Chase INK Bold Business Card

Today, I received my new Chase INK Bold Business card. This card is the business counterpart to the Sapphire Preferred in that it also uses the Ultimate Rewards program. In addition to that great pool of points, there are some other very nice aspects of the card.

I had applied for the Chase INK Bold card just before the minimum spending requirements jumped up, so I need to spend $5,000 in 3 months to receive the 50,000 point bonus. I applied for the card and, after not hearing anything for a week, picked up the phone to call Chase. The lady was very polite and professional and, after asking me some questions about my personal finances as well as the organization’s finances and financial needs, told me that she would be able to approve me. However, for her to approve me, she wondered if I wanted this card in addition to my Southwest Business card or instead of. This is one of the reasons that you never close your accounts with Chase unless you absolutely have to – it gives you more to play with in terms of credit lines and open accounts. I told her it would be fine if she just transferred the credit over from the Southwest business card and closed that one out. So, instead of canceling, I was pretty much upgrading the card (even though it was a different product) and now I did not have to call in 8 months and try to cancel the Southwest card. It worked out very well!

So, here are some of the things that I am really looking forward to taking advantage of with this card:

• 5x points per dollar spent at office supply stores, and cable, internet, landline, and wireless bills (up to the first $50,000 per year)
• 2x points per dollar spent on gas and hotel accommodations (up to the first $50,000 per year)
• 1 point per dollar spent on everything else with no limit on the points that can be earned
• The annual fee ($95) is waived for the first year
• Ability to add employee cards with different numbers to protect the account and provide for easy sorting of transactions
• No foreign transaction fee (typically 3%)

So this is a pretty good card! Keep in mind, it is a charge card, not a credit card, so the balance needs to be paid off in full every month. There are many great ways to make this card work for you the best. Office supply stores typically sell gift cards to a variety of places, so if you have other places you would like to shop instead of at those stores (or if they do not have the products you need), purchase a gift card to take advantage of the 5x points per dollar. Do not do this at high amounts as you do not  want to risk Chase shutting you down for using this excessively. However, in moderate amounts should be fine.

So, let’s look at the possible points that could be earned with this card per year. These numbers are based on averages for a small business such as a person selling on ebay (and are monthly amounts).

• Cable, internet, phone bundle – $120
• Cell phone bills – $250
• Gas – $300
• Hotel – $100
• Misc. – $500

If you were to purchase gas station gift cards at your office supply store, you would be able to get a total of over 48,000 Ultimate Reward points per year. That is just shy of two tickets any place in America (if transferred to United) or 2 nights at the most expensive Hyatts in the world (and still having 4,000 left over). See what a nice card this is? 🙂

Now, the current sign-up bonus (which is here) is for 25,000 bonus points after first purchase and an additional 25,000 after spending $10,000 in 3 months. This has changed from spending $5,000 in 3 months to get all 50,000. Is this a bad thing? It can be for someone who would like to get all 50,000 but can’t swing the $10K of spending in 3 months. However, it makes for a great card to get in the midst of applying for other cards with high spending thresholds since you get 25,000 points after your first purchase. If it doesn’t bother you to see the other 25,000 not make it to you (because you can’t spend $10K in 3 months), then this new promotion works out great for you. I still think this is a fabulous card to get. The Chase INK Bold is currently one of my top cards! *I do NOT receive any commission for the link above*