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I love earning miles on my credit card purchases as it enables me to travel in a way that I would not be able to otherwise.
Mileage cards also typically come with strong signup bonus offers, while the best cash-back cards typically don’t offer any signup bonus. And I can use multiple cards that earn miles to create a strategy like the Chase Quinfecta to really maximize rewards.
But not everyone is enamored of miles. There’s a high learning curve until you can learn how to use your miles in the most advantageous ways. And even then, you still need to have flexibility to best utilize them and they can be devauled.
For people who don’t care to spend time on figuring out miles or for people who just want cash back instead of travel credit, there are still some great options.
The Citi Double Cash® Card gives 1% cash back on purchases and 1% cash back on payments, for an effective 2% cash back on all purchases. It has no annual fee, but its Achilles’ heel is that there is a 3% foreign transaction fee, which makes it useless when you’re abroad. It also requires $25 in earnings before you can cash out. It does offer 0% intro APR on balance transfers for 18 months.
The Alliant Cashback Visa gives 3% cash back in your first year and then 2.5% cash back in subsequent years, but it requires that you join their credit union and it has a $99 annual fee after the first year. You’ll need to spend $19,800 on general purchases each year just to break even with a no annual fee 2% cash back card after the first year.
There are lots of cards that offer quarterly bonuses, like Chase Freedom 5% categories, but those are limited to $1,500 in quarterly spending and you need to stay on top of things to activate the bonus each quarter. It also carries a 3% foreign transaction fee.
The PayPal Cashback Mastercard® offers 2% cash back on purchases everywhere Mastercard is accepted and it has no annual fee.1 Plus it has no foreign transaction fees, so you’ll earn the full 2% cash back no matter where you are.
You need a PayPal account for this card.
The PayPal Cashback Mastercard offers you the ability to earn Cash Rewards on all of your purchases that you can transfer to your PayPal balance. Learn more about Rewards Program Terms and important information on redeeming Cash Rewards to your PayPal balance.
You can withdraw and redeem the earned 2% cash back from your PayPal account balance to your bank account at any time with no fees. Or you can send the balance to a friend with no fees. There are no minimum earnings required to withdraw and there are no maximum earnings.
This card has a true chip and PIN system, so you can use it at automated kiosks in Europe that don’t accept most US chip and signature cards by requesting a PIN for the card.
The PayPal Cashback Mastercard® comes with protections like:
- Extended Warranty that doubles the manufacturers warranty, up to one year.
- Price protection that refunds you the difference in price if the price drops within 60 days
- ID Theft Alerts
See Mastercard Guide to Benefits for details
Do you prefer a mileage earning card or a cash back card?
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29 Comments On "Earn 2% Cash Back And Pay No Foreign Transaction Fees With The PayPal Cashback Mastercard®"
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Alliant seems to be a great offer.
1) Do they have a business card which would not hit your personal score?
2) How high are the general credit lines
3) Do you need to pay income tax on the 3% cash back?
I have the Alliant card and had a dispute and its a nightmare literally lasting over a year – totally incompetent staff – check out other reviews for it – i strongly dont recommend it – many other great business CCs out there
Check with your LOR regarding borrowing from/joining a Credit Union. Seems like there are Halachic Issues with it. Probably safer to stay away.
What kind of CL does PayPal generally give? (I know this is totally dependent on score but assuming score is excellent with many years and cards etc.)
It varies from 5k CL or above.
Spark is the best
what does spark have over this card besides the signup bonus?
How does it compare to Capital One Quicksilver? (Besides for the 1/2% additional cashback)
Why is this better than the 2% Fidelity card? That card has a minimal 1% foreign transaction fee (which means you’re still getting 1% on foreign purchases), but I can’t see why it would be worth dealing the nightmare that is PayPal just for that. Plus the Fidelity card often has a sign up bonus. Unless I’m missing something?
The best option is the BoA Premium Rewards or Travel Rewards with Preferred Rewards (that’s a lot of Rewards). Anyhow the TR gets 1.5% everywhere and the PR gets 2% on travel/dining + 1.5% everywhere else. Preferred Rewards results in a bonus 25-75% for a total of 3.5%/2.625% on the top tier of preferred rewards with the PR card.
Keep in mind the high annual fee you must pay by keeping 100k in an non interest bearing account than think about your breakeven compared to a 2% card
Not correct, you can keep the money with Merrill in a brokerage, IRA, Roth, etc. account.
We don’t really travel so having the cash back is our focus. I have both the PayPal and Citi Double Cash cards. I’ll use them for every day purchases and then look for the quarterly 5% cash back on Chase and Discover categories and the 5% cash back on all Amazon purchases w/ their cc (it’s 3% w/o Prime and 5% w/ Prime. I’m sure Dan has calculated spends for those to know when it’s worth it). Was wondering when this card would be discussed 🙂
Of the PayPal and Citi, which do you like better? Which CL is higher?
Well I prefer the PayPal b/c it’s 2% upfront but we pay off CCs in full so t’s effectively the same. I happen to have a (much) higher CL w/ the PayPal but we used to have a pretty good CL w/ the Citi (though it’s been a long time since they’ve raised my limit despite REPEATED requests). The no foreign transaction fee is nice on the PayPal too.
Thank you for the response. What do you mean by ‘used to’? Citi cut your CL?
Yes, a VERY long time ago (actually when it was just a 1% card). Was late on a small # of payments (not in a row) and they cut it all the way down to $600! lol. I don’t even remember what it used to be to be honest.
It was mentioned that the Citi Double Cash Cash “requires $25 in earnings before you can cash out”. What does this mean?
It means that if you have $24.99 cash back earned you cannot get the money back until it hits $25 or more. It also means that if you take out the full amount, the “clock” starts over and you have to reach $25 or more again to take the money out. THAT’S annoying if you’re relying on the money frequently.
This makes me think
1. If I were to fund my PayPal with say my freedom unlimited or any other point card would I get the reward points
2. Can I then pay this PayPal credit card from my newly funded PayPal balance
Effectively adding more rewards to the 2% in my case for a grand total of 3.5% back/2%+1.5 points per dollar
Hey dan, I’m confused with your calculation of the alliant card. You said it would take you $19,800 to break even after year one (which the AF is waived for). But at 2.5% cash back you’d break even after just spending $3,960. Did you make a mistake calculating or am I missing something? Thanks
If you spend $3,960 on a Paypal or Citi 2% cash back with no annual fee you would get $79.20 cash back.
If you spend $3,960 on a 2.5% cash back you would get $0 cash back after the $99 annual fee.
Thus the breakeven point between those options is $19,800/year. On a 2% card you would get $396 back. On a 2.5% card you would get $396 back after the $99 annual fee.
The math is actually a lot easier to calculate the break even point. Subtract out the difference in percentage and divide that from the annual fee.
Thus: AF = $99
% difference (2.5% – 2%) = 0.005 (0.5%)
$99/.005 = $19,8000.
what does spark have over this card besides the signup bonus?
Hi Dan,
Does this card offer the PayPal Return Shipping Refund?
I’m wondering why the Barclay Arrival+ gets no mention here with it’s $700 sign up bonus and 2.1% cash back.
It doesn’t give cash back.
Do you have any advice on how to speak to a human at PayPal?
I have funds sitting there and have had no luck (along with thousands of others as well) getting anyone on the phone as well as messaging is a joke!
The Paypal Cashback Mastercard is now a dud for foreign use, just like the Citi Double Cash card, as it now charges the 3% foreign exchange fee.
However, the Alliant Cashback VISA is now an excellent choice as it gives 2.5% cash back with no annual fee and no foreign exchange fee, keep in mind you will need to keep $1000 average balance in the associated checking account, as well as sign up for eStatements and at least one deposit per month to get the 2.5% back.