Compare the Features and Benefits of Chase Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card and
Chase Sapphire Reserve®

If you are a small business owner, I strongly recommend that you carry all three Chase Ink credit cards: the Chase Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card (this card!), the Chase Ink Business Preferred®, and the Chase Ink Business Cash®.

They all work together as what we refer to as a Chase business credit card “Trifecta.” The Chase Ink Preferred® allows you to transfer points to Chase’s Ultimate Rewards airline and hotel partners like United, Hyatt, and British Airways.

But then it makes sense to also get the Ink Business Cash credit card and Chase Ink Business Unlimited credit card to maximize your total earnings on bonus categories – since all points can be combined to your Ink Preferred.

Here, with the Chase Ink Business Unlimited credit card, it is your “default” card for your business spend. What I mean by that is that if the purchase you are making isn’t in a bonus category on your other cards, you would put the charge on the Ink Unlimited for 1.5X Ultimate Rewards points. This way you are never, ever getting less than 1.5% back on your business purchases.

There is no limit to how many Ultimate Rewards points you can earn on the Chase Ink Business Unlimited credit card, all at the 1.5X multiplier.

However, it is very important to know is that although this card states that you are earning cash back, that is only if you don’t also have a Chase Ink Preferred®, Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, or Sapphire Reserve® Card.

Yes, you are earning Chase Ultimate Rewards points with the Chase Ink Business Unlimited credit card.

But without one of the above credit cards, your only redemption option is to cash out your points for 1 cent per point, meaning that, on its own, it’s a cash back card and the points have an actual cash value of 1 cent each.

Assuming you do have an Ink Preferred®, Sapphire Preferred® Card, or Sapphire Reserve® Card in your wallet, however, you’ll be able to move your points from your Ink Business Unlimited card to any of those other 3 cards, where you will be able to transfer to airline and hotel partner programs like United and Hyatt – or redeem for travel via the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal where your points are worth either 1.25 or 1.5 cents each, depending on which card you have.

The Ink Preferred and Sapphire Preferred offer 1.25 cents a point while the Sapphire Reserve (with its $550 annual fee) gives you 1.5 cents per point when booking travel in the Ultimate Rewards portal.

The bottom line is that the Chase Ink Unlimited is simply a staple in the Chase Ink family of business credit cards. It backs up the Preferred and Cash with that 1.5% “floor” on rewards – and all with no annual fee.

When using our bonus spend calculator on this card, you’ll notice we ask you if you also have a Chase Ink Preferred®, Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, or Sapphire Reserve® Card. That’s because, if you do, we’ll increase the value of rewards on this card from 1 cent to 1.75 cents accordingly accounting for the ability to utilize Chase’s point transfer partners.

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 Chase Ink business card (or any Chase business card).

This card is also mentioned in the article Business Credit Cards That Don’t Report to Personal Credit Bureaus.

The Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card is the one that, in a sense, started it all. While rewards cards have been around for decades, The Chase Sapphire Reserve quickly became a must-have upon its launch in 2016. With a huge bonus offer, the Priority Pass airport lounge access, the easy to use $300 travel credits, and 3X Chase Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent on all dining and travel made it an easy sell.

Today, it remains one of the strongest travel credit cards on the market, even if other cards like the newer Capital One Venture X and The Platinum Card® from American Express both get solid market share.

The beauty of the Chase Sapphire Reserve lies in its simplicity.

The $300 annual travel credit works itself off without you even noticing, since travel purchases are automatically applied. With the Venture X, for instance, you also get a $300 annual travel credit but can only use it in the Capital One portal.

Then the Chase Sapphire Reserve is just plain “easy” when it comes to earning, knowing that just about every possible travel or dining purchase (including eligible delivery services) will earn 3X Chase Ultimate Rewards points.

And to that end, with a MilesTalk value of 1.75 cents per point when used via transfer partners like World of Hyatt or for First and Business Class airfare via its many airline partners, you know you’ll get value for those points you earn. In fact, your travel and dining purchases (earning 3X points) have a minimum return on spend value of 4.5% (if you redeem through Chase Travel at 1.5 cents each or an average redemption yield of around 5.25% (3X * 1.75) when you use the Ultimate Rewards airline and hotel partners.

The card is also full of the most important benefits, namely the Priority Pass select membership for airport lounge access for you and 2 guests, including Priority Pass experiences (but not airport restaurants) as well as primary collision/damage coverage on car rentals (except for New York State residents with their own car insurance in which case this coverage is secondary) and trip delay coverage that kicks in after just a 6 hour delay as well as lost luggage insurance. And then there are the somewhat smaller but still valuable perks like your Global Entry fee reimbursement and 10x total points on hotels and car rentals purchased through Chase Travel(SM) and Chase dining purchases.

And of course, there’s that huge bonus when you spend $4,000 on purchases in your first 3 months from account opening….

So yes, it does have a high annual fee, but after the $300 travel credit, it’s effectively just $250 which the card gives you back via it’s earn rate, redemption rate (1.5 cents per point at Chase Travel) and rich benefits.