Originally Posted by
hydrogen
So I'm not sure if my logic makes sense but if I have a 5 or 6 figure tax bill to pay, it seems silly not to use Chexy? And bonus AE points to add too for this. Most cards in my wallet can manage to get >1.75% return even if you exclude the AE points. I just can't explain how the math works out for the company though so it seems almost too good to be true.
Chexy charges the 1.75% fee. Of course, your credit card company will take some of that (and that's how the bank affords to give you rewards). But chexy have evidently calculated that there's a profit after the bank takes their cut.
Also, Chexy bills you 3 days earlier, so once there's enough people making payments through Chexy, they'll always have a substantial amount in their wallets at any given time. I'm not sure what the rules/laws are regarding what they can do with that money (and what happens if they do what they're not supposed to), but investing it somehow can generate more profits for them.
I'm guessing these two are the main sources of revenue for them, can't be sure though. It is definitely interesting to see how creative these new businesses are getting with how they make money.
Originally Posted by
Adam Smith
So if you're "selling" points for 2 cents, how much do you want to "pay" for them? For me, with a large stash of points, plenty of other things to do with my time, and a healthy dose of skepticism as to the long-term availability of attractive redemption opportunities, it's much closer to 1 cent than 2.
That general commentary aside, I don't have many expenses I can't pay with a credit card, so this doesn't look all that interesting to me. The bonuses don't look all that big, and this would require a bunch of my time. That being said, if you can do this by spending a little over $5K (the $5K that has to be spent in the first six months plus a few bucks for the additional six recurring monthly payments), you're getting almost 2 Aeroplan points per dollar spent. Add that to what you get on your credit card, and that could be 3.25 if you're using a VIP/Amex Reserve. So you're paying 0.54 cents per point in total. But you have to make sure you jump through the hoops to get all the bonus points to make that work. Is that worth the time invested?
Great points on the value of aeroplan points on average being less than what one might naively expect.
Also, I notice you're considering the 10,000 bonus on your calculation of points per dollar spent. This is interesting because, unlike getting a credit card for the first year bonuses and waived first year annual fee, there are no big negatives to simply stop using Chexy after the first year, once you collected the 10,000 points.