October 7 is the Last Day to Load Chime Card Fee Free with PayPal Business Debit Card

The day has finally come… Chime Card (learn more here) will start charging a 3% fee on October 8 for using certain debit cards, specifically the PayPal Business Debit Card.  In this post, I will do some math to see if it is still worth loading the Chime Card with a PayPal Business Debit Card.

For simplicity purposes, I assume everyone who has a Chime Card also has a PayPal Business Debit Card that earns 1% cash back for online reloads.  If you have had your PayPal Business Debit Card for several years, you are probably grandfathered in at the 1.5% cash back rate, but I will not take that into consideration in these calculations.

Here are my numbers assuming you are only interested in Manufactured Spend and don’t take advantage of the Chime Offers for cash back savings:

• Cost to load $1,000 onto your Chime Card starting October 8 using a PayPal Business Debit Card = $30.00 (3% transaction fee)
• Cash back earned loading $1,000 onto your Chime Card (you will soon have the ability to load $200 per day) with your PayPal Business Debit Card = $10 (1% cash back)
• Net loss of $20

Let’s recalculate and take PayPal My Cash Cards into consideration:

• Cost to load $1,000 onto your Chime Card starting October 8 using a PayPal Business Debit Card = $30.00 (3% transaction fee)
• Cash back earned loading $1,000 onto your Chime Card (you will soon have the ability to load $200 per day) with your PayPal Business Debit Card = $10 (1% cash back)
• Cost to buy 2 $500 PayPal My Cash Cards = $7.90 ($3.95 x 2)
• Current loss of $27.90 + whatever credit card rewards you used to buy $1,007.90 from a pharmacy
• Credit card rewards can range from $10.08 for a 1% cash back card to $20.16 for a 2% cash back card up to $50.40 for a 5% cash back card
• You will either have a $17.82 loss (1% card), a $7.74 loss (2% card), or a $22.50 profit (5% card)

Granted, if you did have a 2% or 5% cash back card, you might as well buy Visa gift cards for $4.95 a piece, resulting in a $5.15 profit (2% card) or a $20.30 profit (5% card) and not bother loading and unloading your Chime Card.

One of the useful features of the Chime Card is the ability to pay vendors on Evolve Money.  If/when Evolve Money introduces the ability to pay more than $999 to a vendor in a single month, the Chime Card might come in handy.

Another thought, if Chime is charging 3% fees to load your Chime Card with a debit card, they might as well allow credit card reloads since it probably costs the same amount, right?

If you do take advantage of some of the Chime Offers, you might come out ahead assuming you get more than a 2-3% rebate.  Some examples: 10% cash back at Jack in the Box, 8.5% cash back at PF Chang’s, and 10% cash back at Urban Outfitters, to name a few.  Remember, new Chime Offers come out every few weeks and I will be sure to report on any good offers.

Honestly, I do not know what to do with Chime.  I feel like the days of MSing the Chime Card are over, but I plan on taking advantage of some of the Chime Offers.  What do you think, is Chime dead?  If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.