Unexpected Places You Can Use PayPal in 2024

PayPal is the original online payment service. It’s almost as old as online shopping is! PayPal initially operated as the official payment service for eBay. As its popularity grew, it expanded to offering payment services across the Internet. Today, it has diversified its offerings and now has a debit card and investment and cryptocurrency options.

Everyone knows that you can use PayPal to make purchases on eBay and at most online retailers. But there are also some other types of online payments and purchases that you can make using your PayPal account. Some of these might be a bit surprising and unusual.

In this article, we’ll go over some of the most unexpected places you can use PayPal in 2024—and a surprising place where you can’t use it.

Online Casinos

Online casinos are rapidly overtaking traditional land-based casinos as America’s favorite way to play slots and table games. As enjoyable as it can be to take a trip to Payson or Dudleyville to play at a local casino, playing online is more convenient and has a game selection to rival any of the big Las Vegas casinos.

PayPal can be used at a huge number of online casinos. It’s one of the leading payment methods for both regular and sweepstakes casinos. While regular online casinos are not legal yet in Arizona, sweepstakes casinos are a great legal alternative that provides the same experience without the requirement to spend real money.

The list at newcasinos.com/ of online casinos that accept PayPal payments shows just how popular PayPal is as an option for making deposits. This is because it is a fast and secure payment method with plenty of protections in place for its users. 

International Wire Transfers

PayPal isn’t just for making purchases online. It can also be used to transfer funds between bank accounts in the USA and abroad. Xoom is PayPal’s money transfer service. It is easy to use and convenient for people who don’t want to download new apps or go into a bank to make a transfer.

Xoom works through your PayPal account, so there’s no need to download new apps or create a new account. Since the two are already synced, the entire process is very simple. Western Union will always be the preferred method for transferring cash overseas, but thanks to its lower fees, Xoom is a popular alternative for digital transfers.

Pay Monthly

In the last five years, one of the biggest trends in online purchases was the introduction of installment payments. Instead of paying for the entire purchase at once, customers could break that purchase price down into monthly installments. Most people associate installment paying with Klarna, the dominant brand on the scene.

Klarna might be the biggest name in the game, but they aren’t the only ones offering installment pay plans. PayPal saw how popular this option was for customers, especially during these difficult economic times. So, they introduced their Pay Later services.

For customers in the US, PayPal’s Pay in 4 lets you break a purchase down into four interest-free payments. They even have a longer-term version that can be used for larger purchases (up to $10,000), which spreads payments out over 6, 12, or 24 months.

Donations

One of the coolest services that PayPal offers is its PayPal Giving Fund. The Giving Fund isn’t a charity itself. It is a service that streamlines donations to charities and nonprofit organizations. This makes it easy for people to donate to the causes that they care about.

The Association of Arizona Food Banks is one local charity that has benefited from using the Giving Fund. They are just one of many charities in the state that use the program, and others can be found by searching on PayPal’s site.

PayPal can also be used to make donations to arts organizations and museums. These include the Cultural Coalition, the Fort Tuthill Military Museum, and the Tucson Desert Art Museum. Donations help keep arts institutions alive and PayPal makes that process a bit easier.

Amazon

Shockingly, Amazon does not accept PayPal payments. This initially seems confusing since they’re both the biggest names in their respective fields. It would make total sense for PayPal and Amazon to go hand in hand.

The reality is that PayPal has always been affiliated with eBay, and Amazon considers eBay a problematic competitor. They were two of the original online marketplaces and Amazon has never been able to absorb eBay like they did with so many of their early rivals. As silly as it sounds, Amazon doesn’t accept PayPal because of this connection.

Like with everything in life, there are some workarounds if you still want to use your PayPal funds to make purchases on Amazon. The easiest one of these is to simply buy Amazon gift cards using your PayPal account. Another option is to open a PayPal debit card. Since these cards are serviced by Mastercard, Amazon accepts them as a valid payment method.

Technically, with these tricks, you can use a PayPal account to make purchases at Amazon. Now that is unexpected!