As a freelance writer, my needs as a business owner may be different from a big company, but I still get a lot of value out of having business credit cards -- especially the Ink Business Cash®️ Credit Card.
In addition to the benefits it offers on its own, the card lets me pool my rewards with my main spending cards for personal expenses, the Chase Sapphire Reserve® and Chase Freedom Unlimited®. I find Chase credit cards to be among the best rewards credit cards available.
The Ink Business Cash Card doesn’t charge an annual fee, and it’s easy to maximize its value. This is one credit card I can heartily recommend to small-business owners and self-employed people who want to boost their rewards on business spending and bills.
The Ink Business Card, at a glance
- Intro Offer
-
Earn up to $750 bonus cash back Earn $350 when you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first three months and an additional $400 when you spend $6,000 on purchases in the first six months after account opening.
- Annual fee
- $0
- APR
- 18.49% – 24.49% Variable
- Recommended Credit A credit score is used to indicate an applicant’s credit worthiness and may provide guidance about account eligibility. It does not necessarily guarantee approval for any financial product.
-
670 – 850
Good – Excellent
- Rewards rate
-
1% – 5% Earn 5% cash back on the first $25,000 spent in combined purchases at office supply stores and on internet, cable and phone services each account anniversary year; Earn 2% cash back on the first $25,000 spent in combined purchases at gas stations and restaurants each account anniversary year; Earn 1% cash back on all other card purchases with no limit to the amount you can earn
Why I chose the Ink Business Cash
While I chose the Ink Business Cash for several reasons, the driving force behind my application was the card’s generous welcome bonus.
New cardholders can earn $350 bonus cash back after spending $3,000 on purchases in the first three months from account opening and an additional $400 when you spend $6,000 on purchases in the first six months after account opening.
I also liked the fact that the Ink Business Cash doesn’t charge an annual fee. I wasn’t sure how often I would use the card, and I prefer cards I can keep around without worrying about being charged each year.
On top of that, I loved that the Ink Business Cash lets you earn points you can pool with other Chase cards. I am a huge fan of Chase Ultimate Rewards points and I have other travel credit cards from Chase that feature premium travel redemptions.
Ultimately, I move the points earned with my Ink Business Cash to my Chase Sapphire Reserve account before I redeem them.
By doing so I can unlock the option to transfer points to Chase’s airline and hotel partners. Not only that, but the Chase Sapphire Reserve offers 50% more value for points when redeeming them for travel through the Chase Travel portal.
Note that you don’t have to have the Chase Sapphire Reserve specifically to transfer your points to travel partners. The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card both give you access to the same travel partners and the ability to pool your points from other eligible Ultimate Rewards-earning cards.
How to maximize the Ink Business Cash
Now that I’ve had the Ink Business Cash for several years, I’ve gotten into the habit of using it for certain business purchases. Here’s a rundown of how I use this card to maximize rewards, as well as some specifics on how you could do the same.
Maximizing the reward categories
While I don’t spend much on gas for my business, I use this card to maximize rewards at office supply stores all the time. I buy a new computer every few years, and I frequently stock up on supplies like printer paper, printer cartridges, charging ports and more.
We just bought my husband a new office chair at Staples as well, and we charged the purchase to this card to earn 5% cash back. These are just some of the ways I’ve used this card to maximize rewards over time.
Pooling my points onto a premium card
One thing I love about having multiple Chase credit cards is that I can pool all my points in my Chase Sapphire Reserve account before I redeem them. The value of having this option cannot be overstated.
I frequently use Chase points to book airfares, hotels and excursions through the Chase portal, and getting 50% more value for my rewards through the Reserve’s redemption bonus is an excellent way to maximize points.
I also frequently transfer Chase points to my favorite travel partners, including Air France/KLM Flying Blue, Southwest Rapid Rewards, United MileagePlus and World of Hyatt. These transfers often let me get more than 2 cents per point in value for redemptions, and sometimes a lot more.
For example, I recently redeemed 65,000 Flying Blue miles (plus around $400 in taxes and fees) transferred from Chase for two business-class flights for me and my husband from Chicago to Berlin via Air France. Then I used 12,000 World of Hyatt points transferred from Chase for a one-night stay at the Grand Hyatt Berlin.
From there, we hopped a train to Hamburg so we could board our cruise to Norway. For our overnight stay in Hamburg, I redeemed 16,300 Chase Ultimate Rewards points through the Chase portal for a stay at the Holiday Inn Hamburg Hafencity, an IHG Hotel.
In total, I paid 93,300 points, which would’ve been worth $930 if I’d redeemed them for direct cash back, for these bookings. By taking advantage of travel partners, I was able to use my points to book a vacation that would’ve cost several thousand dollars if paid in cash.
The bottom line: Having the option to pool points lets me piece together some pretty nice trips that I couldn’t quite pull off with only cash-back rewards to spend.
Card perks and benefits
The Ink Business Cash also comes with some notable cardholder benefits, including an introductory 0% APR on purchases for 12 months (then 18.49% to 24.49% variable), free employee cards, primary auto rental collision damage waiver when renting a car for business purposes, travel and emergency assistance services, and roadside dispatch.
The two benefits I take advantage of the most are purchase protection and extended warranties. I tend to buy important business equipment with this card, and both perks protect my purchases and help me get money back if something goes wrong.
The purchase protection that comes with this card covers both damage and theft for 120 days from purchase with a maximum benefit of up to $10,000 per claim and up to $50,000 per account. Meanwhile, extended warranty protection adds another year of warranty coverage to items that come with a manufacturer’s warranty of three years or less.
A final way the Ink Business Cash helps me as a small business owner
While earning rewards and accessing cardholder perks is wonderful, there’s another reason I use the Ink Business Cash and other business credit cards for all my business spending and bills. Having a dedicated business credit card makes it much easier to keep personal and business separate for tax purposes, and it also helps me track my business spending in real time and all in one place.
Having a business credit card also helps me avoid having to reimburse myself for business purchases paid through other means, including my personal credit cards. If I buy a new computer or stock up on printer paper with my Ink Business Cash, for example, I can pay my credit card bill directly from my business checking account.
The Ink Business Cash also lets me integrate my account with bookkeeping software to make accounting even easier. This has been a huge help since my husband and I take care of daily bookkeeping on our own. Our accounting software creates reports we can send directly to our accountant throughout the year and when we file our taxes.
When should you not use the Ink Business card?
While there’s so much I love about the Ink Business Cash Credit Card, this business credit card does charge foreign transaction fees. This makes it a poor business card option for people who travel internationally, which my husband and I do fairly often.
If you want a business credit card from Chase that doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees, it could make sense to look into the Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card from Chase instead.
Not only does this business credit card come free of foreign transaction fees, it also offers bonus points in a range of business spending categories. It even lets users transfer their points to Chase airline and hotel partners without first moving the points to another card.
The bottom line
There’s a lot to like about the Ink Business Cash Credit Card, especially for new cardholders. After all, this business credit card comes with a generous welcome offer, plus 0% introductory APR on purchases for 12 months (followed by a variable APR of 18.49% to 24.49%). And since there’s no annual fee, you never have to wonder if it’s worth keeping after the first year.
On a personal level, I plan to keep my Ink Business Cash indefinitely -- even though I only use it for part of our business spending each month. With no annual fees to track, generous rewards for spending and protections on important items I buy, there’s no reason not to.
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