Here is today’s random news…
Everyone knows that the “standard” offer for the Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit card from American Express and Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express is 25,000 bonus points after spending $5,000 in 6 months, right?
Would you be surprised to know that there is an alternative offer that has a 25,000 SPG point sign up bonus after spending $3,000 in 3 months? Thanks to Scott Scott from Chicago for sending me the email below. This offer expires September 30, if you are interested.
These are the links from the email, I don’t have AMEX affiliate links (open in Chrome incognito mode for best results):
This is what the application looks like for the “targeted” offer:
In other news, I made a reservation at the Hilton Garden Inn in Corvallis, Oregon for Labor Day Weekend, but decided to cancel the reservation. Unfortunately, the website said I could not cancel the reservation, even after I made the reservation with Hilton HHonors Points and the stay is 10 days away…
After a few calls to Hilton Garden Inn last night and this morning, I was finally able to cancel the stay and have the Hilton HHonors Points refunded into my account. I was told that this was a popular hotel for guests attending Oregon State Beaver football games and they had a no cancellation policy. I have always (underlined and bold) been able to cancel reservations made with Hilton HHonors Points. It just took a bit more time and patience for this reservation.
At the end of the day, the reservation was successfully cancelled by the hotel and the Hilton HHonors Points are back in my account. Never give up even if the website or the CSR tells you that you cannot do something, if you know it is right. Just be kind and persistence and good things usually happen.
In other news, my PayPal Business Debit Card is getting a lot of use these days. I use the card to load to Serve Cards (2 x $1,000) and 2 Chime Cards (2 x $3,000). What I recently found out, you can link your PayPal Business Debit Card to a back up funding source so that your purchases are not declined. You have the option to link to an existing bank account, use your PayPal balance, or link to my PayPal Extras MasterCard. I selected the last option.
When I look at my PayPal Extras MasterCard in my PayPal account, it shows that my available credit dropped from $4,900 to $4,600, while my cash advance limit has not changed. What I want to know is if I will earn cash back for using my PayPal Business Debit Card and points for my PayPal Extras MasterCard on the same transaction. I will report back at the end of this month with the results.
P.S. The PayPal Extras MasterCard is issued by GE Capital and is an option through Evolve Money.
P.P.S. When you could pay bills with a credit card on Evolve Money, I was paying my PayPal Extras MasterCard credit card with my PayPal Extras MasterCard. Life was good for those few weeks…
Here are 2 new AMEX Offers that popped up in my AMEX account this morning:
If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. Good night everyone!
First?
Congrats Simon!
Have been using eBay mastercard (substitute to Paypal Extras mastercard) in my paypal account as ebay biz debit’s backup funding source for over a year. Shared that news with my friends but not many wanted to get a pull for its low opening bonus ($30 back).
ebay mastercard has better features than paypal extras in my opinions. it randomly gives user credit back, such as $10 back for three transactions, $10 back for $50/$75 spent on ebay, bla bla bla.
it does has a 50K points cap per year, which i’ve achieved as no brainer – you just use paypal biz debit to get money orders at walmart and it was charged to your CC, either ebay MC or paypal extras.
Thank you for sharing. The PayPal Extras MasterCard has those random offers too throughout the year, but they are not very special. 50,000 point cap is equal to $500 in gift cards, right? Assuming you can get a good price on gift cards, otherwise I normally convert 6,000 points to $50 PayPal cash.
so both ebay MC and paypal extras have random credit back offers for using the card, that is nice. the 50K cap is easily reached, especially for me during the first half of 2014. the bonus points changed from 3x gas/restaurant, 2x paypal/ebay, 1x elsewhere to 4x, 3x, and 2x. when using paypal debit and choose this CC as backup funding, the charge is a paypal purchase, thus i got 3x.
here is my math: buying $1K money order at walmart, generates 3000 points, for $0.70 as cost. And for $2.1, I generated 12000 points. I usually get gas GC ($100 for 11500 points).
btw, 50k points is not $500 in paypal’s redemption, at least not for ebay MC. there was once $25 BP GC for 2500 last fall, but usually more. Current best redemption is $100 for 11500. still not bad.
So, primarily you load Serve with your Paypal business for the 1.5% signature transaction fee?
Just until I hit the $1,000 monthly limit.
I like turtles
Regular turtles or powerful Ninja Turtles?
I thought it was 1% on all paypal business debit transactions.
Grant does that mean you’re loading funds into your paypal account for each serve load from paypal debit transaction?
Would be super cool if the extras MC works too for double dip cashback….but that means your paypal balance has to be zero ….
Not sure how this whole thing works but would be cool to MS an extra $10 a month this way…..any idea if applying for the paypal debit card causes a hard pull or anything ? Thanks…..
I don’t think you can use a PPDC to load to Serve at Walmart if your balance is $0, since the transaction is PIN-based and uses your PayPal balance. Plus you don’t earn cash back on PIN-based transactions. Might be worth a shot to see what happens.
yes, you can. and you have to leave paypal balance at $0 to be able to use CC as funding source. this is because when using PPDC, you are supposed to use available funds in your PP. however, you are right on no double dip. cuz loading serve/bluebird at walmart, or buying money orders, are PIN based. thus no 1% for PPDC
yes, there is a pull. and no, you don’t get 1% on PIN-based PPDC transactions using POS loads, but only gets points on the PP extras/eBay MC.
but debit loads with Chime and bluebird/serve, you’d double dip.
One thing to remember for double dip, do NOT let any funds sitting in your account after you made that PPDC purchase and before that purchase is still pending (not fully charged to your CC account yet). The final charge usually appears in the late afternoon or early evening. So if you have any positive balance in paypal, the pending charge on your CC will become a withdrawal from your positive account balance. The missing part would be charged that CC.
Nice work on being persistent with the Hilton cancellation. HUCL for the win!!!
More like hang up and call back when the Hilton garden inn isn’t so busy :)
Paypal Business backup funding to chime does *NOT* work if the backup is a bank account, or at least, it didn’t for me. I tried that immediately when I got the chime, it would only pull from $$ I actually had in my account.
The backup source only works when you have $0 in your PayPal account.
do you have a paypal extras or ebay mastercard in the first place? you need that first, then choose it as backup funding source in your paypal account as Grant explained, then you need a $0 paypal balance, afterwards, your debit purchase/withdrawal becomes a purchase charge on that credit card
Thank you for all the info Hokie!
Grant, I am trying to add GE Capital Retail Bank as a biller in Evolve Money and use my PayPal Extras MC number as the account number but it says the account number or biller address selection is not recognized. Is this how you did it, or did you set it up another way?
Sounds like what I did. Recently, GE Capital changed it’s name to Synchronicity bank or something, that is probably causing the problem. I’m not sure how to get it to show up now. Keep trying :)
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Why did you make a reservation at the Hilton Garden Inn in Corvalis?
I wanted to go to the Oregon State Beavers football game, but my family didn’t want to, so I cancelled the reservation. I’m a big college football fan.
i want to pay my paypal extras mc using a gc thru evolve but when i search pp on evolve he only option is “pp buyers credit ” …does anyone know if if i send a payment thru evolve to “pp buyers credit” will it go to “pay credit (formally bill me later)”or the pp extras mc
Yes, PayPal Buyer Credit is the correct account. I’ve paid my PPEMC many times this way. You can pay up to $999 in one payment. Let me know if you have any other questions.
can u also pay pp buyers credit (bill me later) thru evolve or is “pp buyers credit” on evolve stictly for the extras card???? and i thought u could pay cc thru evolve which is y i assumed “buyers credit” payment woulndt go to the “extras mc”
I believe Evolve Money only has the PPEMC in their system, not the PPBC. You can try to make a $1 payment and see if it shows up where it is supposed to.
well my main concern is to msker sure it goes yo the extras card…the reason i assumed it wouldnt is bc i know evolve says u cant pay cc through them…is paying pp extras mc the exception to this rule?
Yes, it is the exception. When Evolve Money allowed credit cards to be used to pay bills, I cycled a few thousand dollars through Evolve Money with my PPEMC to pay my PPEMC :)
Does it still work to pay evolve money using PPEMC ?
No, that loophole closed when Evolve Money stopped allowing credit cards to be used to pay bills (and before Discover credit cards were allowed to pay bills).