At PayPal’s two day investor conference PayPal CEO Schulman stated that:
We want to be a consolidator of rewards points,
From this it’s not immediately clear what direction PayPal is planning to take, do they want to become a coalition loyalty program and replace existing rewards programs (e.g Plenti) or do they want to become a rewards points management tool (e.g AwardWallet). Another option would be a combination or the two, something akin to Points.com where you can trade points between programs. The only issue with something like that is that almost always the transfer rates are terrible and are ultimately not worth doing. Either way it’s always interesting when a big player like PayPal enters a market, but I suspect most readers would prefer they stay out of it.
Update: As chuck points out in the comments, this might be to do with credit card companies allowing payout via PayPal.
Hat tip to TheStreet
View Comments (12)
If some company actually came up with a platform where you could trade miles/points without taking a 70% haircut, this could be an incredibly enormous opportunity.
Say 10-15% fee. Something halfway reasonable.
Costs would be minimal.
Paying with points in most apps and issuers, is worse than just straight CB which is often 1:1 instead of .8:1
That said it would be hard trust PP with my points I'm sure they would try to figure away to freeze my points lol.
That said just saw this in my inbox a recurring bill payment aggregator and dashboard, which could be a time saver for when switching cards every month or two when using regular auto pay bills.
https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/recurring-payments-subscriptions
if its another option why not? I know a lot of people have problems with paypal but if its another option why not?
at worst we can just not use it
Fuck PayPal
I suspect it's none of the above: my guess is it's referring to what has already been discussed about using Paypal for redemptions, similar to the way Amex, Citi, and Chase allow Amazon redemptions.
Ah, that makes more sense. I don't remember this being discussed off the top of my head. Did you do a post on it?
@will Found it: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/citi-thank-points-will-redeemable-payment-option-paypal-8-cents-per-point-starting-2018/
Thanks!
LOL
Why not focus on having a functional platform first?
https://giphy.com/gifs/the-office-no-steve-carell-12XMGIWtrHBl5e
LOL that pretty well sums up my thoughts on this. There is little to zero chance that PayPal comes up with anything even resembling a good use place to store or use points.
Not saying you're wrong but why do you say that?
Is it just general fear of big companies or something specific?