- You can add a gift card to your PayPal account to use as a payment method.
- However, the gift card has to be a prepaid gift card from brands like Visa, American Express, MasterCard, or Discover in order to use it on PayPal.
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One of the obvious perks of the holiday season is gift cards galore.
Prepaid gift cards sold by credit card companies are a particularly great gift, because you can put the balance toward just about anything — including your PayPal account.
And adding a gift card balance to your PayPal account might be a good idea if you often use PayPal.
It's also a great way to eliminate the possibility of forfeiting your funds before you've even had a chance to splurge — a lot of us are prone to losing physical copies of things.
Here's how to add a prepaid gift card from Visa, American Express, MasterCard, or Discover to your PayPal account.
How to add a gift card to PayPal
1. Go into your PayPal Wallet on a desktop computer.
2. Click "Link a debit or credit card."
3. Tap "Link a card manually" if given the option to link manually or through a bank.
4. Enter the gift card information.
5. Tap "Link Card."
Sometimes, you might run into an error trying to add a gift card to your PayPal account as a payment method because gift cards lack personal identifiers, unlike traditionally-issued credit cards.
If you run into this kind of trouble, register your gift card — there should be instructions on the card that will direct you to a website for registration.
Additionally, there are also ways to exchange non-credit card gift cards for money in your PayPal account, but the cost of the transaction is significant —usually a minimum of 10% of the value of the gift card.
Related coverage fromHow To Do Everything: Tech:
How to delete your PayPal account on your Mac or PC
How to link your PayPal account to your Twitch channel so viewers can donate to your page
How to check your PayPal balance on desktop or mobile
'Does PayPal have fees?': Yes, but not for all transactions — here's how you can avoid fees on PayPal
Emma Witman is an Asheville, NC-based freelance journalist with a keen interest in writing about hardware, PC gaming, politics, and personal finance. She is a former crime reporter for a daily newspaper, and has also written extensively about bartending for Insider. She may or may not judge your drink order when behind the bar. Follow her on Twitter at @emwity.
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