One of Chase’s small biz credit cards is called the Ink Plus® Business Card. It turns out to be very similar to the Chase Ink Bold Business card, but with the important difference that the Ink Plus is a credit card where you can carry a balance and the Bold is a charge card that you must pay in full each month. See terms for pricing details.
This means that the Ink Plus is a separate card with its own sign-up bonus, currently a 60,000 Ultimate Rewards points after your after spending $5,000 in the first 3 months your account is open. You can read about my Ink Bold bonus experience here.
Ultimate Rewards points are very flexible:
- Cash. 1 point = 1 cent in cash, so 60,000 points = $600 cash.
- Travel. 1 point = 1.25 cents towards travel, so 60,000 points = $750 towards travel at the same prices at Expedia or Travelocity (no % markups), split up however you like into multiple tickets, down to the penny. Good for people who don’t like to bother with miles.
- Frequent flier miles and hotel rewards points. Transfers directly to United miles, British Airways miles, Hyatt hotel points, and Marriott hotel points. Best for folks that are willing to research and maximize their miles. Top up your account to reach an award, an transfer over only what you need..
Here are the important features of this card:
- Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That’s $750 toward travel when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards®
- Earn 5X points per $1 on the first $50,000 spent in combined purchases at office supply stores and on cellular phone, landline, internet and cable TV services each account anniversary year.
- Earn 2X points per $1 on the first $50,000 spent in combined purchases at gas stations and hotel accommodations when purchased directly with the hotel each account anniversary year.
- Earn 1 point per $1 on all other purchases—with no limit to the amount you can earn
- No foreign transaction fees
- Chip-enabled for enhanced security at home and abroad when used at a chip card reader
- Employee cards at no additional cost
- $95 Annual Fee
Based on past experiences, you should be able to get this card and bonus in addition to the Ink Cash card as they are different cards. I already have the Chase Sapphire Preferred personal card, so I’ll probably wait for a bit and then try out this new card as well for my business. Gift cards purchases are also useful for satisfying the spending requirement for the bonus.
Many people aren’t aware of the fact that they can apply for business credit cards, even if they are not a corporation or LLC. The business type is called a sole proprietorship, and these days many people are full-time or part-time consultants, freelancers, or other one-person business. 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 is how I got all my cards before incorporating, and how my wife gets her business cards for her small side business.
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I believe you can use your Amex and get 10% off Staples through their open savings network. So, you could get 10% off Amazon cards plus whatever reward points you get through Amex.
You need to remind people that the CARD ACT does not apply to business cards…..
Does having a business card mean you don’t get the warranty extension typically extended? What other implications are there to having a business card?
Dear Mr. MMB,
I cant help but wonder why you are not covering the best value there currently is for money sign up bonus by BOFA- Cash Rewards Signature Visa ?
Get 400 for spending 500 and get extra 10% if wire the rewards to BOFA checking (meaning you spend 500 & get 440 back!)
It looks though that for the non-BOFA account holders the bonus is mere 100, but it may be worth opening one
It has a 3% Balance Transfer fee as well.
@YM – Thanks, but do you mean OfficeMax? I see 10% off $250+ purchase for online and telephone orders (no in-store).
https://www257.americanexpress.com/opensavings/openpartners.do#01
@Ack – Good point. What CARD Act features apply for those that don’t carry balances or pay interest?
@Sofaking – It depends on the business card, some replace some of the mandated consumer protections with their own. I’m not sure about warranty protection on this card, I don’t know if I still have my Ink Bold paperwork.
@Dmitri – I haven’t heard of that offer. Sounds nice, but targeted – do you have a BofA link?
@Squeezer – Good point, I forgot to add that.
The link seems to be internal only — shows while your are logging off bankofamericaonline.com
Does the 5x bonus on this card in the cable/TV service category count Netflix?
nope
@Dmitri
Then that means the offer is targeted and is not publicly available to everyone. Jonathan wouldn’t write about something that many people can’t replicate right? Even if you were to open a BoA account to check, there’s no guarantee you’ll get the same offer.
@Rob – Good question, I’m not sure. My guess would be no as it should be categorized under entertainment of some sort.
@Dmitri, Eric – No worries, I appreciate the notice. I have a BofA account and logged in/logged out and did see the usual $100 bonus but no $400. Maybe just expired. BofA hasn’t had a big bonus like that in recent memory.
@Sofaking – To follow up on the extras, the Ink cards with annual fees (Ink Bold and Ink Plus) have the following features:
Purchase Protection – Within the first 90 days of purchase, Purchase Protection will replace, repair or reimburse you for eligible items of personal property purchased up to $500 per claim and $50,000 per cardholder, in the event of theft, vandalism, accidentally discharged water, or certain weather conditions.
Extended Warranty Protection – For manufacturer’s warranties of 3 years or less, the extended protection feature doubles the eligible warranty for up to 1 additional year.
Trip Cancellation Insurance
Trip Delay Coverage
Travel Accident Insurance, $500,000 coverage
Lost Luggage Reimbursement
Hi Jonathan,
So the only difference between the two cards is one is a charge card and the other is a credit card? They have exactly the same sign-up bonuses? Would you recommend one over the other?
Thanks,
Frank
If you’re spending $10K in the first 3 months, then your business better be bringing in the cash to pay the bills. Sounds like a risk for rewards points.
Offer details say “This one-time bonus offer is valid only for first-time cardmembers with new accounts. Previous and existing cardmembers/accounts are not eligible for this bonus offer.” Does this mean if you have any other Chase credit card you won’t get the bonus?
@Nick – No, that only applies to the same card, in this case the Chase Ink Plus card. I’ve gotten bonuses for the Chase Freedom, Chase Ink Bold, and Chase Sapphire Preferred card all in my name. You can even get separate bonuses for the Ink Bold and the Ink Plus card.
I have a small business on and off. I report the business income to IRS. I have a full time regular job. If I open the chase Ink card, do I have to use the card for business related use? Or can I use it just like personal credit card?
I’m not a business owner. As a salaried employee what should I put as the “Annual Business Revenue/Sales”. Is this my salary?
Also, are we allowed to have both the Ink and Ink Plus Card? (and get the points). I have the Ink Card from years ago (no, I don’t think I signed up with a bonus or got points from it).
I know this doesn’t relate to this credit card offer, but here is a good bonus from sharebuilder (sharebuilder.com/bonus) for anyone with cash making a low interest rate. After reading the fine print, it doesn’t have to be invested in the account, just transferred. The promo codes are in the fine print; codes are different for new accounts vs. existing accounts.
Love it!
Thank you for contacting Chase about first use bonus on
your Ink Plus account.
I would like to confirm that as per the offer on your
account, you are eligible to receive 60,000 bonus points
after spending $5,000.00 in purchases in the first 103
days from the account open date. Please be assured that
the bonus points will post to your account within one or
two billing cycles after the spending threshold is met.
I wonder if the 5X for Amazon.com gift cards would work at Office Depot? We don’t have Staples or Office Max here.
Be careful with business credit cards! Typical consumer protections don’t usually apply and you could be on the hook in the unfortunate event that your account is compromised.
While it is true that all consumer cards are legally required to offer minimal or zero liability for unauthorized purchases and it is not legally required for business card, the major issuers often step in and replicate that same protection themselves for small business cards. (This is also true for many debit cards from the major banks.) Chase Ink Plus and other Ink cards offer the same “Zero liability protection for unauthorized purchases” as their consumer cards. Here is a page about Visa Business Cards (Ink Plus is a Visa)
http://usa.visa.com/small-business/card-benefits/security/zero-liability.jsp
Marriott Rewards (Chase issued) 70,000 point promo is back. Spend only $1,000 in first 3 months. $85 annual fee waived the first year. Yields one free category 1-5 night on anniversary date which offsets the annual fee. https://creditcards.chase.com/a1/marriottpremier/70p1kshphdm/
Thanks for the tip! I’ve writing about it now and will post my review and research about it shortly.
How long after receiving your bonus do you typically close a card?
I realize that in general it is a good idea to keep cards open as long as possible to help out with your credit scores average account age, but fortunately my score is strong enough that this is a non issue for me.
Typically I keep mine open until my first annual fee comes up, but usually the credit card company ends up waiving the fee by dropping me to a lower tier card so I keep the card even longer. Unfortunately this has hurt me in that I have not been eligible for some offers because I already have a similar card.
Do others close their card right after receiving their bonus so as to be eligible for future offers?
this is strange, the post says Posted sept 29 but comments are from before that time??
It’s because this is a popular topic here, and Mymoneyblog updates the offer whenever he gets any new or updated offer from his affiliate, such as linksynergy, which of course allows mymoneyblog to earn income. As you can see, August 2, 2012 was when this card (and offer) was blogged.
Instead of making multiple posts about the same card and leaving old info out there, I update existing posts. Changing the posting date allows the post to show up on the top of the blog and show up again in RSS feeds. The last time I updated this post was to tell people that the 70k offer was available in Chase branches. Now it is available via online application.
Yup, Chase has been clarifying their policies, but if you have a significant other (or just have the Ink Bold and not Ink Plus) there are still opportunities to get this card.
They charged me the $95 up front, as soon as the card was approved. Is this typical? I guess I’ve never applied for a card before that didn’t waive the annual fee the first year, but I still had the notion that this meant I’d be charged after I had it for a year. I suppose it makes sense that they’d treat it like an Amazon Prime membership or the like.
Yes, that is typical when the annual fee is not waived for the first year. Otherwise, people would just cancel after 11 months. Don’t worry, you’ll at least be $600 ahead soon since the bonus isn’t taxable ($780 if put towards plane tickets).
Certainly, it’s still a great deal! It’s just not QUITE that much better of a deal than they’ve offered in the past, when the fee’s taken into account. It’s really the equivalent of a ~$600 bonus with the first year’s fee waived. Except this way they get $95 even if people fail to hit the $5k in three months and cancel, which is clever of them (:
I intend regardless to experiment with holding onto this card for the phone/internet/office supply bonuses and see if it’s worthwhile. I know there are those who swear by it.
And I do love that these bonuses aren’t taxable!
If I buy 2 Amex gift cards with this (in a $3000 and $2000 denomination), will that satisfy the requirement?