Hi everyone! I recently tested this really good deal of getting cash rewards for making fund transfers between digital wallets (without having to actually spend any money) and wanted to share it with everyone here. It seemed too good to be true when I first heard about it from my friends; how can any company give cash rewards without earning anything from me?
But I guess in this world where well-funded big tech companies are fighting tooth and nail for your attention, its sometimes possible to get significant cash rewards just for performing a few simple actions. After personally testing it out and seeing the cashback in my bank account, I’m sold. It works! In addition, I see the merits of this payment app as a potential double dipping strategy available to loyal WhatCard readers
and the app is…drumroll…Google Pay!
What is Google Pay?
Google Pay is a payment platform that that resulted from the merging of Google’s separate Android Pay and Google Wallet apps. There was never any real incentive for me to use Google Pay before as there was very little benefits; hence why I had previously been using Samsung Pay instead as it entered the digital wallet scene much earlier than Google Pay and it had been my default way to use my phone to pay for my public transport. @Glenn wrote a viral article on how you can earn rewards for public transport with credit cards instead of EZ link cards, check it out here.
Linking your credit card to payment apps like Google/Apple/Samsung Pay lets you earn points on the app on top of your credit card rewards, allowing you to double dip because the points can be exchanged for rewards. This also means that you no longer have to carry your physical cards around as they are all saved on your digital wallet.
I don’t want to know that; I just want to know what I have to do to get the cash reward
Well, Google must have realized that Google Pay was not being making much headway amongst Singaporeans especially amongst the huge array of competing digital payment platforms such as Samsung Pay, Apple Pay, GrabPay, FavePay, Dash, Paylah, PayNow, etc.
As such, they have launched a very aggressive cash reward promotion to encourage more people to use their app. From now till 30th November, all you have to do is:
- Use a referral code to download the Google Pay app from the Play store - using this gets the referrer and refer-ee both a S$5 cashback once you have made a $10 transaction/fund transfer. You can use my referral code if you are looking for that first bonus $5 before you start introducing Google Pay to all your other friends
- Link Google Pay to your PayNow / Paylah! wallet
- Each week (defined as Monday 8.30am to the following week’s Monday 8.29am), find 3 friends to transfer $10 to (and kindly ask them to return the money back to you afterwards as well)
- For each friend that you transfer $10 to, you will be given a digital scratchcard with a variable cashback amount of up to $15
- Rinse and repeat - you can get up yo 3x scratchcards this way weekly up until 30th November
How does it work?
This is a short-term promotion that Google Pay has been running. Essentially, it is using cash incentives to get users familiar with its wallet. The reason why we have to transact in $10s is because that is the minimum transaction that Google Pay will recognize as a valid one. For every fund transfer, you get a scratch card under the rewards section.
It is really quite exciting to unveil the rewards via scratchcard! I had seen my friends getting cashback of $11 and $13, and decided to take a short video of myself doing so (unfortunately I myself only got $0.67 cashback from it 
) You can check out the video below for my 1st reward under this promotion:
For this particular promotion, you can get up to $15 per successful transaction, which is how it works out to a maximum of $45 for 3 transactions weekly.
Can I just transfer to 1 friend 3 times?
I have tried doing this and no, you cannot. The cashback only works on transfers to 3 unique individuals per week.
Anything to take note of?
Please remember to scratch your scratchcards, because they last for only 45 days when they are earned.
Are there other uses for the app?
Absolutely! If you integrate it into your lifestyle, it is possible to earn other weekly rewards from your day-to-day transactions as well. Check out the “Offers” section in the app for the list of available promos. This is the reason why I mentioned Google Pay should be part of your double-dipping strategy for 2020. I took a screenshot of some of the available offers as of today:
With the exception of inviting a friend to Google Pay, these other offers listed involve an actual merchant transaction (instead of fund transfers). But it is entirely achievable; I am sure you readers will be able to make 3 x $3 credit card transactions or tap your phone to make payment for public transport to get up to $10 weekly/ a chance to win $888 on 8th November respectively. (this promotion is over 
)
It is technically possible to triple dip but we haven’t tested it ourselves yet; this entails topping up GrabPay using a valid credit card (such as the Amex True Cashback card for 1.5% cashback), paying by Google Pay (linking the virtual GPMC) to get Grab points and getting the cashback from Google Pay.
How do I cash it out?
It is done automatically if you have linked your PayNow / PayLah wallet to the app. See below for a screenshot of the money that is inside my bank
Summary
Google Pay’s incentives for new users are extremely generous and in this particular case of up to $45 weekly doing just fund transfer (no actual transactions), it is essentially a free gift! Do take advantage of it and take note of other promotions as part of today’s strategy in optimizing your finances!
If you are interested to get the app, you can use my referral code to download the Google Pay app from the Play store (using this gets us both (referrer and refer-ee) a S$5 cashback once you have made a $10 transaction/fund transfer
If you would like to get the maximum rewards from your credit cards, do consider integrating WhatCard into your lifestyle to help you optimize your credit card rewards, and follow us on Facebook to stay updated on the latest tips, tricks, and hacks (like this article!) to get the most out of your credit cards
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