Addendum
I must have insufficient funds in my balance.
I am not allowed to top up my balance in Japan.
Therefore I can't use my balance unless for items costing (considerably) less than the total balance.
It is really annoying -- the funds are trapped.
Explanation of problem that I can't solve....
I am trying to purchase something from Aliexpress, the price of which appears to be less than the total available in my PayPal balance.
But when I go to make a purchase the small confirm screen that pops up only gives me the option to pay by credit card.
In my balance I have *nominally*
3926 JPY
which is in fact (since I was paid in the following currencies)
12.23 GBP
20.59 SGD
I am trying to purchase something that (again nominally, I think the cost may originally be in dollars or Chinese currency) costs 3335 JPY which would appear to be 591 yen less than my PayPal balance, so I am not sure why I am not offered that method of payment.
Could the reason that I am not offered the option of using my PayPal balance be that the currency transfer fees are more than the excess, 591 JPY that I have in my balance?
Is it possible to use my balance topped up with a little from my credit card, if I first somehow pay into my balance from my credit card? if it were the case that currency transfer costs 400 yen a shot then another 800-591 JPY =209 JPY might be enough. I want to use my credit card funds as little as possible. Since Paypal is presumably charged credit card fees, I would have though PayPal too would want to encourage the use of PayPal balance.
Addendum
I see from my list of notifications that I and other have been having the same sort of problem for years. Paypal does not seem to give us full control of which funds (bank, credit card, Paypal balance) from which payments are made, basing them instead of our choice on some arcane rules inside Paypal. I don't seem to be able to paste the URL of that other thread in this comment but the name of the other thread is "Not using my Paypal Balance to Pay for something." (both in the sense of "Paypal is not using my balance" and "I want Paypal to not use my balance").
