Chase Ink Business Preferred Card
I’ve been looking into different kinds of rewards cards and wanted to give this travel hacking thing a try. One of the podcasts I listen to, ChooseFI recommends Chase cards a lot. So I thought why not start here. I already had a personal Chase card which seemed to work pretty good for accumulating points. Of course, I went for the one that offered the most points, the Chase Ink Business Preferred Card. Which offered 80,000 points.
I already had a small business set up, which you’ll need to try this one out. I simply went to the site, clicked the find a card link and there was a big list of credit cards with some options to sort them. I found the Ink Business Preferred card offering the 80,000 points which their site says is equivalent to $1,000 when you redeem them through Chase Ultimate Rewards.
The application was simple. I had to fill out a little information on my business and give some personal information as well and was quickly approved.
Ink Preferred Best Benefits
The next step in the process required me to spend $5,000 in the first 3 months. I had waited until November to apply knowing that I would easily surpass that mark with my inventory sourcing for my Amazon arbitrage side hustle I have going. I talk a little more about that here for those interested. Anyway, I quickly met the $5,000 requirement and earned the 80,000 points.
There are some other cool features too. I mentioned the first one above. One of the perks is that you get 25% more in travel redemption when you use redeem them through the Chase Ultimate Rewards program for more travel.
Another benefit I really like is the 3x points categories. You can earn 3 times the points on specific categories, which include the following: travel; internet, cable and phone services; advertising purchases with search engines and social media; and shipping purchases. I immediately moved my recurring charges related to internet, cable and phone services to my new Ink Business Preferred card and started getting 3 times the points I was on my other card.
One really cool benefit is that through the Chase Ultimate Rewards program you can actually transfer your Chase points to other points programs at a 1 to 1 ratio. Sometimes this can work out to an even better benefit.
For example, I fly Southwest and they are on the list. When Southwest has a sale on airline tickets, I can get a pretty good deal. If I purchase the ticket with points it works out to an even better deal. As I’m new to this I haven’t actually purchased tickets yet, but just from looking them up and pricing them out, it looks like I may have some great deals on flights that I’ll have this summer. We’ll see.
Travel Partners
Here’s a list of all of the travel partners you can transfer your Chase points to:
For the airlines:
- Aer Lingus AerClub
- British Airways Executive Club
- Emirates Skywards®
- Flying Blue AIR FRANCE KLM
- Iberia Plus
- JetBlue TrueBlue
- Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
- Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards®
- United MileagePlus®
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
For the Hotels:
- IHG® Rewards Club
- Marriott Bonvoy™
- World of Hyatt
The card has a couple of other standard benefits like fraud protection, personal protection and alerts to keep your information and credit safe. There is also the option of getting additional cards for your employees at no extra cost so you could earn rewards even faster.
I did get to try out using the points for the first time this week. I had to book a hotel for a one night stay in Flagstaff, Arizona, so I thought I would give it a try and see if I could save a buck or two. Trying to be a little frugal but not get the cheapest place I opted for a Howard Johnson hotel that ended up costing me 4,908 points, which included tax everything except for a $6.00 utility fee. The points would equate to about $49 bucks if I was using my 1% cashback card and the hotel would have cost $61 for the night. It seemed like a pretty good deal!
Other considerations to watch out for
Like with any card you have to know what you are getting into. Here are some of the things you should consider. This credit card has an annual fee of $95. So even though you get $1,000 worth of points (80,000 points), the net amount is really more like $900.00 when you take into consideration the $95 annual fee. They make sure to get the fee too. I was promptly charged on January 1st after first using the card in December. I thought maybe it’s a January thing so I gave Chase a call and was told the annual fee is charged at the start of the month following the account opening.
Thinking of carrying a balance. This is not the card for that. The interest rate at the time I opened the card was 17.49% to 22.49%. I would only recommend using this card for earning points if you could pay off the balance each month, otherwise, you might end up paying more in interest than you’ll earn in points.
If you are looking for a big points bonus and can pay off the entire balance each month this is a great business credit card.
Quick Recap of the Features and Benefits and things to watch out for;
- Bonus Points: 80,000
- Transferrable Points: Yes
- Annual Fee: $95.00
- Balance Transfer Deals: No (you get the same rate as a purchase)
- Balance Transfer Fee: $5 or 5% whichever is greater
- Interest Rate: Variable (currently 17.49%-22.49%)
- Cash Advances: Yes
- Cash Advance Rate: 26.49%
- Cash Advance Fee: $15 or 5% whichever is greater.
- Default Rate: Up to 29.99%. This rate varies based on prime rate and the market conditions
- Late Payment Fee: $39
- Return Payment Fee: $39