Check your email to see if you can earn 5 American miles per dollar spent at PayPal this summer
Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.
If you hold a Citi-issued credit card, you may want to check your email today. Multiple TPG staffers have reported receiving targeted offers for spending at PayPal.
For example, I received an offer to earn 5 AAdvantage miles per dollar spent on my Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard® for PayPal purchases through Sept. 30, 2022 — and I was able to activate it with just a single click.
Through this offer, I can earn up to 3,000 total bonus miles in addition to the standard earning rate at PayPal (1 mile per dollar). In other words, it's capped at $600 in spending, though if I spend exactly that amount, I'd take home a total of 3,600 AAdvantage miles. This results in a solid return of 10.62% based on TPG's valuations.
For more TPG news delivered each morning to your inbox, sign up for TPG daily newsletter.
Note that I'd also earn Loyalty Points on the base spending — but the bonus miles will not count for Loyalty Points.
Other TPG staffers have reported other offers for PayPal, including:
- $5 off $50 or more in PayPal purchases each month (July-September) on an American Airlines card.
- 5% back on the Citi Dividend card (no longer available to new applicants), up to $30 in total statement credits.
- 5 points per dollar on the Citi® Double Cash Card, up to 3,000 points total (through Sep. 30, 2022). This is in addition to the standard points you typically earn.
- 5 points per dollar on the Citi Premier® Card, up to 3,000 points total (through Sep. 30, 2022). This is in addition to the standard points you typically earn.
Purchases made at PayPal typically don't qualify for any bonus categories, so you'd normally use a card that's good for everyday spending — like the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card.
However, if you're targeted for one of these new offers, it may make a Citi-issued card a better option through the end of the third quarter.
Unfortunately, there's no way to check to see if you're targeted for an offer online. This won't appear in your Citi Merchant Offers, nor will it appear in your online account. As a result, you'll want to check your email for any applicable offers — and be sure you have enabled marketing communications so you don't miss out on these in the future.
Personally, I probably won't go out of my way to spend with PayPal to earn these bonus miles. However, if I do shop online at a merchant with PayPal as a payment option, I'll definitely swipe my Citi AA Executive card. Earning a total of 6 miles per dollar (1 base mile plus 5 bonus miles) along with a handful of Loyalty Points is a solid rate of return on purchases that otherwise wouldn't earn as much.
Thankfully, paying with PayPal is generally done directly with the merchant, so you should be able to stack this offer with any bonuses from online shopping portals. Your best bet is to use a portal aggregator (like Cashback Monitor) to go with the site that offers the best return on your purchase.
