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PayPal Digital Gifts is offering discounts on gift cards for Hotels.com ($100 for $85), Groupon ($100 for $85), Uber ($50 for $45), and Papa John’s ($25 for $20). Some of these may not last long.
The Deal
- Discounts at PayPal Digital Gifts on the following gift cards (click each for a direct link):
Key Terms
- See the specific terms for each type of gift card on the offer page
Quick Thoughts
These are good discounts on both Hotels.com and Groupon. While we occasionally see Hotels.com cards at 20% off (or see Amex Offers for places that carry Hotels.com gift cards that give an effective 20% off), this is still a good discount at 15%, especially if stacked with Hotels.com rewards. Keep in mind that you can only use one Hotels.com gift card per booking, but you can combine cards online. Also keep in mind that not all properties accept gift cards, etc. The discounts on Groupon and Uber are also likely to be popular. There’s no indication of a limit or when this will end, but I would bet that the more desirable brands will not last very long.
One related note: remember that beginning on November 1st, Hyatt will no longer offer free breakfast at Hyatt Place properties when you do not book direct – so your Hotels.com bookings apparently will not get breakfast there. Further, Marriott’s new terms indicate that third party bookings will not qualify to receive loyalty benefits. Still, the discount could be worth it here.
H/T: Miles to Memories
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I bought Uber gift card. It showed $45 for $50 gift card. But when I purchased, I got billed $50. Is there any way to fix this?
Same thing happened to me above. I opened a dispute with PayPal and emailed the email address. Something is up with their website.
Can Groupon gift cards be used to purchase the occasional Starbucks gift card promo they have (or any other of their gift card promos?)
Thanks.. Got me some good Papa John’s!
I would hold off on this. Tried to buy a hotels.com gift card for $100 and it charged me $100 via Paypal. I am disputing the amount now. The offer terms were still showing for the hotels.com, so I should have gotten it.
“Sorry, we can’t complete your purchase at this time.”
Wah-wah, sad trombone, I got a rock.
Any issues with fraud with Hotels.com giftcards? I.E. is it safe to buy and hold for future hotel stays that won’t be booked for a while?
Also, when you say “you can combine cards online” so I could take a $50, $100, and $200 gc’s and transform that into one card with a value of $350?
I’m not aware of any issues with fraud with these, but the discount isn’t good enough that I think it’s worth loading up and taking any chances if you don’t have any intention to use them anytime soon. Especially with the holidays coming, there will probably be some opportunities to get them for 20% off.
And yes, that’s exactly what I meant by combining. Hotels.com allows you to combine them online.
Ok thanks for the advice, I will hold off on purchasing more than one. I haven’t messed with hotels.com giftcards in the past since portal cashback was usually pretty good but I noticed TCB is only offering 4% at the moment so figured I may start using GC’s more.
Correct, you can combine them. That’s what I do. I have one “main” card, so whenever I buy these discounted ones – I immediately transfer the value to that.
Thanks Mike, and you’ve never had any issues with fraud or theft?
I also need to figure out how this would impact travel insurance – I guess it means I probably wouldn’t be covered for this portion of my trip
Reasonable deal on Hotels.com and Groupon if you use those sites. But 15% seems a tad too low if you don’t have an immediate purchase in mind (or have existing credits to use). Obviously, many of us would jump at this price on Amazon where we could use our existing (discounted) card balances. But on ebay, there are no longer any “tricks” — like the Chase Ink 5% no longer works, right? This deal just needs a little more juice.
For what it’s worth, this deal is via Paypal Digital Gifts direct, not on eBay. That said, I’m not aware of any current category bonuses.
There is one category bonus that I know about, but I think it is targeted. Citi thank you cards are doing 4 bonus points per dollar for paypal purchases if you link your thank you card to paypal, up to 2500 points.