Amex Platinum PayPal Credit: Limited Time $30 Credit For Cardholders
Well, 2021 was getting off to a rough start with a complete explosion of the Virgin Atlantic award chart for Delta bookings. I was pretty in the dumps until I saw that there is a new Amex Platinum PayPal credit. Don’t get me wrong, a limited time monthly credit does not fill that Virgin Atlantic sized void in my heart but it did take away a little of the sting. This credit will only be for Amex personal Platinum cardholders and it will be for the next 6 months. The credits will essentially replace the $20 wireless and streaming credits American Express offered cardholders last year. This is truly great news for anyone that jumped on those massive Amex Platinum welcome offers (hello 125K!). Let’s take a look at the offer.
Details For The Amex Platinum PayPal Credit
Here are the offer details:
- Cardholders will get up to a $30 credit for any PayPal purchases they make each month.
- This will run from January 1, 2021 through June 30, 2021.
- A total potential credit of $180 if each month is maximized.
- No enrollment is necessary
- Authorized user purchases count towards the total.
Terms of the Offer
- All transactions must be made in USD at U.S. merchants with a U.S. PayPal account.
- Please allow up to 12 weeks after the eligible purchases are charged to your Card Account for statement credit(s) to be posted to the Card Account.
- American Express relies on PayPal to process transactions within the same calendar month that you made the purchase in order to apply the corresponding monthly statement credit in the month that it was intended. For example, if you make an eligible purchase on the last day of the month, but PayPal doesn’t process that transaction until the next day, the transaction date will reflect the next day’s date and the statement credit would be applied in the following month.
- Eligible purchases do not include fees or interest charges, purchases or reloading of prepaid cards, purchases of gift cards, person-to-person payments including those for goods and services, or purchases of other cash equivalents.
Link to Terms
Other Credits For The Amex Platinum Card
Be careful double dipping this credit with other American Express Platinum card credits. That has led to clawbacks in the past. An example would be using PayPal to make an airline incidental purchase. You could theoretically get the $200 airline incidental credit plus the $30 PayPal credit if you paid for your Southwest charges with PayPal etc.
Now if you stacked you Platinum $15 a month Uber credit with this that should be fine. That is because the Uber credit is already deposited already in your account and you would charge anything above and beyond that via PayPal. Or you could simply load your account.
Here is a list of the Platinum yearly credits:
- $100 Annual Saks Department Store Credit ($50 every 6 months):Â How to Use the $100 Saks Credit
- $200 Annual Uber Credit + Uber VIP Status:Â Our Guide to Amex Platinum Uber Credit
- $200 Annual Airline Fee Credit:Â See Complete Guide to Maximizing Your Travel Credits
- $100 Fee Credit for Global Entry or TSA Pre✓ (every 5 years): Check out our 3 Part Guide to Global Entry
Final Thoughts & My Plan
This is great to see from American Express. I had hoped they would extend the wireless and streaming credits but this is almost as good. Hopefully they add something for the Business Platinum card as well.
This is also probably a big part of the reason Amex pulled their cards off of PayPal Key. It would have been too easy if it had stayed as an option. Remember that you still have a few days left to use Amex on PayPal Key and that is how I plan to use my January credit.
After that I will likely use it to shop on Target or Walmart’s website. I may also use it to beef up my Uber balance to pair up with the $15 Platinum monthly credit. Plus I should be able to stack it with the upcoming Amex Gold credit as well. It shouldn’t be too difficult to use the credit overall since PayPal is accepted many places. I would stay away from gift card purchases since they are in the rules and I am sure Amex will be looking for that.
What do you think about the Amex Platinum PayPal credit? Does it have you considering grabbing a Platinum card if you don’t have one already, especially with the increased offers?
HT DoC
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For sure have to think of creative ways to use the credits as I dont shop online much and when I do its either Amazon or for random larger purchases that I rather put big spend on another card. I do like your UBER reload idea as I could always use the credits to order food.
What about the paypal “pay your bill” function, has anyone tried it? I even see Wells Fargo my mortgage company listed as an option. It would be an easy win if I can use the $30 credits to pay my routine bills (phone, internet, etc..) through paypal.
Just as a follow up I was able to add my Electric bill to paypal and link/pay it to my Platinum card. I just made a $15 payment as a test but according to the terms you posted it takes up to 12 weeks to get the credit which hopefully is not the case so I can confirm its working and pay other bills.
Usually it comes much quicker than that – let us know how it goes.
Update the Paypal bill pay option worked for me I did receive the AMEX credit by setting up bill pay to pay a portion of my electric bill.
Also another easy option is to buy Gift Cards on Fluz which also worked for me. Those without an account can signup here: https://joinfluz.app.link/MAPMAP
Both of those options can be easy wins for the Paypal credits if your like me and don’t shop at online much.
https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/paypal-credit-promo
Stores that accept Paypal…and many more…
Bought things from Vitacost recently