I have a Chase INK card. The cash back is pretty solid, which is why I use it. I have my own system for accounting/expense management so I cant speak much to the expense management features of the card that most people seem to like. My one complaint would be charges seem to be a little slow to post to the card. My wife and I use a Chase Freedom card for our personal expenses, and that card posts almost immediately, the INK card is usually a day or 2 delayed.
I have a Chase INK card. The cash back is pretty solid, which is why I use it. I have my own system for accounting/expense management so I cant speak much to the expense management features of the card that most people seem to like. My one complaint would be charges seem to be a little slow to post to the card. My wife and I use a Chase Freedom card for our personal expenses, and that card posts almost immediately, the INK card is usually a day or 2 delayed.
I also use Chase Ink. I don't use their accounting/tagging system, but I do have alerts set up on my phone to pop up anytime there is a charge. That feature is nice and becomes even more helpful if you need to provide cards to employees. You get 1% cash back on everything which you can also just apply directly to the bill at anytime instead of having to wait for a check in the mail.
I've had to dispute a few charges and did not have any issues getting them removed which was an added bonus. No complaints after ~1.5 years!
I'm a newbie on this board, but I know this topic well.
I would recommend the Chase Ink card as well.
Although you get 1% on everything, you can get 5% from office supply stores (specifically Officemax and Staples). They sell store gift cards including home improvement stores and Amazon, so it's a 5% discount at the right store. Swing by the office supply store to get gift cards and then hit the home improvement store or Amazon. If you trade your UR points for miles at airlines/hotels instead of cash, you may get more value than 1% which is $0.01 per UR point.
If the idea is to maximize rewards, then look at what you spend on and find a card that maximizes your rewards based on that spending. I use several cards, and would not limit myself to just business cards. For instance, I have a consumer Barclays card that gives double points for utilities spending that I use on a multifamily project where I pay the water each month.
Also look at how you want to cash in rewards. If you want to use them for air travel, that is a different set of cards than if you just want cash back.
Also look at rewards caps (e.g., Chase Freedom limits bonus rewards to $1500 in spending per quarter), whether the card has annual fees, and whether you can combine points from different cards into one account (e.g., citi cards let you combine points for all of their cards for "thank you" points, and Chase lets you transfer "ultimate reward" points between cards at no cost)
Over the years, the credit card points rewards systems have become more complicated, and it is kind of a sad statement of the state of affairs of our economy when the return you can get via rewards spending substantially exceeds the return you can get on your savings in a bank.
I also have the Chase Ink card. I got in under a previous rewards system which works out way better for me. I get 3% back on hardware and home improvement stores (huge for me), gas stations, restaurants and office supply stores. If it didn't have home improvement then it wouldn't be as huge of a bonus for me.
I have that old Chase ink card too and use it for Home Depot/Lowes purchases. It is a true "cash out" card in the sense that the points cannot be combined with Chase's "ultimate rewards" system like the current chase ink card can, and I think the bonus points are capped at $2,000 in spending per quarter.
If home improvement store purchase points are what you are looking for, this next quarter (April-June) the discover consumer card will give 5% back on home improvement purchases up to $1500. The discover card is not a true "cash back" card, but if you take rewards via a gift card, it will give you a $25 card for $20 in rewards points which gives you a 6.25% effective rewards return.
Just realized that in your example, since you're getting 5 points per dollar on the initial spend, then you are correct, the effective return would be 6.25%.
$400 in spend @ 5 points per dollar = 2000 points.
2000 points for a $25 card would then equal 6.25% return.
In response to the original post, the Chase Ink card is a great card to use for business purchases. The Ink Plus card, while it has an annual fee gets the edge for me since it earns Ultimate Rewards points which can be transferred to travel partners. Those points have a much higher value when used with travel partners.
Look at the Chase Freedom card too, it has rotating categories that earn 5 points be dollar (limited to $1500 in spend per quarter). The Chase Freedom card has no annual fee and earns Ultimate Rewards points, so those points can be transferred to the Ink Plus card, then to a travel partner.
Points earned with the regular Ink card are not Ultimate Reward points, they are cash back points.
Used properly, Ultimate Reward points are worth far more that .01 per point.
As an example, wife and I are flying RT - DFW to STL on AA for 9K points + a $5 fee each. Ultimate Rewards points made it happen.
Those 9K points were probably earned with no more than $3K in spend due to bonus points achieved by using the rights card with the right spend, putting the effective return at over 10% (RT DFW to STL tickets run $300+).
Credit Cards, used wisely, can achieve pretty decent returns on your spend - well beyond the 1% rate advertised, but that's a whole other discussion.
I don't understand the fascination with the old Ink card.
Why not get the new Ink and get 5% UR by buying home improvement gift cards from Staples or Office Max? You can buy Amazon gift cards, Southwest gift cards, restaurant gift cards, etc. and get your 5% in many other categories via the office supply store. UR can be redeemed for 5% cash as well.
For anyone who travels a bit, the Chase Sapphire Preferred card has an intro bonus of 40,000 if you spend $3,000 the first three months you have the card. Its points are much better after that, unless you travel via Ultimate Rewards. But, the intro bonus is nice.
I know this thread is about a month old but hoping some people will chime in . . . I'm looking to open a business credit card as well and want to know if there is a "piercing of the corporate veil" if you use a business credit card reward - such as SWA flier miles/points - for a personal trip.
a.k.a., I get a Southwest business cc because I travel a lot to TX (and elsewhere) for personal, not business trips, but I put my business charges on it to rack up the miles in order to do this in the first place.
If your entity is otherwise adequately capitalized and insured, and the formalities for establishment and maintenance of the entity properly honored, I would not worry about it.
If that is all a creditor attorney has to try to get to you personally, that attorney is in trouble.
"But your honor, she used business rewards miles to visit her friends and mother!!!
I'd rather have the defense side of that argument.
i have and use 99.9% of the time AMEX cards. one for personal and one for business.
personal - gives me Hilton points and i dont have to pay for hotel stays.
business - gives me Delta miles, so i dont have to pay for getting to those hotels. i also get a companion ticket for free, but it has a annual fee of $150. well worth it.
i used to have AMEX with a cash back and i hated it. on a ~$8k bill i got around $30 or so back. if that. i dont remember. but it seemed very little for what i spent.
I have American express and chase have been the best for me with the points and no service is like american express. The gold american express I have and I think I can put a car on it and will not skip a beat just gives you more power to work with . I pay all my subs that are on my projects that gives me a great deal of points. I also pay there vendors for them and take the money back out of the sub contract which gives me so much . Just the way I pay only save me money the points alone on the two cards gives me and the family two nice trips a year .Disney this xmas all off the points and the mountains off the points . I look great with the wife and kids for me wink wink paying for our nice trip " and saving me money out of two trip were I do not have to pay and the only thing I did was switch up my subs on how they take payment from me and gives me more cash on hand. The bad thing is at the 45 days the bill is due and when you see that 20k -30K due each month. I made my GC get set up to take the cards also his first draw is 40k I smile and say to my self can not wait to the holidays to take the kids to see orlando .
I researched this for a while and found some obvious conclusions:
CapitalOne Spark Cash Back Visa - 2% cash back. $500 bonus for signing up, and $59/ annual fee (free for 1 year). (they also have a 1.5% cash back card w/o annual fees, but if you spend over $10,000/yr you are in the green)/
For air travel, I use Penfed's AMEX rewards card which gives you 4% points when you book flights. I use these points for Amazon, and it's a great value.