How to earn points and cash back with Plastiq.com

***Update March 7, 2024: Plastiq confirms that it now accepts payments made with American Express cards at merchants in Canada. You can now add your American Express card to your Wallet and make payments today!

*** Update October 18, 2023: Plastiq confirms that it will resume accepting American Express cards by the end of October 2023! American and Canadian cards accepted to pay American merchants. However, payments with an Amex card to a Canadian merchant are not yet accepted.

***Update February 09, 2023: As of February 10, 2023, Plastiq will no longer accept payments made with American Express credit cards. All American Express cards will be removed from the Plastiq user’s wallet on this date. Therefore, all future recurring payments made with an American Express card will be cancelled.In addition, electronic payments are no longer available from the Canada Revenue Agency. From now on, only payments made with Visa or Mastercard will be accepted and sent by cheque, with a 2.9% charge.

How to earn points and miles with Plastiq.com

Before going any further, we can confirm that this is a legitimate service recognized by the government. We have used it several times, and the Canada Revenue Agency lists it on its website as a service provider that offers credit card payment for taxes.

What payments are allowed on Plastiq?

As an individual, you can pay many suppliers by credit card through Plastiq.com:

• Taxes
• Municipal and school taxes
• Condo fees
• School fees
• Hydro Quebec
• Professional services (accountants, lawyers…)
• Private schools
• Professional associations (annual registration to an order for example…)

However, you cannot pay your credit card balances via Plastiq or send checks to yourself or relatives (except for exchanges of services).

As a business or professional, you can pay vendors or suppliers, even your contractors!

The table of authorized providers by card type

On Plastiq, you’ll find a table in English which summarizes the credit or charge cards that can be used depending on the suppliers, both in Canada and in the United States!

Plastiq.com service fees

Of course, this is not a miraculous service: there is a fee for every transaction made on Plastiq.com.

These fees are:

• 2.9% for all credit cards
• 2.9% to make a payment to the Canada Revenue Agency by cheque (new since February 2023)

Example of a payment to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA)

Here is step by step a payment to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) through Plastiq.

First, you will need to add the CRA as a beneficiary. You can search in this way (Plastiq is unfortunately only available in English). Canada Revenue Agency will be proposed to you.

Then, check the information and add this recipient to your list. You can see that payments to CRA are made by cheque and received by CRA within 8 days. So plan ahead.

You are now ready to make your payment to the CRA. Since the CRA is already registered with Plastiq, you will be asked to fill in some fields (such as the type of taxes you will pay). You indicate on the calendar the date you want the payment to arrive at the CRA. Then Plastiq automatically calculates the date of payment for you.

You will be asked for other details such as your SIN (which allows your payment to be issued to your account with the CRA) or the tax date.

Finally Plastiq will show you a summary before payment.

There you go! By clicking on the confirmation, your payment to the CRA is gone. You will be kept informed of tis progress by email. You will also be able to view it in the Plastiq management interface.

When to use the Plastiq.com service

In our opinion, it is advantageous to use the Plastiq.com service under 3 conditions.

The gain in points or cash rebates must be worth it

However, few cards offer more than a 2% return on your spend. Here, the charge is 2.9%.

For example, you should use one of the cards in your wallet that offers 2% or more cash back on all your expenses. Or a card whose points provide a sufficient return like the one shown below.

To unlock a welcome bonus

Many cards offer generous welcome bonuses (notably National Bank and Scotiabank), provided you have made a minimum spend over a period of several months.

In some cases, the amount to spend can be several thousand dollars!

In this case, it may be worthwhile to use the Plastiq.com service. It’s worth the cost in this case, so you don’t lose out on the opportunity to earn thousands of points!

To obtain the missing points for a trip

Are you short a few hundred or a few thousand points for your next trip or on your Aeroplan account? Plastiq. com could be the solution to your problem.

Instead of buying gift cards for different businesses, you could, for example, pay your electricity, municipal taxes or taxes in advance.

List of providers milesopedia members can vouch for

The community of milesopedia members, on the Facebook group “milesopedia – Cartes de crédit et Récompenses”, has vouched for the use of these suppliers through Plastiq (topic of discussion here).

Bottom Line

Please note that Plastiq purchases charged to a BMO card do not earn rewards points.

For example, with the BMO Ascend^® World Elite^®*Mastercard^®*, you can pay your bill via PaySimply with this card. However, this expense will not count as an eligible expense for a welcome offer or earn BMO Rewards points.

Plastiq is a handy service that lets you unlock welcome bonuses and earn points for payments you’ve made by cheque or via your bank account!

We remind you that you should not use this service if you are unable to pay off your credit card balance! The interest that will be applied on it (16 to 30%) far exceeds the rewards you could have obtained.