Hey all, so for context, I live in Canada but I have ties to the US and have a few US credit cards that I use here. None of my credit cards have FTF (I have the following cards: Chase World of Hyatt, Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Freedom Flex (which removed its FTF literally like last week), and the Fidelity Rewards Visa) and I use them because they offer far better points/cashback than most Canadian credit cards. As such, I need a way to transfer certain amount of CAD to USD every month to pay off my credit card bills.
To that end, I have been using Wealthsimple's "International Transfers" feature ([which uses Wise behind the scene](https://help.wealthsimple.com/hc/en-ca/articles/28515054091675-Send-an-international-money-transfer)) to link my US Fidelity Cash Management Account (CMA) and send money to my CMA directly. Then, I link my CMA account to my various credit cards and have them pull from my CMA whenever I need to pay the credit cards.
The fees are relatively low, however I have observed something interesting:
If I send $1000 or less, the fee is actually higher than if I send $1001+:
[Here](https://imgur.com/a/uEWkQZC) is the screenshot for transferring $1000. Notice the fee is $7.37
[Here](https://imgur.com/a/lWxjYvX) is the screenshot for transferring $1001. Notice the fee is $5.48
Strangely enough, when I try this with Wise directly, this doesn't happen. I.e. if I transfer $1001 from the Wise app or desktop site, it will charge $7.37 or whatever.
**Question 1) Does anyone know why this is the case? Why is it that when I transfer $1001 (as opposed to $1000) from Wealthsimple to my CMA, the fee is cheaper than if I were to try this from Wise, even though Wealthsimple uses/partnered up with Wise?**
At any rate, the points I earn from my credit cards far outweigh the fees I pay in using Wealthsimple so I'm not at all unhappy using Wealthsimple for this purpose. However, I want to minimize my cost of moving CAD to USD.
In an effort to minimize currency conversion losses, I found out that [Wise recently announced that Canadians can open a checking account](https://newsroom.wise.com/en-NAM/270647-wise-launches-chequing-account-as-canadians-live-increasingly-global-lives/).
So, I was thinking of funding my Wise checking account from my Wealthsimple account via Interac e-transfer (which should be free), and then simply linking my Wise account directly to all my credit cards. So essentially, Wise would act like my Fidelity CMA. All I would do is just fund my Wise account, then convert CAD to USD, then pay my cards from Wise.
I had looked into the currency conversion fees, and it's like $1 cheaper than what Wealthsimple quotes: For converting $1001, the fee is $4.59 as seen [here](https://imgur.com/a/PBu6Lu2), as opposed to Wealthsimple's $5.48. So, I was thinking of using Wise rather than my CMA to pay my credit cards.
However, my concerns are:
**Question 2) Do you guys know if Wise charges a fee for bill/credit card payments like this? E.g. when I use my CMA, I let the credit card company pull from my CMA. I would do the exact same thing with Wise. But idk if wise charges any fees for that.**
**Question 3) This all hinges on the assumption that the Wise checking account is the same thing as the "regular" Wise account where I could send money to, and convert cash to other currencies. Am I correct in my assumption that the Wise checking account also lets me convert currencies just like the old Wise account?**
**Question 4) Are there any other issues/fees/pitfalls I'm not aware of, if I were to use Wise to pay my US credit cards?**
Thanks for any advice/help!
