4 Reasons to Focus on Chase Ultimate Rewards Business Credit Cards Right Now

Chase Ultimate Rewards is probably my favorite flexible point program out there. The points can be redeemed in a variety ways which give you many options when it comes to free travel. I find myself being able to earn Chase Ultimate Reward points quite easily and I am always able to get a great value. While there are many personal and business Ultimate Reward earning credit cards, you might find the Chase Ultimate Rewards Business Credit Cards to be your best bet right now!

4 Reasons to Focus on Chase Ultimate Reward Business Credit Cards

1. Chase Ultimate Reward Business Credit Cards Offer Some of the Best Sign Up Bonuses

The main way I really earn my points and miles is with credit card sign up offers. While earning points through every day spend is great, the bonus points you get simply with opening up a card will far surpass a regular persons daily spend throughout the year. Right now, there are 3 different Chase Ultimate Rewards Business credit cards and you’ll find that the sign up offers are pretty amazing!

• Chase Ink Business Preferred Credit Card: Earn 100,000 bonus points after you spend $15,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. $95 annual fee.
• Chase Ink Business Unlimited Credit Card: Earn 75,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points after you spend $7,500 on the card within the first 3 months. No annual fee.
• Chase Ink Business Cash Credit Card: Earn 75,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points after you spend $7,500 on the card within the first 3 months. No annual fee.

The Chase Ink Business Preferred Credit Card has one of the best sign up offers right now, although the minimum spend requirement is quite high. With this card, you can redeem your points through the travel portal where every point equals 1.25 cents or transfer them to a travel partner. Or, if you happen to have the Chase Sapphire Reserve card you can transfer your points over and redeem through the travel portal at 1.5 cents per point. Typically, I get around 2 cents per point, so I value the sign up bonus at $1,600!

Now, the Chase Ink Business Unlimited Credit Card and Chase Ink Business Cash Credit Card offer slightly less points as their sign up bonus, however, they are both no annual fee cards! These are by far the best no annual fee sign up offers you’ll find available. With these two cards, the bonus offer is advertised as $750 cash back, but you are actually earning 75,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points and you can then redeem your points for cash back if you desire. When you redeem your points this way, 75,000 points = $750, however, there are other options for redeeming/transferring your points that could give you a much better value, which I recommend doing (read below!). 

2. They Do Not Count Against Your “5/24” Number

As of right now, Chase business credit card applications do not count against your magical “5/24” number. This is important if you are looking to apply for other Chase credit card in the next 24 months. For those not aware of Chase’s 5/24 rule, essentially, if you’ve been approved for five or more cards in the past 24 months (from all banks), Chase will automatically decline you when you apply for a new card. Fortunately. Chase business cards are not included when you count the number of cards you’ve had. Although, they are subject to the 5/24 rule so if you’ve been on an application frenzy in the past two years, you might not be able to get approved for these cards so easily.

3. They Offer Some Amazing Benefits

Chase Ink Business cards have some pretty amazing benefits that you do not want to overlook, such as:

Cell Phone Protection

One of my favorite benefits is the cell phone protection that comes with the Chase Ink Business Preferred. As long as you pay your monthly cell phone bill with this credit card, you are covered! This means if you lose or break your phone, you will be reimbursed the cost of replacing the phone or getting it fixed, up to 3 times per year (up to $600 each time, minus a $100 deductible). Not only are you covered, so is everyone else on your bill! While there are some other cards that also offer cell phone protection, the other cards do not allow you to file as many claims per year.

I personally have taken advantage of this benefit 4 times now! Well actually, I took advantage of this benefit twice, my dad once, and my sister once as well — we are on the family plan. With my claim, I was able to purchase the exact same phone and received a check in the mail for the cost of the new phone, minus the $100 deductible. Submitting the claim was an easy process and the check came within a few weeks. I was actually surprised at how seamless the process was. You can learn more about the Chase Ink Preferred cell phone protection and my here.

Primary Car Rental Coverage

With all three of these cards, you’ll receive primarily coverage when renting for business purposes as long as you charge the entire rental cost to your card. Many cards only offer secondary coverage which means you’ll first have to file a claim with your car insurance, which is never fun! This can come in very handy during international rentals as well.

Earn 3x Points on Travel

The Chase Ink Business Preferred Credit Card will give you 3x points on all travel purchases which is great! While this is the exact same bonus points earned as the Chase Sapphire Reserve, the annual fee for the Chase Ink Preferred is significantly less! And while there are some American Express cards out there that will give you 5x points on travel purchases, I would never purchase a flight on an Amex card due to the lack of travel protection.

With the Chase Ink Preferred (along with many other Chase credit cards), you receive travel insurance in case your flight is delayed or cancelled causing you to spend more money on an extra hotel or food costs. You also receive baggage protection in case your bags are delayed. Not only that, if you need to cancel your trip due to a sickness or other covered reasons, if you paid with your Chase card you are covered. American Express will not cover you! So for those reasons, I 100% ALWAYS pay with a Chase card that carries these benefits, even if I am leaving a few extra points on the table. Note: The two no annual fee Chase Ink Business cards do not offer the same travel protection.

Earn 5x Points at Office Supply Stores

The Chase Ink Business Cash Credit Card will earn you 5x points at office supply stores (capped at $25,000 spend per anniversary year). The reason why people love earning such a large number of points at this shopping category is because many office supply stores, i.e., Staples, sells 3rd party gift cards to many merchants! They also many times sell Visa and Mastercard gift cards so being able to earn 5x points on these purchases is huge. Of course there are a few other credit cards that will earn you 5x points, but many of the other ones carry an annual fee and their points are worth less.

4. Ultimate Reward Points are Awesome

As I mentioned above, Ultimate Reward points are one of my favorite point currencies. While I like diversifying my points into many programs to ensure I am able to snag the best flight or hotel option, if you are looking to really put all your efforts into one program, Chase Ultimate Reward points have a strong value and can be extremely flexible. You can either use the points through their travel portal or you can transfer your points to a partner program at a 1:1 ratio.

The partner loyalty programs include Hyatt, IHG, Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, British Airways, Flying Blue, JetBlue, Singapore Airlines, Southwest, United, Virgin Atlantic, Aer Lingus, and Iberia. My personal favorite hotel partner is Hyatt as their points are worth way more than the other programs. For example, you can stay at the Andaz Papagayo in Costa Rica (a Hyatt property) for only 20,000 Hyatt points per night — thus requiring only 20,000 Ultimate Reward points. Rates at this property can easily be over $500 a night, meaning each Ultimate Reward point is worth over 2.5 cents per point! For the airlines, I’d say United, British Airways, Iberia, Singapore Airlines, and Air France/KLM will give you the best valuation — but they have a ton of partners for everyones needs! For example, you can fly roundtrip in business class from Boston or Chicago to Spain for 68,000 Iberia points, which requires just 68,000 Ultimate Reward points. This business class flight can easily cost over $4,000 (something I’d never pay for!), making each point worth well over 5 cents per point!

With the Chase Ink Business Preferred Credit Card you can transfer your points directly to a partner program, but with the Chase Ink Business Unlimited Credit Card and Chase Ink Business Cash Credit Card you’ll have to go a roundabout method to transfer. If you have another Chase Ultimate Reward credit credit card that carries an annual fee, such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Sapphire Reserve, Chase Ink Preferred, etc., you can transfer your points from either the Chase Ink Unlimited or Chase Ink Cash to one of those “premier” cards. From the other card you can then transfer your points to a partner reward program.

Overall…

While I love all of the Chase Ultimate Reward earning credit cards for various reasons, the business cards are by far the best right now. They are offering the highest number of bonus points for new applicants, have low (or no!) annual fees, offer some amazing benefits, and have high category spend bonus point opportunities. Earning these points is quite easy due to the number of credit cards available and I love that they can be transferred to some valuable loyalty partners. The one downside is that getting approved for Chase business cards has been getting harder, but by no means impossible.

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