Introduction
Gift cards are pretty common to get these days from a ton of different sources like eCommerce sites, gift websites, and local stores. Although spending the money is maybe the easiest thing a person can do, it also can be a good source for funding your PayPal balance. Maybe the gift card you got isn’t just enough to buy the laptop you’re planning for; you can still use the money to do that.
PayPal is the most popular payment solution when it comes to a secure, reliable money transfer method online. A whopping 325 active users around the globe might be just enough to prove that point. With PayPal, you can use the gift card balance for funding purchases or even cash it out. If you want to use the gift card for PayPal as the main fund, stick to the article as I guide you through the process.
How To Add a Visa Gift Card to Paypal?
If you have a gift card, maybe multiple cards with small amounts in them, you can use the balance as a whole using PayPal. A $5 card alone may not be a big amount, but multiple cards combined in PayPal can help you get a big amount. Here are the things you should know about adding a gift card for PayPal and the processes to follow:
Adding the card for funding purchases
If you’re planning on using the Visa gift card as funding money for a purchase you’re making, follow this process. It’s also the standard procedure of adding any visa or other debit cards to a PayPal account:
- First of all, you have to go to the PayPal website, log into your account to link the visa card to PayPal. If you don’t have a PayPal account, create one, it takes a few minutes; start to finish.
- If you previously have an account and are ready to go, click on the wallet option. You can also look for it in the 3-dot sign on the far left side of the screen.
- You will see an option at the bottom that says “Add a debit or credit card”, click on it, then select “Debit card”. You’re ready to add the card.
- On the next screen, you will input all the information about the Visa debit gift card you’re planning to add. Put in the card type, expiration date, the billing address for the card, then hit the “Link card” button.
- As you click on the linking button, the system will redirect you to the card’s official address for an OTP. Take that OTP code, and put that back in the box to confirm the card, and you’re all set.
After successfully adding the card to your account, you can now use the balance in it on any purchase you make with PayPal. You can use it anywhere PayPal is accepted, whether it’s an online shop or an offline store. Once you have used the full gift card amount, you can remove the card from your PayPal account.
Tips on how you can cash the balance from a gift card
Although the official way of using a gift card is to use it for funding purchases through PayPal, you can also cash it out. As there is no official way to cash your gift card, you need to follow some tricks to do the job. There are two tricks you can follow to cash the money from a Visa gift card using PayPal:
Use a second PayPal account
The trick is pretty much self-explanatory if you think it through; here is the process you need to follow to cash your gift card:
- First, you need a second PayPal account; you can either ask a friend to help you out on it or can open a new account. Opening an account takes a few minutes, and a new email address is not associated with the primary account.
- Once you have the second account ready, log into it, go to the “Wallet” option, and add the card to that account. You can follow the process I’ve mentioned in the previous section to understand how to add a debit gift card to your PayPal account.
- Now, click on the “Send & Request” button located right before the “Wallet” menu to start the transfer process to your primary account. It will take you to a new page showing the card you’ve just added earlier in this process; click on “Continue”.
- From the next page, select the “Friends & Family” option to send the money for free of charge. Don’t forget to put in the amount you have in the card all the way through; if PayPal charges, calculate the charge, and put it all in.
- Now that you’re all set go ahead and click on “Send Payment” to complete the transfer from your secondary account to the primary one.
Use the PayPal invoice feature
If you don’t want to open a second PayPal account, here is how you can use your only Paypal account and get the money cashed:
- First, go to the “Send & Request” menu, click on the “Send an invoice” option, it will redirect you to a billing page. Insert an email address that’s not associated with your PayPal account, add any item you want; you don’t necessarily put a description.
- Now, put in the full amount you have in your gift card, put in any quantity, and click on add item. You can review all the information you had on the previous page on the next page; uncheck the shipment here.
- Once you click on “Send”, PayPal will send the billing information to your secondary email address you’ve put in. Go to your email inbox, follow the payment option, select “Pay with a Visa card” and use the gift card here.
- PayPal will ask you to open an account in PayPal; you’ll skip it, and continue with the payment using the Visa card. If you do everything correctly, you’ll get the money to your PayPal account to cash out.
Conclusion
PayPal makes it an easy job to send, receive, maintain money, and fund any purchases online securely. On the other hand, you might have been considering the gift card not very useful for big items you purchase. When you are linking the gift card for PayPal, you can use them together to cash it out. No matter how many gift cards you may have, you can cash them all with either of the processes I’ve talked about in this article. However, don’t forget that you must use separate email addresses for each card, and that’s only if you want to cash the card. I recommend using the card as the regular way to fund your PayPal account to purchase anything.
