PayPal Issues On Swagbucks
A few days ago I wrote an article about why I will no longer be using PayPal for most things. That article was somewhat inspired by an email I received from Swagbucks about a PayPal payout delay. It looks like whatever the PayPal issues on Swagbucks that were holding up my withdraw have not been corrected. The Swagbucks were deposited back into my account and the PayPal cash out option now has a warning on it.
What Is Swagbucks?
In case you weren’t sure what Swagbucks is, or why this matters, I should give a little background on the Swagbucks program. Swagbucks is kind of like a juiced up shopping portal and survey site all in one. You can earn Swagbucks for completing a whole bunch of different things. This could be for signing up for an investing app, becoming an UberEats driver, playing a video game, completing a survey etc. The options for earning Swagbucks are kind of limitless, and completely random at the same time.
Once you earned the Swagbucks you can cash them out for various gift cards, or you could withdraw them via PayPal at 1 cent per point. This is the route many people went. Because of that they considered Swagbucks as good as cash, and worth a penny.
Why PayPal Cash Out Issues Will Matter To Some & Won’t To Others
In my article I had said I was planning on moving to Amazon gift cards as my cash out option for Swagbucks. That is because doing over $600 of PayPal cash outs from Swagbucks would likely trigger a 1099-K in 2022. I don’t want the added paperwork for a lot of activity that isn’t taxable. I also consider Amazon gift cards about equal to cash.
Others, who may not value Amazon or their other options as good as cash, may look at this as a devaluation if PayPal continues to have issues on Swagbucks. This was a good way to cash out your points and do whatever you wanted with the money. It was simple and didn’t require your money being locked in to any particular brand.
What Are The Best Options That Remain?
While PayPal is having issues, or if you want to avoid the 1099-K in the future, what are some other good options for cashing out? I always try to take advantage of the $25 in 3rd party gift cards for 2200 Swagbucks once a month. That gets you 1.14 cent per point which is a nice boost. Outside of that there are the following options that are among the best in my opinion:
- Amazon gift cards
- Amex gift card (this is a virtual gift card which offers some limitations)
- Visa gift card (virtual gift card as well but often 2% off)
- Walmart / Best Buy gift cards (can be sold for around 93%-95% a lot of the time)
- Target / Lowe’s / Home Depot gift card (these can often be sold for around 90% or more)
- Discounted gift cards. Swagbucks will have some gift cards at 5%-10% off too. If you were going to shop at the place anyway this could be a good option.
PayPal Issues On Swagbucks – Final Thoughts
While there are currently PayPal issues on Swagbucks you may want to avoid it as a cash out option. Even if there weren’t issues it may be something people move on from anyway because of the tax headache. I was surprised that they canceled my withdraw and kicked the Swagbucks back into my account without notice, but it was probably for the best. Hopefully I gave you a couple of other options to use in the meantime, or going forward. Swagbucks is still a valuable tool for us in the miles and points game. It will play a role in my quest to earn $15K this year for sure.
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In my case, Walmart is also as good as cash, especially now that you can use gift cards for grocery pickup. I live in a small-ish town and Walmart is our only big grocery store.
That is another great one. I’ll add it in