Since gift cards have become popular and acceptable by various merchants worldwide, almost everyone wants to give or receive one. Gift cards from providers like Visa, American Express, and Mastercard are especially in demand because of their versatility. You can use them wherever these providers are accepted. Better yet, you can add them to PayPal for smoother payments.

The thing with adding your prepaid gift card, e.g. Visa, to your PayPal account is that you don’t have to bother so much about keeping the card safe till you redeem it. It’s a big bonus if you’re a frequent PayPal user.

For this reason, today’s blog will walk you through the steps to add a Visa gift card to PayPal.

Overview of Visa Gift Voucher and PayPal

Visa gift cards are prepaid cards issued by Visa as a means of payment for goods and services with merchants that accept Visa cards. They are called open-loop cards because they’re not specific to one particular merchant like Amazon or Sephora. Anywhere a Visa debit card can be accepted, rest assured that a Visa gift card will also be.

You can buy Visa gift cards online for $10 to $250 denominations.

On the other hand, PayPal is an online money-transfer payment system that allows people to send and receive money in dollars to other PayPal users. It serves as a means of payment for merchants that accept PayPal as a payment mode.

PayPal allows you to link your debit, credit and prepaid cards (open-loop gift cards) to your account to fund it.

You may want to add a Visa gift card to your PayPal if your balance is insufficient for an impending payment. You may also add it just as a secondary means of payment.

How to Add Visa Gift Card to PayPal: Step-by-Step Guide

Note that you can add your Visa card to your PayPal account through the website or app. However, for this blog post, we’re using the website as our reference point. Now, let’s see how to add the Visa card.

  • Go to the PayPal website and log in to your account.
  • Go to your Wallet.
  • Tap on the Link a credit or debit card
  • Check if you’ll be asked to link your card manually or via a bank. Choose the Link a card manually
  • Type in your gift card details, including the gift card number, the CVV or PIN and the expiry date.
  • Click on Add Card.
  • Follow the prompt to complete the action.

Tips to Note When Adding Visa Gift Card to PayPal

  1. You can make payments without signing up for a PayPal account. The platform allows non-account holders to pay for goods and services via its portal with debit or credit cards. To do so, simply add your card details and proceed.
  2. Adding a Visa gift card to PayPal without having a PayPal account will incur a relatively heavy fee.
  3. You may encounter some issues while trying to use your gift card. This is because it cannot be identified like credit or debit cards with your personal information. If this happens, register your gift card with Visa by entering your name and address.
  4. Suppose you do not choose a primary payment mode and have multiple such as credit/debit card, gift card, bank account and PayPal balance. In that case, PayPal can decide to use the one with the highest balance for any payment you initiate.
  5. PayPal will charge a $1 fee to your card to verify if it is a viable payment option. It will refund the money after a few minutes to 30 days. You may contact the Customer Support team to file a complaint if it isn’t.

Conclusion

Visa gift cards are universal prepaid cards you can use to make online payments. Adding a Visa card to your gift card is beneficial because it allows you to use PayPal with external funding. It’s also a way to safeguard your money if you lose your gift card or its details.

You can add a Visa gift card to PayPal by following the steps outlined in this blog post. If you encounter any problem not addressed in this article, contact PayPal or Visa Customer Support, depending on whom the cause of the issue falls to.