The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express Review: 2X Points on Purchases Up to $50k/Year + 0% Intro APR Welcome Offer

New welcome offer. The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express is a business rewards card that features double Membership Rewards points. Therefore, if you can redeem for more than 1 cent per point of value, this card has the potential to beat a flat 2% cash back card. This is currently my primary business credit card.

• Earn 15,000 Membership Rewards(R) points after you spend $3,000 in eligible purchases on the Card within your first 3 months of Card Membership.
• 0% intro APR on purchases for 12 months from the date of account opening, then a variable rate, 17.99% – 25.99%, based on your creditworthiness and other factors as determined at the time of account opening. APRs will not exceed 29.99%.
• 2X Membership Rewards points on the first $50,000 in purchases each year. 1 point per dollar thereafter. Terms and limitations apply.
• No annual fee. (See rates and fees)
• Terms Apply.

Better than 2% cash back? Membership Rewards points can be converted to the following airline miles (there are more, this is just a selection):

• Delta SkyMiles
• Hawaiian Airlines
• ANA Mileage Club (partner of United Airlines)
• Air Canada (partner of United Airlines)
• British Airways (partner of American Airlines)
• FlyingBlue (Air France/KLM)
• Virgin Atlantic
• Virgin America

If you value any of these miles at more than 1 cent per mile, then you would be getting more value than a 2% cash back card. You also add the ability to keep all your Membership Rewards points active.

My backup redemption plan. This card can earn the equivalent of 2 Delta miles per dollar spent. Delta has a “Pay with Miles” option that lets me get 1 cent of Delta airfare for each Delta miles, I am always able to get 1 cent of value from 1 Membership Rewards point as I fly Delta regularly. Of course, I try to do better than that, but at least I have a backup plan to get 2% value back.

Unfortunately, there are many redemption options for Membership Rewards points that are worse than 1 cent per point value. Here are a few examples:

• Shop with Membership Rewards Points (~0.5 cents per point)
• Shop with Points at Amazon.com (~0.7 cents per point)
• Use points at BestBuy.com (~0.7 cents per point)
• Gift Cards (varies from 0.5 up to 1 cent per point). For example, I have redeemed 10,000 points for a $100 Home Depot gift card recently.

If you don’t expect to get at least 1 cent per mile value, then you should stick with a 2% cash back card.

Business credit card eligibility. Many people aren’t aware that they can apply for business credit cards, even if they are not a corporation or LLC. Any individual can be a small business. Perhaps you sell items on eBay, Craiglist, or Etsy. Maybe you do some graphic design, web design, freelancing and/or consulting. If you received a 1099-MISC tax form and filled out a Schedule C, that means you have business income, you pay self-employment taxes, and you’re a sole proprietorship. This is the simplest business entity, but it is fully legit and recognized by the IRS. On a business credit card application, you should use your own legal name as the business name, and your Social Security Number as the Tax ID.

This card will require you to personally guarantee that you’ll pay them back what you charge on the card, which means they’ll check your personal credit score like any other consumer card. However, as the card is a business card, American Express won’t have it show up on your personal credit report, so it won’t change things like your credit limits, average account age, or credit utilization ratio.

Bottom line. The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express is a unique small business card in that it earn 2X Membership Rewards points on purchases up to $50,000 per year with no annual fee. The ability to transfer to miles means that you’re effectively earning 2X miles per dollar spent with no annual fee. Finally, linking this card also allows you keep Membership Rewards points earned from other cards active while having no annual fee. (See rates and fees)