The Offer
- eBay & Paypal Extras Mastercard are offering some cardholders 5x bonus rewards points per $1 spent with a cap of 2,200 bonus points on purchases made through January 15th, 2017. You have to choose one of the following categories to receive these bonus points in:
- Travel
- Entertainment
- Shopping
The Fine Print
- E-mail subject line is ‘The BEST gift of the new year: 5X Bonus Reward Points.’
Our Verdict
These offers are one of the reasons that the Paypal/eBay cards are listed as one of our best store credit cards. These cards are issued by Synchrony, you can view a full list of the cards they offer here.
Hat tip to Travel With Grant via e-mail.
Same thing happened to me. I called customer service this morning and they had no clue what I was talking about and they said they will get back to me. Ridiculous!
I called a rep on Jan 2 and he was reading to me the points I’d earn from paypal purchases and I told him I already know that. What I wanted him to clarify was the email Synchrony sent to cardholders that I had to read to him which he obviously didn’t have a clue! He put me on hold to talk to the supervisor and came back to say they will have to research on it and ask me to call back on Thursday. I told him to put notes on my account regarding my specific question since I’m interested in activating SHOPPING so I’d like to know if there are participating merchants to make sure I earn the 2200 pts. If by Thursday, they still don’t have a clue on what Synchrony sent out, I told him their cardholders may resort to posting on social media to force them to clarify their promotion which needs to be activated by Jan 17 IINM.
Sybloc, this doesn’t make any sense to me. I don’t think the customer service rep knew what she was talking about. Besides sounding too good to be true, why would they have the other categories if shopping includes everything not on PayPal or eBay? I read on an Old Post on another website that shopping includes most department stores which would make a lot more sense. Of course then I would like to know what is the definition of a department store for PayPal. I do appreciate you taking the time to call PayPal and posting the results on here but it just doesn’t make any sense to me. I am going to try to call them first thing in the morning and get a second opinion.
My guess is it’s all the same. As long as it’s outside of eBay/Paypal.
Chat transcript:
 ?3?:?11?:?15? ?PM : sybloc: Initial Question/Comment: Received an offer for 5x points for various categories. I selected “shopping” but didn’t receive any details. Can you please tell me what qualifies in that category?
 ?3?:?11?:?20? ?PM : System: Welcome to PayPal Credit Card Live Chat. Your chat will be monitored and recorded for quality purposes. A chat agent will be with you momentarily
 ?3?:?11?:?20? ?PM : System: Samantha Ruth has joined this session!
 ?3?:?11?:?30? ?PM : Samantha Ruth: Hi, .
 ?3?:?11?:?35? ?PM : Samantha Ruth: Thank you for contacting live chat service from Synchrony Bank.
 ?3?:?12?:?10? ?PM : Samantha Ruth: Sure, let me check that for you, .
 ?3?:?12?:?28? ?PM : sybloc: THank you
 ?3?:?13?:?15? ?PM : Samantha Ruth: , any transaction which are done outside paypal and e bay, qualifies for this.
 ?3?:?13?:?25? ?PM : sybloc: Really?
 ?3?:?13?:?28? ?PM : sybloc: Anything?
 ?3?:?13?:?44? ?PM : sybloc: Outside of eBay and Paypal?
 ?3?:?14?:?05? ?PM : Samantha Ruth: Yes, , anything, like entertainment, shopping which includes anywhere, and travel.
 ?3?:?14?:?27? ?PM : sybloc: Awesome! Thank you. Can you give me a confirmation number for this chat?
 ?3?:?14?:?56? ?PM : Samantha Ruth: Maximum points you can earn is 2200.
 ?3?:?16?:?00? ?PM : Samantha Ruth: , please save this as the confirmation (redacted)
 ?3?:?16?:?20? ?PM : sybloc: Thank you so much!
How can that be? Then travel or entertainment purchases would also be shopping.
I picked shopping. Nowhere does it say in the T&C what counts as Travel, Entertainment or Shopping. Does anyone know?
I wondered the same. Pretty useless without knowing.
That’s what I thought. Without knowing what qualifies under shopping whether at grocery stores, warehouse clubs or department stores, it’s useless. IME, Synchrony reps are difficult to deal with. I’ve stopped earning pts when I reached $480xx pts and cashed out $400 in July. I plan to start earning pts again in January and if there are more DPs on merchants that qualify for shopping, I will use the card.
Get 4 or 5 of these offers a year and the details are always extremely vague (or non-existent like in this case.) Even drilling into the T&C doesn’t help. It’s very frustrating.
I chatted with a Synchrony rep today and she said “shopping” means anything outside of eBay/Paypal qualifies. I was sort of shocked so asked again. She confirmed. Any transaction outside of eBay/Paypal. So there go. $420/2200 points max.
Remember there’s a 50k cap per year. They send these offers whether you’ve hit the cap or not.
I Earned this Year 54,700 pts
Points. I think the bonus points don’t count
Doc – Does VGC at Simon mall qualify as shopping for this offer?
No idea sorry