As an eBay Mastercard holder, I was sent an email to participate in a survey regarding the Paypal Extras Mastercard, sister-card of the eBay Mastercard. I have literally no idea why I clicked on it – probably mostly to vent about the fact that I can’t take advantage of the $15 eBay offer going on now due to my frozen Paypal account – but the survery was most interesting.
I wasn’t told anywhere in the survery that the details can’t be shared and I’m therefore assuming they are okay with that.
It was an extremely long survey; a lot of it was clearly psychological ploys to see how different wordings effect the card appeal, but a recurring theme in the survey was a serious consideration for the Paypal Extras Mastercard to become a no-annual-fee 2% cashback credit card with the cashback being automatically deposited into your Paypal account after each statement closes. The cashback can then be transfered to your bank account or used to pay the credit card bill or used to shop online with Paypal.
This was one of many options shown
At one point, there was a screen which suggested that for each $1.00 in cashback earned, you’d get $1.25 when having it deposted to Paypal (apparently there would be another option to redeem as a statement credit or into your bank account).
That sounds too good to be true as it would mean that the card would be a 2.5% everywhere card. It sounds more reasonable to give a 10% bonus for depositing into Paypal or some other small amount. Unless the marketing folks win, I doubt this one will happen, but maybe it could happen at a lower rate, e.g. $1.10 for each $1 in rewards. This would make the card a 2.2% rewards card which would be awesome!
Another interesting thing in the survey was a few mentions of a card that earns 5x or 5% on Paypal purchases. This idea wasn’t as recurrent as the 2%, but it came up a few times. (This would not be together with 2% everywhere, rather instead of it.) Many other mentions suggested 3x or 3% for Paypal purchases. There was also a 5% everywhere offer mentioned, but I assume that one wasn’t serious; probably just to make sure you are a serious participant in the survey.
There were lots of other things discussed, such as making specific categories bonused, groceries to gas and everything in between was brought up.
At one point, they summed up the – apparent – main options and asked for my opinion as to which is best.
My response? “…if you guys could get your act together and let people live, I’d love to use the card”.
(As an aside, I’ll hazard a guess that this Reddit banker is working for Paypal/Synchrony, see also this post.)
