There seems to be no single concise post on this topic, but reading about ten different posts/topics, please feel free to correct me. 1) You can add a gift card to your account, but only if you have registered the gift card on the website of the company that produced it. For example, I have a VISA gift card which I could not add it until I went to VISA's GoWallet website and added my name and address to the card. After doing this, I could add the card. 2) There seems to be no way of adding the funds of your gift card to your PayPal account short of buying a MoneyPak and incurring fees and taxes or sending money to yourself, which because it is not from your balance or bank account, will incurr the standard 2.9% fee on the receiving end. 3) Yes, you can make a purchase with your gift card through PayPal, BUT (and no one seems to have succinctly answered this, but piecing info together, I believe this to be true) if the item is more than the value of your gift card, you are up a creek. You cannot split the payment between the balance of your gift card and some other non-PayPal-balance source. This is one reason gift cards can be really frustrating. If you are trying to buy something with a retailer -physical or online- who can't split payments, you are screwed if you want something of more value than your gift card. Even if, as in my case, that retailer will accept PayPal. It seems the only way PayPal does any kind of splitting is if you have a balnace in PayPal. It'd sure be nice if I could add my gift card funds to my balance.
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