For executives and high earners, the best cards are top-tier premium cards where a high annual fee is bought back in lounge access, travel credits, elite hotel and airline status, and concierge — for someone whose travel and dining spend is large enough to come out ahead. We track 272 Canada cards.
This is NOT the invite-only Centurion ('Black') card -- Centurion requires an existing high-spend Amex relationship, has NO lounges in Canada, and isn't itself an application-based product -- but very heavy Platinum spenders are occasionally invited to it over time, which is the closest thing to a 'path to Centurion' worth mentioning to this persona.
These picks come from dedicated research for executives and high earners, which drew on issuers' published terms and independent sources — listed under “sources” on each pick. The order is the research's. Every fee, welcome offer and earn rate shown on a pick is the figure our catalogue holds for that card, the same one its card page shows. Nothing here is pay-to-rank. Business cards appear only on business guides, student cards only on student guides, and prepaid cards on none. A figure we do not hold is shown as “Not confirmed”, never as a zero. Each researched shortlist is marked as pending editorial review until the site's editor approves it.