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Scotiabank has confirmed a major change for Momentum cardholders. As of October 22, 2026, rent and tax payments will no longer qualify for the accelerated recurring payments rate. They will move to the card’s regular purchase rate. The Scotia Momentum and Chexy pairing, long the best cash back combination in the country, therefore loses its main appeal.
Official communications to cardholders begin on August 17, 2026. Here are the new rates in detail, the exact math on your net return, and the cards that take over. To compare the whole market, see our page on the best credit cards.
The change is targeted. The recurring payments category is not disappearing, but two transaction types are leaving it: rent and tax payments. These transactions will move to your card’s regular purchase rate, the one that applies to non-category purchases.
Note that the measure targets the payment type, not a particular platform. In other words, it applies regardless of the channel you use, whether you go through Chexy, Casa or any other service.
The entire Momentum line-up is affected, including the business card. Here is the regular purchase rate that will apply to rent and taxes as of October 22.
Your other recurring payments do not change. Your subscriptions, phone bill, insurance and utilities therefore continue to earn the accelerated rate on the Scotia Momentum® Visa Infinite +* Card. Groceries also stay at 4%.
In short, the card remains relevant for everyday spending. On the other hand, if you applied for it solely for your rent, the equation changes completely. Our guide to the best cards for recurring payments remains useful for merchant-billed transactions.
One piece of context sheds light on this decision. Scotiabank backs Casa, a platform that lets you pay rent by credit card, and promotes one of its own cards in that partnership. Removing the accelerated rate on rent therefore naturally pushes cardholders toward a channel the bank controls.
The bank has not publicly explained its decision, and this reading is our own. It is worth raising nonetheless. Casa charges no transaction fee, which looks advantageous at first glance. However, the associated card earns only one point per dollar and requires a minimum of monthly purchases elsewhere to qualify for points on rent.
Once the change takes effect, Casa therefore becomes the default option for rent, but with a low return ceiling and no freedom of choice. Our analysis of Casa and Scotiabank details how it works and its conditions.
Almost everyone calculates this return incorrectly, including the platforms themselves. The usual subtraction gives “4% minus 1.75% equals 2.25%.” That shortcut slightly understates your actual gain.
Chexy charges your card the amount of the bill plus its fee, in a single transaction. For $2,000 in rent, your card is charged $2,035. You therefore earn your cash back on $2,035, not on $2,000. The correct formula becomes: (card rate × 1.0175) – 1.75%.
No card reproduces exactly the 2.32% net that the Momentum allowed. However, several options limit the damage. Here is the picture, from the best return to the most modest.
The Rogers Red World Elite® Mastercard earns 2% on all purchases. That rate rises to 3% when you apply your cash back to a Rogers, Fido or Shaw bill. Your net return then reaches 1.3025%, the best on the market for Chexy.
Watch out for the real ceiling, though. It is not the card’s annual threshold, but the amount of your Rogers bills. You can only apply the boosted cash back to those bills. With a $70 monthly plan, you cap out at $840 in cash back per year, which corresponds to roughly $28,000 in spending. Adding a second line or home internet pushes that ceiling higher.
The TD Cash Back Visa Infinite* Card offers 3% on recurring payments, or 1.3025% net. Its category cap and annual fee reduce the appeal if you use it solely for your rent. That said, it also applies 3% to groceries and gas, which helps offset the fee.
The Neo World Elite® Mastercard shows 4% on recurring payments, so 2.32% net. However, Neo’s calculator indicates a $500 monthly cap in that category. Beyond it, the rate drops to 1%. Also confirm that your payment type appears among the eligible merchant codes, as rent does not always show up there.
The Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card and the Wealthsimple Visa Infinite + Card earn 2%, or 0.285% net. The gain becomes symbolic: roughly $5 a month on $2,000 in rent. Note as well that Tangerine belongs to Scotiabank, which invites caution as to how long that advantage will last.
Finally, points collectors keep an interesting avenue. A card earning 1.25 Aeroplan points per dollar generates roughly 2.5% in value, so close to 0.79% net. That calculation depends entirely on how you value points. See our best cash back credit cards to weigh the two approaches.
Since the net return is shrinking, the question becomes legitimate: is it still worth paying a 1.75% fee? For some bills, the answer is no.
Rent and taxes lose their appeal with a Momentum card. That does not make the platform useless. Three use cases keep their full value, and two of them pay far more than the old 2.32%.
This is by far the most profitable use. A welcome bonus is often worth several hundred dollars, and the required spending threshold is the main obstacle. Rent or a bill paid through Chexy reaches that threshold in a few weeks. The 1.75% fee then becomes marginal against the value of the bonus.
American Express business cards lend themselves particularly well to this approach, as their thresholds are among the highest on the market.
Two current offers illustrate the math well. The values below use the Milesopedia valuation, namely 1.7 cents per Membership Rewards point and 0.9 cents per Marriott Bonvoy point.
Take The Business Platinum Card® from American Express. The first tier requires $15,000 in net purchases within three months, a threshold few households reach with everyday spending. By running that amount through Chexy, you pay $262.50 in fees and unlock 80,000 Membership Rewards points, or $1,360 in value. The operation therefore nets close to $1,100, before even counting the additional 40,000 points awarded in the second year. You do need to subtract the $799 annual fee from your overall calculation.
The Marriott Bonvoy® Business American Express®* Card, for its part, requires $10,000 in six months. Those $10,000 run through Chexy cost $175 and earn 80,000 Bonvoy points, or $720. With a $150 annual fee, the first year remains solidly positive. Note that this offer ends on September 22, 2026.
Paying by credit card pushes the cash outflow back by three to seven weeks, depending on where the transaction falls in your billing cycle. For an individual, that delay helps get through a tight month. For a small business, it becomes a genuine working capital tool, often cheaper than a line of credit.
Chexy for business lets you pay suppliers, payroll and commercial rent by card. The amounts involved are far higher, so points add up quickly and the cash flow delay weighs more heavily in the decision. Our article on Chexy for businesses details the fees and payout methods.
First, do not cancel anything hastily. If you have just been approved for the card, complete your welcome offer before anything else: it is often worth far more than the annual cash back.
The question is worth asking. Rent and taxes are large, predictable amounts that earn an accelerated rate while generating little interchange for the issuer. If that volume starts to weigh on the profitability of a card portfolio, other banks could well make the same call and reclassify these payments.
This is not purely hypothetical, because it already happens. Some issuers award nothing at all on these transactions: certain cards in the BMO Rewards program, for example, earn neither points nor cash back on Chexy or Plastiq. Others could go further still and treat such payments as cash advances, which would trigger interest from day one and a separate fee, on top of earning nothing.
The opposite scenario is just as plausible. An issuer looking to win market share may instead see an opening: keeping an accelerated rate on rent, at a time when the market leader is stepping back, is a cheap way to attract cardholders who are actively looking for somewhere to go.
Neither outcome has been announced. We are simply flagging that the cards recommended above could see their own terms change, which is one more reason to verify your conditions before building a strategy around a single card.
RBC is also overhauling its two cash back cards on October 1, 2026, with an uncapped 3% across eight categories on the Preferred World Elite card and a lower base rate on the no-fee card. Our full breakdown of the new RBC cash back rates runs the numbers on six spending profiles.
The golden age of paying rent by credit card is ending in Canada. The best net return drops from 2.32% to 1.3025%, and even then, only for Rogers or Fido subscribers. For everyone else, Chexy becomes above all a tool for reaching a welcome offer threshold.
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