Compare the Features and Benefits of Chase Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card and
Chase Ink Business Cash® Credit Card

The Chase Ink Business Preferred credit card is a staple credit card for any business owner than understands the power of Chase Ultimate Rewards, one of my favorite rewards currencies (See the feature entitled “Earns Transferable Points” above for more on why.)

The Ink Preferred has two distinctions among the Chase Ink business credit card lineup with also includes the Chase Ink Business Unlimited® and Chase Ink Business Cash®.

1) While those cards have no annual fee, they also do not have the power, on their own, to transfer points to Chase’s airline and hotel partners – and that is where you get the most value. The Chase Ink Preferred, with its small annual fee, gives it the distinction of being able to transfer the points to partners like World of Hyatt.

So, for instance, you can earn 5X on office supply stores with the Ink Cash and 1.5X on spend categories that don’t otherwise have a bonus multiplier and then combine them all to your Chase Ink Preferred. In addition to being able to transfer to air and hotel partner programs, you also have the option to simply book travel on the Chase Travel site with each point worth 1.25 cents. Comparatively, the Ink Cash and Ink Unlimited would have points worth just 1 cent there – unless you also had an Ink Preferred to combine the points to.

2) The Ink Business Preferred has the highest bonus offer of any card, with 100,000 bonus points on offer when you meet the minimum spend in the allotted time from account opening. (See current offer above in “Key Facts.”)

But beyond that, the Chase Ink Business Preferred is a super powerful credit card for small business owners that spend a lot on select business categories like travel, internet, cable, and phone services, search engines/social media and shipping purchases, where you will earn 3X Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent – up to a combined maximum of $150,000 per year. (You would earn 1 point per dollar over that limit.)

That’s some amazing earning power! If you max that out in a year, you are earning 600,000 points which we would value (at 1.75 cents a point) as worth over $10,000 in rewards value. Like I said – it’s a powerhouse of a card all on its own!

Even if you had no interest in travel and treated these points as cash back (which I certainly don’t think is the best way to use these points!), you are still earning 3% cash back on this spend.

And then there’s the benefits. This card absolutely rocks the benefits.

My favorite benefit is its included primary rental car insurance when you book for business purposes, put the entire rental cost on your Ink card and decline the rental company’s collision insurance. That means that you can decline the expensive collision insurance that your rental car company offers and, if there is damage or theft, Chase’s insurance will cover you on most rentals without involving your personal insurance. That could save you on future premiums.

Note: The list of credit cards that offer primary rental car insurance is extremely limited, so take advantage of this one.

But that’s far from the only benefit worth mentioning. Other notable card benefits include:

• Trip cancellation/interruption insurance, up to $5,000, for non-refundable passenger fares, hotels and tours.
• Up to $1,000 per incident for cell phone protection. The insurance covers you and your listed employees on the cell phone bill, when you pay your monthly cell phone bill with your Chase Ink Business card. You can make up to 3 claims per year with a $100 deductible.
• Extended warranty. For a manufacturer’s warranty of 3 years or less, Chase will add an additional year.
• Purchase Protection. Chase covers your new purchases for 120 days against damage or theft up to $10,000 per claim and $50,000 per account.
• No foreign transaction fees. Feel free to pay for goods abroad with the Chase Ink Business Preferred card and you won’t have to worry about foreign transaction fees.
• Of course, it comes with expected fraud protection and real time fraud monitoring with zero liability for you if you are a victim of fraud.

Note: You will only be approved for a Chase business credit card if you have applied for fewer than 5 personal credit cards within the last 24 months from any issuer. (Business credit cards do not count against the total, except for Capital One and Discover, but are subject to the policy).

Lastly, you will only be approved for (at most) one Chase business card every 30 days so please do not apply for two at once.

If you have applied for a Chase credit card and don’t get an instant approval, you may want to phone the Chase reconsideration line.

For most small business owners, it makes sense to have all three Chase Ink credit cards: this card, the Chase Ink Business Cash® Credit Card, the Chase Ink Preferred®, and the Chase Ink Unlimited®.

They all complement each other perfectly. Once you have a the Chase Ink Preferred®, which allows you to transfer points to Chase’s great lineup of airline and hotel partners like World of Hyatt, you will want to get the Ink Cash and Ink Unlimited to maximize your total earnings on bonus categories – since all points can be combined to your Ink Preferred.

The Ink Cash is a truly amazing card when it comes to bonus multipliers on select business categories. With 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 plus 2% cash back on the first $25,000 spent in combined purchases at gas stations and restaurants each account anniversary year, you have tremendous bonus category multipliers on a no annual fee card.

But the most important thing to know is that although this card says you are earning cash back, that is only if you don’t also have a Chase Ink Preferred®, Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, or Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card.

Either way, you are earning Chase Ultimate Rewards points. But without one of the above cards, you can only redeem your points for 1 cent per point. Once you do have a Chase Ink Preferred®, Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, or Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card in your arsenal, though, you’ll be able to move your points from your Ink Cash to any of those three cards, where you can either transfer to airline and hotel partner programs or redeem through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal where your points are worth 1.25 – 1.5 cents each, depending on which card you have. The Ink Preferred and Sapphire Preferred offer 1.25 cents a point while the much higher annual fee Sapphire Reserve gives you 1.5 cents per point when booking travel in the Ultimate Rewards portal.

Even if you don’t “combo” your Ink Cash, those 5% and 2% bonus categories are exceptionally strong for business spending on a business credit card with no annual fees. And that large signup bonus doesn’t hurt either!

Overall, the Chase Ink Cash is one of my very favorite cards. I charge my cable, internet, and phone to the card and use it often at office supply stores, which sell a wide array of goods. I also use it for gas stations and dining as I like racking up Chase Ultimate Rewards points at a 2X bonus rate.

But keep in mind that it is at its most powerful when paired with a Chase Ink Preferred®, Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, or Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card. To show you the difference, you know cash back means each point is worth a penny. But when you have it paired with one of these other cards to unlock points transfers, we value those points at 1.75 cents a piece – due to the flexibility of transfer partners and the potential redemptions those programs offer. So pairing your card boosts the rewards value, in our humble opinion, by 75%.

When using our spend calculator on this card, you’ll notice that we ask if you have a Chase Ink Preferred®, Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, or Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card and, if you do, we’ll increase the value of rewards on this card from 1 cent to 1.75 cents accordingly.

Please note: you must be under 5/24 (more on the Chase 5/24 rule) to apply for this card and you cannot apply for more than one Chase Business card in any 30 day period. You can apply for a maximum of two Chase cards within 30 days, with only, at most, 1 of them being a business card.