PayPal Key has become a little less useful.
Back on June 10 last year, Ibotta stopped accepting payment by credit card when buying gift cards in the app. They now only accept debit cards as a payment method which is a shame as it meant, in theory, you couldn’t earn credit card rewards on the purchase.
There was a workaround though. You could set up a PayPal Key and use that card number as a Mastercard debit card to buy gift cards, but it would ultimately take payment from the credit card you had linked to your PPK.
I hadn’t bought any gift cards in the Ibotta app since the beginning of February so I don’t know exactly when this change was brought in, but as some point in the last seven weeks Ibotta stopped accepting PayPal Key as a valid payment method. As you can see in the screenshot above, you’ll get an error message advising that they couldn’t seem to access the card.
Update: That doesn’t leave too many options for getting additional rewards when buying gift cards from Ibotta. One option is the PayPal Business Debit Mastercard which offers 1% cashback and occasionally runs promos offering 2%. Discover debit cards that earn 1% don’t work and the last time I tested MetaBank Visa gift cards they didn’t work, although perhaps something has changed since then or maybe Visa gift cards issued by other banks would work.
Another possibility is the Green Dot 5% card although I haven’t tested that myself yet. That’s a reloadable debit card which offers 5% back on all purchases on up to $2,000 of spend per year. Ibotta gift card deals are good on up to $250 of spend per rolling 24 hours, so you’d max out that allowance after eight days worth of purchases when there are worthwhile deals.
Thanks to Sue for giving us the heads up about this change.
I have bought some WM gift cards on 3/15 so this change took place after that. I don’t have any of the cards you mentioned. I might just use sbux card once in a while if there is a good deal.
Aw sbux card might not work either. I haven’t tried.
I used BoA business debit, need to spend $250/mo to avoid service charge.
I’ll try Brex and Divvy next times.