PayPal Leverages $4 Billion Acquisition of Honey with New Rewards Program

Three years after buying shopping-tool developer Honey for $4 billion, PayPal is rebranding and consolidating the Honey Gold rewards program into its own programs. The new PayPal Rewards connects PayPal’s merchant offers, cash back savings, and shopping products into one experience.

PayPal Vice President of Shopping and Global Pay Later Greg Lisiewski said in Monday’s announcement, “PayPal Rewards makes it easy to find sales, discounts, and great deals when making a purchase with PayPal – through cash back, discount codes, or other rewards.”

In a nutshell, PayPal consumers in the US can now earn points towards cash back through merchant offers, deals, and other discounts with the ability to redeem when checking out with PayPal

According to the press release, PayPal Rewards provides the following features:

One, Unified Rewards Program Across PayPal: Customers can combine rewards earned across multiple PayPal products and shopping experiences including PayPal Honey browser extensions and the PayPal app, and in the future, various card products.

Designated Rewards Destination: Rewards will now be housed in a new part of the PayPal app, making it simple to track and redeem rewards earned across many PayPal products and shopping experiences.

More Ways to Earn: Customers will be able to earn PayPal Rewards points in a variety of ways, including personalized engagement with the PayPal app, and using the PayPal Honey browser extension to find discounts. Points can be redeemed for cash back and other rewards. PayPal Rewards can provide even greater benefit when using a reward earning payment card to make purchases using PayPal.

More Ways to Redeem: Customers will have the flexibility to redeem rewards points without category restrictions or amount minimums throughout the PayPal ecosystem, such as cash back or at PayPal checkout. Once redeemed for cash back into their PayPal balance, the funds can be transferred to their linked bank account, deposited into their PayPal Savings account, donated to a charity, or sent using P2P.

PayPal said consumers have already saved nearly $200 million this year so far through PayPal Honey-enabled cash back and discounts. PayPal Rewards started rolling out to US customers on Monday, see the full press release on the PayPal corporate newsroom.

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.