Chase Business Credit Cards: How to Choose the Best Ink Card for You

Chase Ink Business Credit Cards

On the personal side of the Chase cards, we talk a lot about the “Chase Trifecta.”  The premise is that you can have two or three of the Chase Sapphire and Freedom cards and combine all your points into your Reserve’s balance for maximum impact – earning up to 5 points per dollar in certain categories and then combining to spend inside of your Reserve account for a minimum 1.5 points per dollar in value (spend 10,000 points for $150 in airfare or hotel) meaning you can get up to 7.5% cash back.

But what about maximizing your return with the suite of Chase Business credit cards?

This post will tell you which of the three Chase Business credit cards that earn their Ultimate Rewards currency are best for you as well as how to combine your Ultimate Rewards points for maximum return.

The credit cards:

• Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card
• Ink Business Cash® Credit Card
• Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card
• Ink Business Premier® Credit Card

Card highlights:

Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card

• 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points when you spend $8,000 in the first 3 months. This is worth a minimum of $1,250 of free travel.
• $95 annual fee
• 3 points per $1 on the first $150,000 spent in combined purchases on travel, shipping purchases, Internet, cable and phone services, and on advertising purchases made with social media sites and search engines. Limit applies each account anniversary year.
• Primary rental car insurance. (Rental must be for business purposes.)
• Cell phone insurance (up to $1,000 after $100 deductible) when you pay your monthly phone bill with the card. This makes it the best card to pay a cell phone bill with!
• Points can be spent on travel at a value of 1.25 cents per point OR transferred to airline and hotel programs. You need this card or one of the personal Sapphire cards to be able to transfer Ultimate Rewards to partners.

Ink Business Cash® Credit Card

• Earn $350 in the form of 35,000 Ultimate Rewards points when you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first three months and an additional $400 in the form of 40,000 Ultimate Rewards points when you spend $6,000 on purchases in the first six months after account opening. Points are transferrable if you also hold a Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire Reserve, or Ink Business Preferred – with no annual fee
• Earn 5% cash back (in the form of points) on the first $25,000 spent in combined purchases each account anniversary year at office supply stores and on Internet, cable, and phone services.
• Earn 2% cash back (in the form of points) on the first $25,000 spent in combined purchases each account anniversary year at gas stations and in restaurants.

Chase Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card

• Get $750 in the form of 75,000 Ultimate Rewards points when you spend $6,000 in your first 3 months. Points are transferrable if you also hold a Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire Reserve, or Ink Business Preferred – with no annual fee
• Earn a simple 1.5% cash back (in the form of Ultimate Rewards points) on everything made for your business.
• No bonus categories, no math – just 1.5 points per dollar spent.

As you can see, we have three Ultimate Rewards points-earning cards with different earn rates in different categories.

Should You Get All Three Chase Ink Cards that Earn Ultimate Rewards?

In most cases, YES!

Let’s look at the bonuses alone.

If you got all three cards over time (keep in mind you can only get one Chase Business card per 30 days and all three of these cards are subject to 5/24) you could earn 250,000 bonus points, worth at least $2,500 or more, just from signup bonuses.

I do in fact recommend that you get all three Ink cards and enjoy 250,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points (See our Guide to Chase Ultimate Rewards Points). I would personally space them out by about 3 months.

Within one year you should have been able to pick up all three.

Note that my absolute favorite use of Chase Ultimate Rewards points is transferring to Hyatt – so it’s also worth considering a World of Hyatt Business Credit Card once you’ve picked up all the Inks.

Depending on what you or your business spend the most on, you will optimize your earnings by carrying two (or all three) of these cards.

NEW: Ink Business Premier® Credit Card

Why do I not mention this card above with the other Chase Ink cards? It’s because I don’t want you to get confused. While the Ink Cash and Ink Unlimited cards earn Ultimate Rewards points that can be combined with your Chase Sapphire Reserve®, Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card or Chase Ink Business Preferred card, the Ink Business Premier® Charge Card cannot. It’s purely cash back. And it’s a bit confusing because it still earns Ultimate Rewards® – but trust me, you cannot combine these. It’s cash back, pure and simple.

That doesn’t mean you don’t want the Ink Business Premier®, though. Let’s look at what it is:

• A charge card – no set spending limit
• Earns 2% cash back on absolutely all eligible charges
• Earns 2.5% cash back on all purchases of $5,000 or more

From a pure cash back perspective, for charges over $5,000, the 2.5% rebate on spend cannot be beat. And let’s face it, not everyone cares about points when they are spending a huge volume on the card. 

Though it has a $195 annual fee, you’ll earn $1,000 bonus cash back after you spend $10,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.

Chase Reconsideration Phone Line

You are very likely going to get a message after you submit your Chase Ink card application that they need more time to review as opposed to getting approved instantly. That’s common, so don’t panic. But if you would like to call Chase to speed up this last step of the process, you can. Just call the Chase reconsideration phone line.

Chase Business Credit Card Strategy

It’s simple when you think about it.

Once you have all three cards (or if you decided to just get the one Chase Ink card that suited your needs best) it’s time to look at what spend to put on which card.

Chase Ink Business Cash

The Ink Business Cash will give you 5x points on the first $25,000 spent in combined purchases each account anniversary year at office supply stores and on Internet, cable, and phone services.  So if you spend heavily on any of those categories, you probably want the Ink Business Cash. And then all of those expenses (except cell phone bills if you also have the Ink Preferred since that card offers free cell phone insurance) would go on this card. We’d also use the Ink Cash for gas and dining for 2x (up to $50,000). 

Staples sells a LOT of things so thing about all you can earn 5X points on.

There’s no annual fee on the Ink Business Cash credit card, but keep in mind that you are only earning cash back unless you carry a Chase Ink Business Preferred, Chase Sapphire Reserve, or Chase Sapphire Preferred. (You need one Ultimate Rewards-earning card that has an annual fee to turn your points into transferable points.)

Chase Ink Business Preferred

Then, we look to see if we spend a significant amount on travel, shipping, and ads on social sites and search engines (Google/Bing/Facebook/Instagram, etc) since we earn 3 points per $1 on the first $150,000 spent in combined purchases on travel, shipping purchases, Internet, cable and phone services, and on advertising purchases made with social media sites and search engines each account anniversary year. If we do, we definitely want the Chase Ink Business Preferred Credit Card and we will put all of those charges on the Ink Preferred. I personally earn a ton of 3X Ultimate Rewards from my Ink Preferred.

Chase Ink Unlimited

Lastly, the Chase Ink Business Unlimited is perfect for any charges not in any bonus categories, earning 1.5X Ultimate Rewards on everything. You can still combine these points into your personal Chase Sapphire Reserve® account where you are earning a minimum return of 2.25% (Math = 1.5 points per dollar spent and then redeem at a value of 1.5 cents per dollar). If you don’t have a Reserve, then you could combine these into your Chase Ink Preferred or Chase Ink Business Preferred Credit Card account where you could spend at a rate of 1.25 cents per point or transfer to airlines or hotel partners.

Four major notes

1) If you don’t have a Chase Sapphire Reserve® or Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card to transfer points to, you will need the Chase Ink Business Preferred in order to spend your points in the Chase Travel portal at 1.25 cents per point in value OR to transfer to airline and hotel partners. You cannot do so if you only have a Chase Ink Cash or Chase Ink Unlimited. You need at least one Chase card with an annual fee in order to have that option.

2) All three cards have great bonus offers of 75,000 to 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points. Those are some massive bonus offers.

3) You may be best served by having the Chase Ink Business Preferred card and the Chase Ink Business Cash cards and skipping the Unlimited in favor of a card that earns a flat 2% – 2.5% cash back – like the Ink Business Premier®. The Spark comes with a nice welcome bonus and earns a flat 2% in cash on everything.  

All that said, if you want to put in the effort that many of us do, you *can* beat that 2% staying 100% within the Chase family, but it does take effort and you may want to simply earn your 2%, 3% and 5% in the Chase bonus categories and then for non-bonuses spend just stick it on a 2% cash back card. There would be absolutely no shame in earning a nice combo of points and cash – and never ever earning less than 2%.

4) There are other options as well! This post isn’t intended to tell you that all business spend should go on 1-3 Chase cards. By no means! You may want to spend on any number of Business Credit Cards. But if you are a fan of the Chase Ultimate Rewards program already – perhaps because you already have a Chase Sapphire Reserve or Chase Sapphire Preferred card for personal use – then this is an “optimal Chase strategy.”  

You may find a better card based on your exact spending habit by using the rewards optimization tool at Your Best Credit Cards.

Want to know more about the points you’ll earn? Here’s our Ultimate Guide to Chase Ultimate Rewards.

How to Apply for Chase Business Credit Cards

• Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card
• Ink Business Cash® Credit Card
• Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card
• Ink Business Premier®

Questions?

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You can find credit cards that best match your spending habits and bonus categories at Your Best Credit Cards. 

New to all of this? My “introduction to miles and points” book, MilesTalk: Live Your Wildest Travel Dreams Using Miles and Points is available on Amazon and at major booksellers.