PayPal has announced that they’re relaunching their Mastercard credit card and it has the potential to be very interesting for big online spenders and those with large tax bills.
The existing PayPal Mastercard credit card offers 2% cashback everywhere. That’s made it a solid cashback card, especially seeing as it has no foreign transaction fees. (Update: Apparently the PayPal credit card added a 3% foreign transaction fee in 2021.) Many people will have preferred the Citi Double Cash and/or American Express Blue Business Plus cards though seeing as they earn 2x transferable points.
The soon-to-be revamped PayPal credit card will become far more interesting because it’ll offer 3% cashback on PayPal purchases. Many online merchants accept PayPal as a payment method, so there’ll be a lot of opportunities to earn 3%. It’s not only online stores that accept PayPal payments though; some bricks and mortar stores accept payment via PayPal using QR codes too.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this will be for people with large tax bills. Two IRS payment processors – ACI Payments and payUSAtax – accept PayPal as a payment method with a 1.98% and 1.96% fee respectively. Provided PayPal doesn’t exclude these kinds of payments for 3% earnings, that means you’ll be able to earn 1.02% or 1.04% 1.08% or 1.1% cashback respectively after fees. While many people will prefer using tax payments to meet minimum spend requirements for new credit cards, earning 3% cashback is a good backup option for anyone not working on a welcome offer.
The biggest drawback of the PayPal credit card is that it’s issued by Synchrony. They’re notorious for providing low credit limits, so there could be a limit as to how beneficial this card will be seeing as Synchrony isn’t known to like people cycling their credit limits.
When this card is relaunched they’ll be offering a $100 welcome offer when spending $500, presumably in the first three months. If you have the existing PayPal credit card, it’ll automatically be converted to the new earning structure. If you’d like to apply for the new card, they’re not currently taking applications but you can join the waitlist here.
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I use my PayPal account daily. I have six little ones so it helps to move money around on a pinch. I’d like to get a PayPal Mastercard but this past year or so of my life may have taken some what of a tollon my credit score. Will that be an issue? Gabrielle Gregory
Will the foreign transaction fee apply with the new terms?
They haven’t provided that information about the new card yet that I could see.
If we are on the list, then they will contact us when it is accepting applications?
Yes
My business pays 2 heavily used contractors via PayPal. I know they send us an invoice with the QR code since it only charges them 1.9% + 10cents when we pay them. If I could convince my other contractors to move to PayPal QR code, and offer them 2% above cost, we could net 1% on those transactions. Intriguing and I may ask them. Would require some extra paperwork for expense reimbursement, but could be worth it.
I stepped out from mobile wallets a while ago when I closed my Altitude card. Wonder if mobile wallets can charge through PayPal making this 3% quite useful on B&M transactions.
101.96 * .97 = 98.90. 1.1% after fees
Good point – I wasn’t taking into account the 3% you’d earn on the payment processor fee.
Will the CB earned get reported to IRS per new PP reporting policy?
My understanding is that it shouldn’t because cashback earned from credit card spend is regarded differently to payments received in to your PayPal account from other people/businesses. Having said that, it could be down to how PayPal interprets things as to whether they decide to report the cashback, but I wouldn’t expect them to.
The PayPal Mastercard has a 3% foreign transaction fee.
Thanks – I’ll fix that in the post. It looks like they didn’t have a foreign transaction fee in the past, but that was changed last year which I hadn’t realized.