When it comes to earning valuable rewards there are many dualities to consider. Personal vs Business, Sustainable vs Unsustainable, and Organic vs Inorganic or Manufactured. For example a sustainable organic personal approach would be the Amex Cobalt. Chexy is a payment processor that has recently (late March 2025) expanded its offerings allowing for new opportunities for inorganic earning - perhaps most exciting has been the addition of personal taxes and multiple new types of payment methods for bills. Physician or dentist? Sign up with our exclusive link for an additional 15k aeroplan points over the public promotions.
In this article we will be discussing Chexy's current offerings and highlighting the best cards to use for large lump sums for ongoing earning check out the companion article on recurring expenses. There is also a new limited time promotion with Aeroplan that makes the numbers even better, you can read about it here. As always you can find more Referral options and Disclaimers at the end of the article.
Already familiar with Chexy? jump ahead to the best cards.
Current Offerings
Chexy first made a name for itself by facilitating rent payments via credit card. Since then it has added numerous options including:
Recurring Payments
Currently only fixed amounts are supported but they can be paused or changed at any time
Currently only monthly payments are supported
Approved categories - Note Chexy has confirmed to me that the subtext on each category are examples and not restrictive lists
Rent - including office rent
Household Expenses - eg. condo fees, parking, cleaning, including renos for home and office
Utilities
Insurance - including professional insurance like CMPA
Car Lease
Childcare and education - eg. daycare
Property Taxes
Telecommunications - eg. cell or internet
Wellness - eg. gym
Available payment method
Interac e-transfer
Pre-authorized debt - get a "void cheque" of info to give them
Bill pay - requires business to be listed but can ask for it to be added
One Time Payments
Pay a Bill
same category approval as above, but only supports the "Bill Pay" method
Doesn't really add any functionality above setting a Recurring Payment of the Bill pay variety and manually adjusted the payment amount
Pay Income taxes
Perhaps the headlining new feature, the ability to make one time CRA and Revenue Quebec payments
Personal taxes only
Limitations - due to issuer terms, regulations etc. It is not supported, and will not be supported, to make payments on debts like mortgages or to establish circular payments (ie. paying yourself). Other limitations like payment frequency options are being worked on according to Chexy's support.
It should come as no surprise that Chexy charges a fee to facilitate this service, but it may be surprising that it is only 1.75% for Canadian Visa and Amex cards, international cards have a 2.5% fee. Note that at launch taxes could only be paid with Visa's but shortly afterwards Amex was added. This fee defines the hurdle rate we need to out earn to justify paying on a card - but which cards are best?
Opening a New Card
The ability to pay your income tax, property tax, daycare and more on a credit card certainly opens up a lot of potential credit card spending you may not have otherwise considered. This makes it a lot easier to hit some of the biggest sign up bonuses out there easily out earning the fee. If you're not looking to target a sign up bonus, check out the companion article as it looks at post sign up bonus earning.
By using reasonable point value assumptions (2c each for Aeroplan, Amex MR and Avion, 1.5c for Aventura, and 0.8c for Marriot) and considering earnings net of annual fees and transaction fees, focusing on Canadian Visa and Amex Products we identified over 50 card/spend combinations to review. This database can be sorted many ways based on the goals such "what is the best card for a single lump sum X on Chexy" or "what is the best card for monthly spending Y Chexy". You can likely imagine that displaying the results of approximately 50 different cards from over a dozen issuers would be... challenging. Below we highlight the best cards by lump sum size, soon we will publish a companion article discussing the best cards if we ignore SUBs, suitable for ongoing use. Note that since this article was originally written, Amex upgraded the sub on a few cobrand cards and then subsequently increased the offers on their MR cards which may be relevant at high spend levels, I've re-run some of the analysis accordingly but admittedly it is too labour intensive to fully re-run with every promotion change.
$0-$25k spend - Scotia Momentum VI- First year free (FYF) - net $245 or 12.25%ERR at $2k increasing to net $755 at $25k
Given its first year free and 4% on recurring payment (2.25% net of Chexy's fee) this card is net positive on spend up until the earn drops after its $25k/yr spend cap, do not spend beyond $25k
$3k+ - CIBC Aventura Visa Infinite - FYF - net $667.5 or 22.25%ERR at $3k spend
Further spend remains profitable if you value Aventura points at over 1.75c - I would not do this
$7.5k+ - Amex Aeroplan Reserve- $599 AF - net $657.25 or 8.76%ERR at $7.5k
Further spend on this card on Chexy remains profitable if you value Aeroplan points at over 1.4c
Note that new secondary bonus in first year for spending $45k in 12mo has a net of $1701 and 4.25%
$10k+ - Amex Platinum - $799 AF - net $1226 or 12.26% at $10k
Further spending on this card is profitable if you value Amex MR abive 1.75c
Note that new secondary bonus in first year for spending $50k in 12mo has a net of $2326 and 4.65%
$15k+ - Amex Business Platinum - $799 AF - net $1513.5 or 10.09%ERR at $15k
Note that the performance of this card is even better if you consider the value of the credits it comes with, and if the annual fee is paid by your business
this could reduce the effective annual fee to ~$300 increased the ERR to greater than 10%
depending on your exact spend and whether you have access to an elevated offer
Further spend remains profitable if you value Amex MR above 1.4c, I would definitely do this
Note that new secondary bonus in first year for spending $90k in 12mo has a net of $3276 and 3.64%
$75k+ - contact me
Looking to avoid Business cards? Stick with the Scotia Momentum or Aventura at most lower spends but instead consider a 1.25x earning premium card for higher spending. With point valuations at ~2c these cards outearn the fees and have high sign up bonuses.
Indirect benefits of spending : The aeroplan cards would contribute to your Aeroplan status, and spending $25k/yr would earn an anniversary companion pass. The RBC BA VI also similarly earns a companion pass however this one is arguably far more valuable for people who travel routes serviced by BA as it can be used for any class of travel and combined with points instead of cash only bookings.
Honourable mentions - if you are not interested in the variable value of Avion and MR points, these are the best fixed value and cashback options to fill the gap after the CIBC Aventura
$5k-25k - TD First Class Travel - FYF - net $437.5 or 8.75%ERR at $5k
unlike the avion this is a fixed point value, a better choice for those who are not sure they can get good value from their avion points
Remains mildly profitable due to 2% earn on first $25k (net 0.25%) then drops to 1% at $25k which net of fees means -0.75%
$7-50k - Scotia Business Momentum VI - $79 AF
Breaks even at $7k and increases to a peak of $546 net of fees on $50k or about 1.1%ERR
Unlike the personal Momentum, this card has an AF and no SUB, but it earns 3% on recurrent up to a $50k annual cap before it drops to 1%
Multi card approaches - for those willing to split a large expense across multiple cards, you can do better still but with the potential downside of inconvenience.
Conclusion
The ability to make personal income tax, property tax, childcare, tuition and other payments on Chexy has opened up a lot of potential to shift expenses onto a credit card. Sign up for free using our referral and get a bonus 15k points if youre an MD or dentist and verify as such, as well as early access to new features as they roll out. Unsurprisingly the best return on spend coincides with opening a card with a sign up bonus close to the spend amount. This is especially useful if you otherwise wouldn't have enough spend to allocate. Other than spend amount, your specific views of the value of various point types (do you value MR at 1c or 2c or?) and spend related perks (eg. the TD AP VIP's companion pass and spend towards Aeroplan status) and whether or not you're eligible for a specific SUB play a big role here. Finally, your desire to get the best return with a single card vs splitting the spend across many will come into play. That said, I've reviewed approximately 50 different card and bonus structures to highlight the big picture best ones. If you decide to sign up for one, please use my referral links to support the work that I do, and if you need help decided based on your specific scenario, please reach out. For a sneak peak at the work involved, check out one of the sheets from my excel file, you can see the necessary effort to code for changing earn rates and bonuses, and the ability to tweak point values to test scenarios such as taking MR as cash back value.
Referrals
Sign up for Chexy here
If you're considering any business cards, reach out to me directly, your business situation is likely a bit more complex and may benefit from my expert help, so reach out! We can select the best card, and discuss your overall strategy.
Other cards mentioned in this article
RBC Avion VIP
If you're on the fence, or wondering about other cards reach out to me for a free consult, and if you sign up for a card through my link, let me know and I will walk you through advanced tricks and personalized advice to help you get the maximum benefit both from earning and redeeming points - getting your travel journey going faster than you ever thought possible.
Check out my Keeper Cards series to see other cards worth exploring
Disclaimer
This should not be taken as financial advice and details are subject to change. I have made good intentioned efforts to be accurate but ultimately consult card terms and conditions. I may receive points or other compensation from some of the included links.
