How U.S. and Overseas Users Can Top Up Bilibili and Live Currency

This article is contributed by Luoluo. If you have good content, feel free to leave a comment or contact us in the WeChat group.

About Bilibili top-ups

A lot of friends around me like using Bilibili to watch anime, follow dramas, and watch livestreams, but topping up Chinese domestic sites from the U.S. is pretty troublesome. Here I’m sharing my own experience to make it easier for everyone.

If you already have a domestic bank card or funds in WeChat/Alipay, you can just top up normally. But if you have a U.S. (foreign) credit card, paying with a U.S. card can help you meet welcome bonuses, earn cash back, and even earn elevated cash back, so why not? Below, we focus on ways to top up using U.S. credit cards.

Top up live currency / buy Captain

You can also use a U.S. credit card to buy Captain membership or spend live currency on Bilibili livestreams.

QR-code top-up (desktop)

If you have already added a U.S. credit card to WeChat or Alipay, you can top up by scanning the QR code directly. If not, just follow the steps below. If you run into issues, you can refer to these two articles:

• WeChat Pay + U.S. Credit Card: Complete Guide + Risk Control System Intro
• Alipay + U.S. Credit Card + Risk Control System Intro

On the top-up page, just choose QR-code payment. But one thing to pay special attention to: make sure the amount is RMB 200 or less. For amounts under RMB 200, paying with a U.S. credit card through Alipay/WeChat can avoid the fee. Above that, there is a default 3% fee, and it is charged on the full amount, not only on the portion above RMB 200.

• WeChat Pay screen; remember to select the U.S. card

• Alipay payment screen; remember to select the U.S. card

Unfortunately, payments made this way do not count as elevated cash-back categories on U.S. credit cards. You can only earn 1x points.

Also, please pay special attention to the following:

• Try to use a card with no foreign transaction fee: QR payments are essentially processed through the WeChat/Alipay platform, so if your card has a foreign transaction fee, it may be charged!
• Do not exceed RMB 200: if you do, there will be a 3% fee, which is not worth it. You can split it into multiple top-ups, such as topping up 2,000 batteries at a time, since it all goes to your account anyway, though it is a bit more inconvenient.
• WeChat and Alipay have monthly (sometimes daily) limits for foreign credit card payments, and the limits vary by account. Paying within about RMB 3,000 per month is usually fine. If one account goes over the limit, just switch to another one.

PayPal top-up (desktop)

The QR-code method above has a relatively low amount limit, and there may be foreign currency conversion issues. But using PayPal is more direct and can also bypass currency conversion.

When you make the payment, choose PayPal, and you will be redirected to PayPal in the next step.

Just choose your card in PayPal. It seems that PayPal Rewards may cause an error when paying.

The payment result looks like this, and it will show as a PP payment directly. Since PP is a U.S.-based platform, it will not trigger any foreign transaction fee.

Even better, this payment can trigger elevated cash back on credit cards through PayPal. For example, in Q4, Chase Freedom series cards can earn 5% cash back, and this should activate it. I also suspect BofA's Customized Rewards 3% online shopping category should work too.

There are also a few things to keep in mind when topping up through PayPal:

• Daily limit: there seems to be a daily limit of about RMB 2,000 to RMB 3,000. If you go over it, the PayPal redirect will fail.
• Large-amount review: sometimes topping up too many batteries at once will cause a review on the PayPal side, and the money will be pending while the batteries do not arrive. So I recommend keeping each top-up at RMB 500 or RMB 400 or below; if needed, just do a few more top-ups.
• Single-transaction limit: if a single top-up is above RMB 500, you cannot be redirected to PayPal, so you need to choose RMB 500 or less.

Mobile top-up

If you are using iOS, definitely do not top up directly on your phone. You can see that the original RMB 6 PayPal 60 batteries become only 42 batteries if you recharge directly.

PayPal

You can top up through your PayPal account. Search for Bilibili Live, and you will get to the PayPal page.

Just enter the battery amount to top up. But note that if you top up through the WeChat public account, when paying you can only choose WeChat Pay, and then select the U.S. credit card option. The same RMB 200 threshold applies: above that, there is a fee, and you also need to consider whether your card itself has a foreign transaction fee.

So I usually still recommend using PayPal on a computer.

Buy Captain / Admiral membership

If you want to subscribe to Captain or another tier, you can also handle it with a QR code. If you choose the recurring monthly Captain membership, RMB 138 is enough, which is just below the WeChat and Alipay no-fee threshold.

If you cannot solve it with QR code, then you can only choose the full-price Captain membership, pay with batteries, or choose PayPal under Other.

Renewals can also use PayPal, but they are still not as cheap as the recurring monthly QR-code price. You can first cancel the recurring subscription in the account’s Great Voyage section, and then continue renewing with the 70%-off QR-code price.

Aside from Captain, the other tiers such as Admiral and Governor are relatively expensive, so I do not recommend using a U.S. card via QR code to pay, since the 3% fee is still pretty high. You can use PayPal to top up batteries multiple times and gather enough before subscribing.

Top up Premium membership

Bilibili has all kinds of Premium memberships. Once you subscribe, you can follow and watch anime, and also watch some movies.

When paying, just choose PayPal and select a U.S. credit card, the same as above. Using PayPal is enough; ideally, renew when the Freedom series has cash back in Q4.

Which credit cards work best

Based on current testing, QR-code payments basically only earn 1x cash back. Using PayPal can unlock some elevated cash back. If you have any of the cards below, you can prioritize them:

• This card can choose online shopping (PayPal) to earn 3% cash back. If you keep a lot of deposits in your checking account, your rewards can be boosted by up to 75%, which works out to 5.25% for online shopping. However, this card itself has a foreign transaction fee, so just use it with PayPal.

• Both of the two cards below have had a quarter with 5% cash back at PayPal, so you can wait for that quarter and top up more batteries then.

Aside from the cards above that earn elevated cash back through PayPal, QR code payments and ordinary PayPal payments only earn 1x. So this basically comes down to cards without a specific spending category; you can pick one from the article below:

• Best Credit Card for Any Purchase [Completely Updated 2022.11]

Other methods

If you do not have a U.S. credit card or debit card, then you will need to transfer U.S. dollars to a domestic bank account. We have also covered several fast transfer methods before, and you can choose one of them:

• How to Send Money from the U.S. to China, and Which Method Is Best?
• Remitly Money Transfer Tool Review (can receive via Alipay/WeChat) [2023.7 update: may trigger identity verification]
• Panda Remit Review [2023.3 update: supports RMB remittance]