise.

          • Rob says:
            30 Jul30 July 16:19

            Anything you buy on your mobile walking down the street is unlikely to be something that would trigger S75!

      • Harry T says:
        30 Jul30 July 10:56

        Agreed, I would rather just use these offers for gift cards.

        • meta says:
          30 Jul30 July 11:39

          @John there is no disposable Amex that has this offer!

          @Harry T I use it for Ocado shops as I know the delivery is coming today or next day. Too much can go wrong with a gift card. You can also use it for Deliveroo/Uber Eats.

          • Harry T says:
            30 Jul30 July 12:32

            @meta totally understand your caution there.

            @LadyLondon PayPal give the worst conversion rate I’ve ever seen and they usually configure their UI in such a way as to mask the fact they are doing so.

        • Brian78 says:
          30 Jul30 July 21:07

          “even if walking down the street at the time”

          That’s how people get their phone robbed!

      • Lady London says:
        30 Jul30 July 10:58

        ..And I accientally put a load of money into my Paypal account last week to cover a load of upcoming expenses in foreign currency.

        After first transaction the money taken from Paypal looked too much. Rootled around bit and Eeeek! they took a 4% loading on GBP/EUR.

        That’s taking the pi$$.

        I discovered the Wise app has a useful tool that automatically compares Wise’s FX outcome (loaded 0.4% in this case) with several major sources including UK banks

        Starling was the only one as good as identical to Wise’s result on GBP/EUR. Next worse a few specialist FX places. Then, clearly all ripoff rates, the major UK banks..And notably worse FX rate than the UK bank FX rates, guess who….. Paypal.

      • Gordon says:
        30 Jul30 July 11:52

        @Meta, I would have claimed interest, But I guess it would have been like pulling teeth and you were probable content with finally receiving your funds….

  • Liz says:
    30 Jul30 July 10:20

    Nothing on our BAPP and Marriott cards

    • NorthernLass says:
      30 Jul30 July 11:06

      Ours are all on MR cards, none on BA. Fortunately we have 3 between us at the moment so will get £85 of value. Bought M & S vouchers so far!

  • Colin says:
    30 Jul30 July 10:57

    I used it once to pay my council tax.👍 Next time i tried to use it didn’t work! Trying to make a purchase on Gtech site, got to payment and they wanted a “one time code” from Amex, went to complete purchase and PayPal rejected it, security reasons!. Amex confirmed nothing to do with them. PayPal suggested I use a different card or bank account. Tried my wife’s card, same outcome.what’s the point as I then don’t qualify for offer!

  • RussellH says:
    30 Jul30 July 11:13

    I assume that you do not actually get a gift card. Rather they e-mail you a bar code or QR code that you print out and show to the cashier who scans it?

  • NorthernLass says:
    30 Jul30 July 11:16

    I keep trying to purchase gift cards for other retailers than M & S and finding that either they charge for delivery or don’t accept PayPal! T K Maxx, for example, accepts it for actual gift cards but not for e-gift cards. Very odd.

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