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Chase Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card
Chase has a great landscape of credit cards, but if you’re a small business owner like me, the Chase Ink Business Unlimited® is fantastic card to consider picking up to maximize the points you earn on all of your business expenses since it earns an unlimited 1.5x on all purchases. Let’s take a look at the card and why it could a good addition to your wallet.
Chase Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card Benefits:
- The bonus is $750 after $6000 spend in the 3 months after account opening
- $750 can be redeemed for travel through Chase Travel(SM)
- However, remember if you hold any card that earns premium Ultimate Rewards you can convert ( best value )
- 1.5x everywhere
- No Annual fee
Chase Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card welcome offer.
Technically the Ink Business Unlimited is a cash back credit card; however, if you carry one of Chase’s premium Ultimate Reward earning cards ( Chase Sapphire Reserve®, Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, or Chase Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card), you can simply combine your rewards into the premium account and then transfer them into Chase’s travel partners.
This is what we consistently do to either stay in super expensive hotels, or fly in high end cabins like Emirates First Class Game Changer
Earn Rate: 1.5x on every single thing you purchase.
This is simplifies your life. There are so many category bonuses, and instead of trying to keep each an every one of them straight, you can rest assured you’re earning 1.5x on each purchase you make. Perhaps your business spends a lot of travel, but also inventory purchases that don’t qualify for bonuses on any card. You could levy your travel spend on the Ink Business Preferred, and everything else on the Ink Business Unlimited. This would not only earn you 3x on travel and 1.5x on everything else, but would allow you to combine your points into the Ink Business Preferred account, and then transfer them to partners for aspirational travel.
No Annual Fee
Simply put. No annual fee. As long as you have this card, you won’t be forking any money over to keep it.
Make your Ultimate Rewards more valuable: Pair it with a premium Chase card
When you pair your Chase Ink Business Unlimited with a card that earns transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve®, Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, or Chase Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card you can combine the points into that account to make them more valuable:
Increase the value for Chase Travel Redemptions
If you carry a Chase Sapphire Reserve you can transfer from the Ink Business Unlimited® to the Reserve 1:1 and then can be redeemed for 1.5 cents a point in Chase Travel(SM) meaning you’ve increased the value of your points by 50% just by transferring. This effectively means that card earns 2.25 cents back per dollar spent.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card/Chase Ink Business Preferred®
When you transfer from The Chase Ink Business Unlimited® into either of these cards your points are able to be redeemed at 1.25 cents per point in Chase Travel(SM). That’s a 25% increased in value, and you’re effectively earning: 1.5×1.25 = 1.875 cents towards redemptions in Chase Travel.
They can be transferred into partner programs.
When you combine points into an account that earns transferrable points, they are magically converted and you can now enjoy transfer partners.
For instance, if you had 90k Chase Ink Business Unlimited® Ultimate Rewards and combined them with 10k Chase Sapphire Preferred® Ultimate Rewards, you’d have 100k Ultimate Rewards that could be redeemed for $1250 in the Chase Travel Portal, or transferred into travel partners. Pretty awesome!
I don’t have a small business, Miles. You may, and not know it. Keep reading.
Chase is very friendly to entrepreneurs and small business owners. In fact, if you haven’t been in business for long, or you haven’t established yourself with an EIN, you can still apply as a Sole Proprietor ( fill in your SSN ).
Who qualifies?
- Online Coaches, tutors, etc
- Uber and Lyft drivers (assuming they still get 1099s whenever you’re reading this).
- DoorDash, GrubHub and Postmates
- Social Media income ( TikTok, Instagram, YouTube )
- Cater Waiters
- Personal Trainers
- Dog Walkers
- Freelance graphic designers and web designers
- Singers, artists, dancers, models, etc
- Virtual Assistants
- Ebay, Amazon and Facebook resellers
If you run a small side business and want a card to segregate your business income from your personal income at tax time…this is a great opportunity to earn a load of points and help yourself out. Personally, I have 3 businesses that I run, two have an EINs, and one doesn’t. I still need to keep all of their records separate, and so I have cards for each business.
If you want more information on this, read our full small business guide here
Is the Chase Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card restricted by 5/24
Yes. Every single card that earns Ultimate Rewards ( or cash back that can be converted into UR) is restricted by 5/24. However, Chase business cards don’t add to your number.
What are some great uses of Ultimate Rewards?
You can find an extensive list of the best uses of Chase Ultimate Rewards here, but let’s peruse a few aspirational travel redemptions:
Air France/KLM FlyinBlue
I’ve redeemed FlyingBlue multiple times for international business class – rates range from 55k to 77k each way depending on the route
Emirates – 102k from New York to Milan on the A380 or Newark to Athens on the 777
Another cool option would be to redeem 102k to fly Emirates first on many routes around the world. I know…it’s a few more, but I think it’s worth mentioning.
Virgin Atlantic
I’ve flown Virgin Upper Class many times for 47.5k Virgin miles + $800 in fees. While you’ll pay a hefty sum in taxes and fees, availability is great.
United
You could redeem 60k United miles for a one way business class flight from the US to Europe
Overall
This is a no brainer to add to your wallet if you qualify for a small business credit card, which most of you do.
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