A Complete Guide to Gift Card Activation on PayPal

PayPal is an online payment system that enables you to send and receive funds from anywhere in the world—all you have to do is link a payment method to your PayPal account. PayPal accepts several widely used cards for such purposes—including gift cards issued by certain brands.

Many PayPal users wonder how the gift card activation on PayPal works. In this article, we’ll show you how to sign up for PayPal, activate various gift cards, and use them online, as well as how to buy gift cards from PayPal’s Digital Gifts store.

You’ll also learn how you can earn free gift cards with Mode Mobile, a company that enables you to earn supplemental income and numerous other rewards with next to no effort.

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What Kind of (Gift) Cards Can You Acquire on PayPal?

PayPal doesn’t offer gift cards in a traditional sense of the word—at least not in the typical way we tend to imagine gift cards, e.g., an Amazon gift card or a Walmart gift card. In reality, PayPal offers reloadable prepaid debit cards you can use the same way you would any other debit or credit card—as a payment method for purchases. With it, you can buy products and services nationwide—wherever PayPal is accepted.

PayPal also enables you to:

• Add other companies’ prepaid gift cards to your PayPal account as a payment method
• Buy other companies’ gift cards on the Digital Gifts page

How To Activate Prepaid Gift Cards on PayPal

Source: Karolina Grabowska

PayPal allows you to transfer gift cards to your PayPal Wallet as a payment method. The card providers that PayPal accepts are:

1. Visa
2. Discover
3. Mastercard
4. American Express

Before transferring your prepaid gift card balance, you first need to set up an account with PayPal.

How To Create a PayPal Account

Proceed as follows to set up an account with PayPal:

1. Go to the official PayPal website via a web browser
2. Click on the Sign up button in the upper-right corner
3. Choose a personal or business account
4. Click on Next
5. Enter your email address and create a password
6. Click on Next
7. Enter your name, mailing address, phone number, and other personal information
8. Hit Agree and Create Account

How To Add a Prepaid Gift Card to PayPal as a Payment Method

Once you’ve signed up for PayPal, you can activate your gift card by adding it as a payment method—like so:

1. Log in to your PayPal account
2. Click on Wallet in the menu bar
3. Select Link a credit or debit card
4. Enter the card details
5. Click on Link card

An activated gift card will automatically apply to your next purchase. The funds in your balance may not always be displayed at checkout, but you can see them in the email receipt for your purchase or on your account.

Note that gift cards have to be activated within 30 days from the date of sending. If a gift card is not activated within 30 days, it will be returned to the sender.

An activated gift card cannot be returned, redeemed for cash, or transferred from your PayPal account, except where required by law.

Install the Mode Earn App To Get Free Gift Cards

There are several reasons why you should choose the Mode Earn App over other reward-based platforms:

• It offers you several reward-based activities instead of only one or two
• It enables you to earn points for completing activities as effortless as unlocking the home screen and charging your device
• Rewards and earnings remain consistent
• It’s free to use—there’s no sign-up fee or any hidden charges down the line

The Mode Earn App is a hit among users—more than 30 million Android users have already downloaded it from Google Play, where it holds an impressive 4.4-star rating!

Source: Mode Mobile

The redemption items you can get for earning enough points change constantly. We are tirelessly introducing new rewards, so you should check what we have to offer regularly. Our partners include some of the biggest names in the industry, such as:

• Amazon
• Acorns
• Target
• Starbucks
• iTunes
• Chime
• Aspiration
• PlayStation
• Eneba

It takes only seconds to download the Mode Earn App from Google Play! Join millions of satisfied users and make up to $600 in cash and other rewards a year!

Potential Problems With Using a Gift Card on PayPal

When trying to activate or use a prepaid gift card on PayPal, you can run into several issues. The most common ones are the following:

• You’re getting a Declined message when trying to use the gift card
• An Error message appears when you attempt to add the gift card to your PayPal account

Possible reasons for both are that your prepaid card was not issued in the U.S., or you’re trying to buy from an international seller. If you’re getting the same message even if the mentioned reasons do not apply, you may have to register your billing address with the card issuer. To complete the registration process, use the contact website or phone number on the back of your prepaid gift card.

How To Buy and Activate Gift Cards From Other Companies on PayPal

Source: Rami Al-zayat

You will find a wide selection of gift cards from famous brands and companies in the PayPal Gifts store, including:

• Lowe’s
• Target
• Uber Eats
• Walmart
• Adidas
• Barnes & Noble
• Best Buy
• iTunes

You can purchase these—and many other gift cards—either from the U.S. PayPal Gifts store or PayPal’s Facebook Marketplace. Different rules apply depending on where you’re purchasing the desired gift card. 

Check out the table below for more details:

Follow these steps to purchase a gift card from the PayPal Gifts store:

1. Visit the store catalog
2. Select the gift card you want to buy
3. Confirm whether you’re buying the gift card for yourself or someone else—if you’re buying it for a friend, you’ll be asked to enter their email address, your name, and a personal message for them
4. Log in to your PayPal account to complete the purchase

You or the recipient will receive an email containing the code for redeeming the gift card, as well as the instructions on how to do so.

Once PayPal processes your order, it shouldn’t take more than 24 hours for the email to arrive.

Keep in mind that you generally can’t use gift cards purchased through the Gifts store internationally—they are redeemable within the U.S. only. While expiration policies in other countries vary significantly, gift cards purchased in the U.S. and Canada have no expiry date and can be used at your convenience.

Source: Gustavo Fring

How To Get Gift Cards for Free

Gift cards can be incredibly useful and kind to your wallet, but only if you don’t pay for them. Luckily, you don’t have to beg friends and family members to get them for you—you can use various available methods of obtaining them for free.

There are plenty of legitimate, risk-free places where you can earn either money or free gift cards—such as social media platforms, Get-Paid-To (GPT) websites, and free gift card apps. 

These platforms usually require you to do certain actions—e.g., watch advertisements—to collect points you can later exchange for rewards. For all their benefits, these sources may not be as profitable as they first appear because they typically:

• Offer you a single reward-based activity to perform
• Impose daily or weekly restrictions on those activities
• Feature high payout thresholds

Instead of joining dozens of GPT sites and spending eight hours a day doing polls, turn to Mode Mobile. Our company’s unique reward-based products—the Mode Earn App and Mode Earn Phone—give budget-conscious people quick and easy access to capital and supplemental income for completing numerous, diverse activities on their phones!

Source: Mode Mobile

By using our products, you can earn rewards for all the daily activities you enjoy doing on your phone anyway, such as:

• Playing games
• Surfing the internet
• Listening to music
• Reading the news
• Checking the weather

You can then redeem the collected points for various prizes, ranging from cash and cryptocurrency to prepaid cards and physical goods!

Get a Mode Earn Phone To Reap Even More Benefits

While the Mode Earn App is a fantastic source of supplemental income, the Mode Earn Phone is an even better option for budget-conscious people—it enables you to annually make over $1,200 in cash and valuable rewards!

The Mode Earn Phone comes with a pre-installed Mode Earn App, enabling you to start earning supplemental income as soon as you activate the device and to double the points you collect for the same activities. The phone features a widget that offers 16 modes for earning rewards, including:

• Games Mode
• Charge Mode
• Watch Mode
• Task Mode
• Music Mode
• Cash Mode
• Lock Screen Mode

Source: Mode Mobile

You can get a Mode Earn Phone in one of two ways:

1. Pay a monthly $9.99 subscription following a free trial—billed quarterly
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Featured image source: Muhammad Asyfaul