A while back, we were among the first to introduce the wildly popular PayPal Key tool:

Before we begin

As of now, the BIN for this PPK card still identifies as a debit card. If your lookup tool shows it as a credit card, the tool is inaccurate. We recommend checking it with: https://www.bincodes.com/.

This useful tool is still alive, presumably because PayPal has not yet pushed it to a large enough scale in the market. Of course, some methods of using PayPal Key for things like tax payments have already died off.

But Plastiq seems to have kept accepting PPK all along. Do they really not know about this lucrative opportunity?

The answer is: they definitely know.

First, let’s talk about Plastiq (PQ)

Generally speaking, merchants know what kind of card you are using. That is even more true for Plastiq, which works closely with Mastercard. Plastiq also has a habit of working with points-and-miles blogs, and that is one reason it was able to enter the market and become so successful. They have staff who read the major blogs, and if people are doing something the “wrong” way, Plastiq will even let bloggers know. So they are fully aware of what is going on in the credit-card rewards world.

PQ actually welcomes people trying to maximize rewards, because they have already negotiated fees with the card networks and banks. The people really paying are you and the issuing bank. However, they cannot directly allow credit card cash-outs, so PQ must enforce its own risk-control system.

Plastiq definitely knows that people are using PayPal Key for check payments. Based on our DPs, however, not every check payment supports PayPal Key. Don’t panic: the vast majority of your current check payments should still be OK. The payments canceled by PQ seem to be only certain special types of check payments.

One of our WeChat readers, “夕阳下的奔跑,” received a special email from Marketing specialist Larry Yau (anti-gaming specialist). He also appears to handle enforcement against multiple accounts and improper use of PQ. In the email, PQ states very directly that you can use the PayPal Key virtual card for international payments with only a 1% fee (in other words: if you use PPK more, everyone makes money). Of course, it is also possible that this is a trap.

Image provided by WeChat reader “夕阳下的奔跑”; many readers received it.

In addition, a small number of recent DPs say that some people cannot select PPK at checkout on PQ. For now, these appear to be isolated reports, and most people should still be fine. Feel free to share your experience.

  • Plastiq signup link
  • If you already signed up on the official website, you can also enter code 1186681 under Rewards & Referrals

Finally, let’s talk about PayPal

As the maker of the tool, PayPal obviously knows about it, and it also knows that many people have been using it heavily lately. Maybe it still has not reached the scale PayPal wants to promote yet, but its shutdown is probably only a matter of time.

If your PayPal Key payment fails, the most common reasons are:

  • Your account may be flagged for fraud risk
  • You may not normally use PayPal Key much, and PP may not like that
  • You may have reached your spending limit, although that limit is somewhat fuzzy, and quite a few people have exceeded PP’s stated Cap

As long as you use PayPal regularly and make PayPal money, it usually will not mind if you get some value out of PPK as well.

Banks are not charities, and neither is PayPal. In the future, PPK usage will almost certainly be restricted; or PayPal may work with issuers and card networks to code some categories as Cash Advance (CA). That is only a matter of time. (As of now, some transactions have indeed been coded as CA, but the people involved do not want to share the details.)

In any case, if you want to take advantage of it, do it sooner rather than later. Feel free to share your own DPs.

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