My order failed to get the free shipping an hour ago -- 'twas a UPS, so shipping was $19.99. Got on Chat w/ NE staff, and they said offer was ended 12/15. My comment that folks were still getting the free shipping 12/16 drew no answer. Well... Buy.com had a more tempting deal, then: no state tax, a better price on this one UPS, and the $20 from Google. But the PalPalFree saved a bundle for me until Friday.
Edit: The above is garbage, I'm thinking... I just now (a day later) took an arbitrary product to the final order submission page, and the PayPal free-shipping worked. I -do not- have any special ("premium") PP account.
Conclusions:
(1) The NewEgg staffer gave useless/wrong information.
(2) Their PayPal shipping-waiver process has some unidentified-to-me holes.
In my case, it refused a Belkin UPS (FC1000-tw-rtl). Were I forced to guess, I say heavy drop-shipped items (sent by manufacturer, not from NE warehouses) aren't eligible for the PP treatment. Yeah, that's just a lame guess.