title: Credit card payments via PayPal REST API without being PCI-compliant
body: <p>Can't understand which PayPal API to use. </p>
  
  <p>I have Rails app and I'd like to accept credit card recurring payments via PayPal. At first I was thinking to use <strong>Express Checkout API</strong> that supports recurring billing and can work even if a user doesn't have PayPal account. But then I saw that their official ruby gem <code>merchant-sdk-ruby</code> <a href="https://github.com/paypal/merchant-sdk-ruby" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/paypal/merchant-sdk-ruby</a> will be deprecated: </p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>This Classic SDK is not actively supported and will be <strong>deprecated</strong> in
    the future. For full support on new integrations, please use the <strong>Ruby
    Rest SDK</strong></p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>So I don't want to use something that will be deprecated soon. But I can't understand whether I can use REST API to accept credit cards without being PCI-compliant. </p>
  
  <p>I'd like to redirect user to PayPal where he could enter his credit card info and return back to my site like in Express Checkout, but I see only examples where credit card info is collected on my site and passed to PayPal via API that implies more security headache on my site.</p>
  
  <p><strong>UPD:</strong> I found some information regarding this question in <a href="https://developer.paypal.com/docs/integration/web/accept-paypal-payment/" rel="nofollow">Accept a PayPal payment</a> section of <strong>REST API</strong> documentation that is a bit odd because I expected to find it in <a href="https://developer.paypal.com/docs/integration/direct/accept-credit-cards/" rel="nofollow">Accept credit card payments</a> section. They say:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p><strong>Important</strong>: To receive Guest Checkout payments, which allow credit cards, ensure that PayPal Account Optional is enabled on your account
    settings. For example, here is the path for US accounts:
    <em>Profile > My selling tools > Website preferences > PayPal Account Optional</em></p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>But I'm still not sure whether it will work in my case. Now I have the following question:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Can I use Guest Checkout feature to accept <strong>recurring</strong> payments?</li>
  <li>Can I test Guest Checkout in <strong>Sandbox</strong>? And if I can what credit card number to use?</li>
  <li>Can I show by default form for entering credit card info when user gets to the PayPal site rather than for entering PayPal credentials?</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p><em>Ughh... why it is so complicated?</em></p>