We may receive a commission when you use our links. Monkey Miles is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com and CardRatings. This relationship may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers. Monkey Miles is also a Senior Advisor to Bilt Rewards. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Personally, I think it’s a matter of when, not if, we ultimately see the release of an Ink Business Reserve card from Chase. It would complete their business suite of cards to mimic their personal card options and create a head to head competitor with the Amex Business Platinum. I wrote yesterday about Chase’s Quadfecta which includes mixing personal and business cards, but if they completed their business card suite – your business could have a pretty fierce quad card stance in and of itself.
Chase’s Personal card offerings
- Chase Freedom
- Chase Freedom Unlimited
- Chase Sapphire Preferred
- Chase Sapphire Reserve
Chase’s complementary business card offerings
- Chase Ink Business Cash
- Chase Ink Business Unlimited
- Chase Ink Business Preferred
- ?
They’ve consistently rolled out and modified existing cards ( Ink Plus, Bold, etc ) to mirror their personal cards so it only makes sense that they’ve eventually roll out a true flagship business card.
Chase lost Korean as a transfer partner and recently, we’ve learned two large pieces of premium credit card news
- The new Amex Gold card is a beast and is the most compelling card of 2018
- The flagship Citi Prestige will be re-introduced in 2019 with 5x dining, 5x airline + several other bennies and a limitation on 4th night free
Losing Korean was a big deal – it was a highly reliable way to lock biz and first class seats to Asia at great rates. That’s gone, and those two new cards have better earn rates than the Reserve on some pretty key categories.
As a result there has been a momentum shift
Maybe it’s just my opinion, but the position that Chase and its Ultimate Rewards program is finishing 2018 is quite different than where it started. I still highly value the program and continue to put quite a bit of spend through their cards, BUT I’ve shifted all dining to my Gold card and even started putting more and more flight purchases on my newly acquired Amex Personal Plat ( Mercedes til January ) because it gives me 5x points.
If anything, I’d guess I’ve read more positive news regarding Amex than I have Chase this year.
I also downgraded the Reserve because I felt the value wasn’t there for me while also holding a Prestige, Amex personal Plat, and Amex Biz Plat. Add in the limitation of getting a sign up bonus to 48 months, and restricting the ability to hold both a Sapphire Preferred and Reserve at the same time and the program has had more negative headlines than positive.
Enter. Chase Ink Business Reserve 80k-100k offer with enriched benefits
Nothing changes the conversation like a new product, new benefits + rich earn categories ( that can easily be devalued later ), to not only complete the product portfolio they are seemingly building, but also re-shape the narrative on their program and positive press.
The Ink Business Preferred has maintained an 80k sign up bonus since its inception. I’d think The Reserve would offer at least this, if not match what it’s personal version debuted at, and also what Amex offered for their Biz Plat for a large portion of this year: 100K.
Whether it’s by year end is a big if, but I’d put money seeing it released before the 1st quarter of ’19 is over.
I have no “inside” information on this. It’s purely speculation, and I’m just prognosticating based off what I’d be advising if I were sitting in the meetings.
Chase now has a lot more information on what Citi is doing with their Prestige, a new product offering with the Gold card (who knows they may alter their Sapphire Preferred earn categories to match), and can attack the market appropriately.
Chase has also invested an enormous amount of money not just into the Ultimate Rewards brand, but the Reserve brand. They’ve lost 100s of millions on the personal Reserve, and right now the Amex Gold card is being described as the Reserve killer. What better way to reshape the narrative than to release another insanely rich card which bares the Reserve name, but this time targets the heaviest of spenders: businesses.
What do you think? Will we see it? By year’s end? Next year? Am I crazy?
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 60k points after $4k spend in 3 months
- Worth $750 in Chase Travel℠ and way more if you maximize transfer partners
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2024
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.