The Chase Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card is an extremely rewarding business card. It regularly has one of the best signup bonuses around and it earns valuable Chase Ultimate Rewards points. In addition, the card’s 3X categories make it possible to earn huge rewards through spend as well.
Great news for those who can hit the bonus and earn 90,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards!
This is also a surprisingly good travel rewards card (which is unusual for a business card): It offers 3X rewards for all travel spend, no foreign transaction fees, primary car rental collision waiver, trip cancellation and interruption insurance, and cell phone protection (for when your phone is damaged or stolen).
One of the very best business cards. A highly recommended business card for an incredible signup bonus and 3X categories.
This card is known to be subject to Chase’s 5/24 rule.
Chase Ink Business Preferred Application Tips
Should you apply?
Even though this is a business card, it’s a great choice for anyone interested in earning Chase Ultimate Rewards points. The signup bonus for this card regularly tops our Overall Rankings. If at some point you cannot afford the annual fee, you can later product change it to the no-fee Ink Business Cash (for its 5X categories) or the no-fee Ink Business Unlimited (1.5X everywhere).
If you are eligible (see next section), the signup bonus on this card makes it a fantastic choice.
Chase Ink Business Preferred Card: Are you eligible?
To get this card you must have a business, and you must be under 5/24 (more on 5/24 below).
Applying for Business Credit CardsTo apply for a business credit card, you need to have a business. However, lots of people have businesses and do not know it. If you sell stuff on Craigslist or eBay, for example, then you have a business. Similar examples include: consulting, coaching, writing, handyman services, owning a rental property, renting on Airbnb, driving for Uber or Lyft, etc. In these cases, your business is considered a Sole Proprietorship unless you have officially registered your business. When you apply for a business credit card as a sole proprietor, you can use your own name as your business name, use your own address and phone as the business’ address and phone, and your social security number as the business’ Tax ID / EIN. Alternatively, you can get a proper Tax ID / EIN from the IRS for free, in about a minute, through this website. Can I put personal expenses on business cards? Most business credit card applications say that you need to use the card only for business purposes only. It’s also important to know that some consumer credit card protections do not apply to business cards. So, steer clear if you don’t feel comfortable doing this. For step-by-step instructions on applying for a business card, go here. Go here to learn more about you being eligible for business credit cards. |
Chase’s 5/24 Rule: Unfortunately, with most Chase credit cards, Chase will not approve your application if you have opened 5 or more cards with any bank in the past 24 months.
To determine your 5/24 status, see: Check Your 5/24 Status INSTANTLY. The easiest option is to track all of your cards for free with Travel Freely.
How to Apply
You can find the current best signup offer and application link at the top of this page: Chase Ink Business Preferred.
Business Information
- Legal Name of Business: If you don’t already have a business name, I recommend using your own name as the business name.
- Business Name on Card: Again, this can be your own name if you don’t have a business name to use.
- Business Mailing Address: This can be your home address if you don’t have a separate business address.
- Type of business: Sole Proprietor
- Tax Identification Number: This can be your SSN, but I recommend creating an EIN for your business (you can get an EIN quickly and for free from the IRS here)
- Number of Employees: 1 (you)
- Annual Business Revenue: 0 (or project an amount based on expected revenue)
- Years in Business: (number of years you’ve been operating the business with or without revenue)
- General industry, Category, Specific type: Pick whichever categories are closest to your business. For example, an aspiring author, artist, or musician might choose: “Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation” and “Independent Artists, Writers, Performers.”
Personal Information
This part of the application is about you, personally:
- Your title as Authorizing Officer: “Owner”
- Total gross annual income: Include all of your income, not just business income. This can include household income.
- The rest should be self-explanatory
Keep records of your answers In some cases Chase will ask to speak with you before approving your application. In those cases, they are likely to ask some of the same questions (annual business revenue, number of years in business, total gross income, etc.). Ideally, you’ll answer the same as you did on the application.
Check Application Status After submitting your application, you can check the status by calling the automated status line: (888) 338-2586Reconsideration
If your application is denied, I recommend calling for reconsideration (1-888-270-2127). It’s surprising how often denials can be changed to approvals just by asking.
Chase Ink Business Preferred Perks
Premium Ultimate Rewards
Since this is a premium Ultimate Rewards card, the following rewards are available:
- Redeem Points for 25% More Value: Points are worth 1.25 cents each when used to book travel through the Ultimate Rewards portal.
- Transfer Points to Partners: Points can be transferred one to one to a number of airline and hotel loyalty programs.
Travel Protection
- Auto Rental: Chase offers primary auto rental CDW (collision damage waiver) when renting for business purposes. Here’s the description directly from Chase: “Decline the rental company’s collision insurance and charge the entire rental cost to your card. Coverage is primary when renting for business purposes and provides reimbursement up to the actual cash value of the vehicle for theft and collision damage for most cars in the U.S. and abroad.”
- Trip Cancellation / Interruption: “If your trip is canceled or cut short by sickness, severe weather and other covered situations, you can be reimbursed up to $5,000 per trip for your pre-paid non-refundable travel expenses, including passenger fares, tours, and hotels.same page link to benefits”
- Trip Delay: If your common carrier travel is delayed more than 12 hours or requires an overnight stay, you and your family are covered for unreimbursed expenses, such as meals and lodging, up to $500 per ticket.
- Lost Luggage: Reimburses for costs incurred to repair or replace checked or carry-on bags and property within if loss or damage occurs during a covered trip. Coverage is up to $3,000 per person per trip (or up to $500 for jewelry, watches, cameras, video recorders, and other electronic equipment).
- Baggage Delay: “Reimburses you for essential purchases like toiletries and clothing for baggage delays over 6 hours by passenger carrier up to $100 a day for 5 days.”
- Travel Accident Insurance: When you pay for your air, bus, train or cruise transportation with your card, you are eligible to receive accidental death or dismemberment coverage of up to $500,000
Chase Ink Business Preferred: Cell Phone Protection
If you (and/or your employees) pay monthly cell phone bills with this card, you (and they) will be covered for theft or damage. Limits: $600 per claim. Max 3 claims per 12 months. $100 deductible per claim.
Chase Ink Business Preferred: Purchase Protection
Extended Warranty: “Extends the time period of U.S. manufacturer’s warranty by an additional year, on eligible warranties of three years or less.”
Damage and Theft Protection: “Covers your new purchases for 120 days against damage or theft up to $10,000 per claim and $50,000 per account.”
Chase Ink Business Preferred Earn Points
Signup Bonus
This card earns super-valuable Ultimate Rewards points. Here’s the current signup offer:
One of the very best business cards. A highly recommended business card for an incredible signup bonus and 3X categories.
Bonus Spend
The Ink Business Preferred card offers 3X travel, shipping, internet, cable, phone, and advertising with social media sites (up to $150K spend per year). Note that the no-fee Chase Ink Business Cash card offers 5X for internet, cable, and phone charges. If you have both of these business cards, it definitely makes sense to charge internet and cable to the Ink Business Cash card. Which card to use for your cell phone bill is a bit trickier since the Ink Business Preferred offers 3X plus cell phone protection whereas the Ink Business Cash offers 5X without cell phone protection.
Chase Ink Business Preferred Redeem Points
Cash Back
Cardholders can redeem points for 1 cent each either as statement credits or as cashback. Cashback can be taken as a statement credit or via check or ACH transfer.
Travel
Redeem points for travel: 1.5 cents per point
This option requires that someone in your household has the ultra-premium Chase Sapphire Reserve® Credit Card card. First move (combine) points from your other Ultimate Rewards card to the Sapphire Reserve account. Next, log into Chase under the Sapphire Reserve account, and go to the Chase Travel℠ portal to book your travel. A $500 flight would cost 40,000 points if you used points attached to a premium card (Sapphire Preferred or Ink Business Preferred), but with the Chase Sapphire Reserve, it would cost only 33,333 points.
Redeem points for travel: 1.25 cents per point
This option is directly available to anyone with a premium Ultimate Rewards card: Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Ink Business Preferred, or the no-longer-available Ink Plus. If you have points with no-fee Ultimate Rewards cards, then move them first to your premium card. Next, log into Chase under the premium account, and go to the Chase Travel portal to book your travel. A $500 flight would cost 50,000 points if you used points attached to a no-fee Ultimate Rewards card, but with your premium card, it would cost only 40,000 points.
Details about booking travel through Chase
You can use the Chase Travel portal to book airfare, hotels, cruises, activities, and car rentals. Airfare purchased through the portal still earns airline miles and elite qualifying miles. Book your flights at a cheap price with Chase Ultimate Rewards. Hotels booked this way do not earn hotel rewards. Worse, hotels booked through the portal often won’t offer you elite benefits even if you have status. Unfortunately, Chase switched to an Expedia-backed portal and removed some ultra-low-cost carriers. For example, you can no longer book Spirit Airlines or Southwest through Chase Ultimate Rewards. There is a work-around for some carriers though.
Travel protections apply
When you pay with points for travel, Chase’s automatic travel protections do apply. So, you can be covered for things like car rentals, trip delays, trip cancellation & interruption, lost luggage, etc. The coverage you receive will be based on which card’s rewards were used to book the trip. For example, if you have both a Chase Sapphire Preferred and a Sapphire Reserve, you would want to move your Ultimate Rewards points from the Preferred to the Reserve and then use the Reserve points to book your trip. You will get both better value (1.5 cents per point) and better travel protection.
Transfer points
Transfer Partners
| Rewards Program | Best Use |
|---|---|
| Air France KLM Flying Blue | Monthly Air France Promo Awards often represent very good value. Air France miles can be used to book Sky Team awards, including Delta awards. |
| Air Canada Aeroplan | Air Canada's Aeroplan Program connects you to over 40 airlines. Redeem your points to book flights on Star Alliance partners and other global airlines, such as Etihad. |
| Avios | While flights on British Airways itself often incur outrageously high fuel surcharges, many BA partners charge low or no fuel surcharges. Great value can be had in redeeming BA points for short-distance flights. Iberia offers very low award prices on its own flights. Round trip partner awards can offer good value under some circumstances as well. Fuel surcharges are often lower than when booking through British Airways. Aer Lingus shares the "Avios" currency with British Airways and Iberia. In most cases, it is best to move points to one of those programs in order to book awards for less. |
| Emirates Skywards | Emirates has different award charts for each airline partner. Sometimes they allow one-way awards, sometimes they do not. In general, award prices are fairly high, but there are a few sweet spots such as New York to Milan for a 90K round trip in business class. |
| Hyatt | Use for Hyatt free nights or points + cash nights. Hyatt points are often worth at least 1.7 cents each towards free nights, but they’re sometimes worth far more. One hidden bonus: award nights are not subject to resort fees. |
| IHG | |
| JetBlue | JetBlue points offer the most value when cheap ticket prices are available and when award taxes are high relative to the overall cost of the ticket The JetBlue Plus Card and the JetBlue Business Card offer a 10% rebate on awards, so you can get more value by holding one or both cards. |
| Marriott Bonvoy | 5th Night Free awards |
| Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer | Use to book Singapore Airlines First Class awards (generally reserved for their own members) or for Star Alliance awards. Low change fees and no close-in booking fees make this a very good program for booking United Airlines flights. |
| Southwest Rapid Rewards | Award flights are fully refundable. Point values vary due to certain taxes not being charged on awards but tend to average around 1.5 cents per point. |
| United MileagePlus | Even though Singapore Airlines miles have a number of advantages over United miles for booking Star Alliance flights, United has advantages too. For one, it is possible to book most Star Alliance awards online at United.com. Additionally, United awards sometimes cost fewer miles with United than with Singapore (especially premium awards on United’s own flights). And, most importantly, United never charges fuel surcharges for awards. In some cases, United is far cheaper than Singapore Airlines for this reason alone. |
| Virgin Atlantic Flying Club | Virgin Atlantic miles can be usefully thought of as a way to get a discount off Virgin Atlantic flights (high fuel surcharges make the flights far from free), but there are some better uses. Use miles to upgrade paid flights or to fly partner airlines. A fantastic use is to fly ANA in business or first class thanks to Virgin’s generous ANA partner award chart. Or, if you can find saver level Delta awards for nonstop international travel, you can often book through Virgin Atlantic far cheaper than with Delta directly. |
Move points to premium or ultra-premium card first
You cannot transfer points directly from a no-fee Chase Ultimate Rewards card to airline and hotel partners, but you can move points first to a premium card (Sapphire Preferred or Ink Business Preferred, for example) or ultra-premium card (Sapphire Reserve) and then transfer the points to airline or hotel partners. Points can be transferred to the loyalty accounts of the primary cardholder or any authorized user on the account. Points can also be transferred to the loyalty account of a joint business owner, but they do need to be an authorized user on the associated business account.
Other ways to redeem points
Through the Chase Travel portal, you can redeem points for cash back, gift cards, merchandise, or experiences. With this approach, you’ll usually get 1 cent per point value. One exception is that Chase occasionally offers gift cards at a discount so you may be able to get better than 1 cent per point value during a gift card sale. See how easy it is to redeem points for cash back.
You can also use points to pay some merchants directly (Amazon.com, for example, or via Chase Pay). Don’t do this. These options offer very poor value. Further, they may compromise the security of your account (i.e. if someone gets into your Amazon account, they might spend your Ultimate Rewards points – causing you a headache in getting your points reinstated).
Chase Ink Business Preferred Manage Points
Combine Points Across Cards
If you are the primary account holder with multiple cards, you can freely combine Ultimate Rewards back and forth between your accounts. Your points can then be redeemed according to the card to which you move them.
If you intend to cancel a Chase Ultimate Rewards card, you should first combine your points with a card you intend to keep active. Once you cancel, you will forfeit any unused points in that account. A product change should not affect your balance, but some people prefer moving points before a product change as well just to be safe.
Share Points Across Cardholders
Chase allows customers to transfer Ultimate Rewards points to any other account in that customer’s name or to one additional household member or joint business owner (for free).
Why this is valuable:
- You earn points with the card offering the best return on purchases and then use points with the card offering the best redemption rate.
- Only one member of your household needs to maintain a premium card for transferring to partners or booking travel (though note that the primary cardholder can only transfer points to partner loyalty programs in the name of the primary cardholder or authorized users).
Transfer difficulties? Create a loop
For example, let’s say that Joe and Suzy live in the same household and are joint owners of a business and have the following accounts:
- Chase Freedom Unlimited® (Joe)
- Chase Ink Business Cash (Joe)
- Chase Sapphire Reserve (Suzy)
Joe first combines points from his Freedom Unlimited to Suzy’s Sapphire Reserve. Later, he logs into his Ink Business Cash account and tries to combine points with Suzy’s Sapphire Reserve. Joe may run into an error adding Suzy’s Sapphire Reserve card to combine points. This has happened in our household several times. In that case, Joe should log into his Freedom Unlimited account and remove Suzy as a household member (click “remove saved card). About 24 hours later, he should be able to add Suzy to his Ink Business Cash in order to combine his points to her account.
How to Keep Points Alive
Chase Ink Business Preferred Lifecycle
How to meet minimum spend requirements
Keep, cancel, or product change?
Overall, is this card worth keeping in the long run? If you get a lot of value from the card’s 3X send categories, then it probably is worth it. Otherwise, consider product changing to the no-fee Ink Business Cash (for its 5X categories), of the no-fee Ink Business Unlimited (to earn 1.5X for all spend).
Given that it’s possible to switch to a fee-free card, there’s little reason to outright cancel this one. If you decide to cancel anyway, make sure to first redeem any remaining points or move them to another Ultimate Rewards card.
Related Cards
Ultimate Rewards Business Cards
Great signup bonus for a business card with no annual fee, now with an extended timeline for hitting the spend requirement. Great for carrying a balance. 5x earning categories, and if paired with a premier Chase credit card (one that carries an annual fee), your points are worth even more.
One of the very best business cards. A highly recommended business card for an incredible signup bonus and 3X categories.
A no-brainer, great business card. Your choice to receive 1.5% cash back or 1.5x points.
Ultimate Rewards Consumer Cards
Interesting cash back or Chase Ultimate Rewards option with no annual fee and great for carrying a balance. Earns 5% cash back or 5x points on rotating quarterly categories.
With the current offer, you'll now earn a total of 4.5x on dining (including takeout and eligible delivery services), 4.5x on drugstores, 6.5x on travel purchased through Chase Travel℠, and 3x on everything else for the first year, up to $20,000. This special offer is best for those who have a healthy amount of monthly spending on dining and general expenses.
Our #1 personal card we recommend most often. Hands down the single best "starter card" for beginners and the MVP card for free travel.
Great choice for a frequent traveler, but note the large annual fee. If you're starting out or not going to travel frequently in the coming year, you might want to instead consider the Chase Sapphire Preferred.
Note: This article was inspired by Frequent Miler – any content used with permission.
