chase

As a multinational investment bank and financial services provider, Chase has been a major player in the lending game for centuries. In 2000, the bank merged with JP Morgan and evolved into what it is today.

While I usually endorse smaller community banks and credit unions for their flexible business loan and credit card underwriting requirements, today I want to share everything I know about the Chase Ink Business Preferred card — it’s definitely worth learning more about.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

Chase Ink Business Credit Cards Overview
- How to Upgrade an Unlimited or Cash Card to a Preferred Card
Chase Ink Business Preferred Under the Microscope
Chase Ink Business Preferred Competitor Overview
Final Thoughts

Chase Ink Business Credit Cards Overview

Chase Ink Business Preferred is one of three Ink Business Visa credit cards offered through Chase, each of which have their own set of rewards.

Chase Ink Business Unlimited – Earn unlimited 1.5% cash back and up to $750 bonus cash back.
Chase Ink Business Cash – Earn up to 5% cash back in select categories and up to $750 bonus cash back.
Chase Ink Business Preferred – Earn up to 100,000 bonus points equal to $1,000 cash back or $1,250 in travel rewards.

Chase also offers travel rewards cards for Southwest and a United travel reward card. For now, I want to share a quick side-by-side comparison of the three Ink cards before diving deeper into the Business Preferred card.

With Chase Ink Business Preferred, 1 point is equal to roughly 1 cent cash back or 1.25 cents worth of travel rewards. For businesses with higher spending, because of the higher reward caps, Preferred is the Chase Ink card to strive for.

How to Upgrade an Unlimited or Cash Card to a Preferred Card

When you meet the qualifications for a Chase Ink Preferred card, you may be able to upgrade an existing Unlimited or Cash card. Your Unlimited or Cash card must have been open and in good standing for at least a year and you will need to pay the $95 annual fee.

Furthermore, when you make a product change, you won’t be eligible for the sign on bonus for new Preferred cardholders.

To upgrade, simply call Chase using the phone number on the back of your card and ask for an account review or contact the company via the secure messaging platform inside your account dashboard.

Chase Ink Business Preferred Under the Microscope

Now, let’s take a closer look at the pros and cons of the Chase Ink Business Preferred Card. We’ll start with credit reporting, since that’s the lifeblood of what we do here at Business Credit Workshop. Then, we’ll explore more about the benefits of using a Chase Ink Preferred card and when it might be better to try other channels for business cash flow.

Does Chase Report On-Time Business Credit Card Payments to Dun & Bradstreet?

Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) is the monarch of business credit reporting agencies. While there are rumors floating around online credit forums that Chase doesn’t report to to D&B, this simply isn’t true.

The fact is that Nav — a highly reliable source — reached out to the major banks late last year to see which ones report payment activity to business credit bureaus. They found that Chase and Citi are the only big banks in the United States that report business financing payment activity to all four of the top bureaus (D&B, Equifax, Experian, and SBFE).

[Image Source: Nav]

So, on-time payments and responsible credit use on a Chase Ink Business Preferred card can help you improve or maintain your business’ PAYDEX score.

Chase Ink Business Preferred Card Benefits

Some of the perks of using a Chase Ink Preferred card are summarized above. Now, let’s explore them further.

Telephone Damage and Theft Protection

If you pay your business phone bill with a Preferred card, you will be eligible for up to $600 per claim on damage and theft for you and your employees. This is a standout feature not offered by competitors’ credit cards. You will be eligible for up to three such claims per year, which will have a $100 deductible.

Free Employee Cards

Once your account is approved, you can get employee cards at no cost. For each card, set spending limits to control your budget. All rewards will pool into the master account. This means that employee spending on a company Chase Ink Preferred card will count toward your bonuses and points.

Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver

When you rent a car and pay with your Business Preferred card, you don’t need to purchase insurance, because Chase automatically has you covered with damage protection up to the actual cash value of the vehicle. This can save you quite a bit on business travel, especially when multiple employees rent cards when traveling for business.

Trip Cancellation/Interruption Insurance

For prepaid, otherwise non-refundable travel fare, tours, and hotels, you won’t have to worry about losing your money if you need to cancel or delay a trip. When you pay for travel expenses using your Preferred card, they’re insured up to $5K per person and $10K per trip. Sickness, severe weather, and other covered reasons are covered when you need to take advantagee of this perk.

Purchase Protection and Extended Warranties

If you buy a product with your Preferred card and it is stolen or damaged within the first four months after purchase, Chase will compensate you up to $10K per claim and $50K per account. This neans that you don’t need to insure every single item that you buy, instead, hold onto your receipts (or just keep track of transactions in your online account dashboard).

Furthermore, any item that you buy with your Preferred card with a three year or less warranty, will be warrantied for an additional year. For example, if you were to purchase a computer with a two year warranty using your card, Chase would extend the warranty to three years.

Transferable Points & Rewards That Never Expire

As long as your account is open, you can redeem rewards points at any time. This means that you can save up points for years before you spend them. Furthermore, you can transfer your points at a 1:1 exchange with leading frequent flyer programs.

100K Chase points are worth around $1K and 80K Chase points are worth roughly $800 when used in the Chase Ultimate Rewards program dashboard. Be sure to find out if your points will change in value when transferred since points/miles’ value can vary between programs.

Login to your Chase Ultimate Rewards program dashboard or check with your frequent flyer program to find out for sure if your points would be transferrable — not all travel programs have a partnership with Chase.

Chase Ink Business Preferred Preferred Card Downsides

As with most business credit cards from big banks, the Chase Ink Preferred Card does come with notable fees. Your APR on spending will range between 15.99% and 20.99%. We’ve reviewed cards from credit unions and community banks, as well as alternative modern funding sources, with interest rates below 10%, but they don’t typically offer the same level of rewards as the Preferred card.

And, you will pay a $95 annual fee to maintain your account. This means that if you don’t plan to redeem your rewards, even if you pay your account in full every month to minimize interest payments, you could be out at the end of the year. However, an annual fee is typical of rewards cards in this tier. Amex, for example charges much higher annual fees than Chase.

How to Apply for a Chase Ink Preferred Card

Before you apply, you must meet Chase’s requirements for this card. In addition to a 688+ FICO score (some recommend 700 to 740 and above), there are a handful of minimums you must meet.

Less than 5 new credit cards opened in the past 24 months (Chase’s 5/24 rule)
No new Chase cards opened in the past few months
Enough income/spending power to warrant a line of credit
A credit utilization ratio below 30%

Even if your credit is excellent and you meet all of the above requirements, there is not a guarantee you’ll be approved. But, if you can show these characteristics, your business is likely to appear less risky to the underwriters. And, you may up the odds if you have a Chase business checking account in good standing. If you’d still like to proceed, you can visit this page and sign in to apply or apply as a guest. If you’ve received an invitation to apply, visit getchaseink.com.

Chase Ink Business Preferred Competitor Overview

The Chase Ink Business Preferred credit card, of course, has some competition in the marketplace. Amex Platinum and Capital One Spark are often considered by medium to high-earning small businesses looking for this type of rewards on spending. And, one of the alternatives might be a better fit for your situation.

So, let’s look at a summary of Chase Ink Preferred, Amex Platinum, and Capital One Spark next to one another to see the differences.

Chase Ink Preferred vs Amex Platinum vs CapitalOne Spark

In addition to what’s listed above, none of these cards have foreign tansaction fees. They provide various trip cancellation and delay insurance and reimbursement. And, they all have

The Amex Platinum card certainly comes with the most benefits, but there’s a trade-off with the $550 annual fee, more than five times that of its competitors. If you only take advantage of the Fine Hotels & Resorts Perks,™ that cost will be covered.

Final Thoughts

The Chase Ink Business Preferred card is acclaimed as one of the best small business credit cards, likely because of the huge sign on bonus. While you won’t get 0% APR and you will pay an annual fee, there’s still a lot of potential for savings and rewards here. If you think you business can meet the qualifications, I say go ahead and apply.

And, if you still need to learn how to build business credit and you want to learn to obtain $100K in business credit, join Business Credit Workshop today.

My name is Spencer Mecham and I’m a full-time entrepreneur and business owner. In 2017 my business went in a single year from a random side-hustle for some extra money to a 7-figure real business. The kind that employs people and uses accountants.

I recently watched a movie about the 2008 recession in the United States. One of the major factors that threatened to kill the entire U.S. economy was a lack of credit for businesses. In the movie there is a scene where the CEO of General Electric is on the phone and says that he can’t get access revolving credit to fund the day-to-day operations of his company.

The movie details what could happen if credit becomes hard or impossible to get and the picture isn’t good. Most major companies grind to a halt.

This isn’t because the companies are using dangerous amounts of debt or are in bad shape. It’s just become the nature of the world economy. Businesses need and use credit on a daily basis to fund various operations.

I learned this first hand last year when my company suddenly started to see explosive growth.

I started out like lots of entrepreneurs. I discovered the world of entrepreneurship while still in college, found something I liked doing, and started to try it as a side-hustle. My side hustle was called affiliate marketing. I loved doing it, despite making almost no money my first two years. In the back of my head I always figured I’d eventually succeed, but didn’t really think through the details of when or how.

Then one day I did.

I found something that worked, and worked incredibly well. It was an affiliate program and I was running ads to it. My ads were wildly profitable for the amount I was spending. The only problem was credit. While my ads were profitable, the program had a 45 day payout. This meant I couldn’t actually access the money for 45 days.

I knew the money was coming (pending some disaster) but that didn’t help anything. I had this fear that others would discover the opportunity I had found before I ever had a chance to capitalize on it. This fear was exacerbated by the 45 day payout period. I needed to be able to fund what I was doing for 45 days at least, and then probably beyond that if I wanted to scale quickly.

There was little risk in getting access to the credit. The money was already due to me from a reputable company, I just needed to get it sooner.

As soon as I realized the position I was in I walked into a Chase bank and applied for the Chase Inc Preferred credit card. To this day it is my favorite credit card. Chase gave me a $35,000 limit on the card and it took less than a week to get approved and have the card in my hands.

To be honest I’m still in disbelief they did that. My company was brand new with very little in terms of proven results. I personally had good credit, but none of my personal credit cards came close to offering me $35,000.

For the first month after that I spent nearly $30,000 on ads on that credit card. Those ads were able to generate much bigger profits that would come to fruition in 45 days. As soon as my first payment from the program came in I was able to pay the credit card and get access to a little more credit.

Long story short for about 3 months my business was a revolving door. I spent nearly $100,000 on ads that have brought me nearly $300,000 in earnings at this point. I was able to use credit to explode my growth and keep my first-mover advantage long enough to get my business running smoothly and profitably.

I learned some valuable lessons in the process about keeping a good line of credit on hand. If I hadn’t been able to get access to the money when the opportunity came up my growth would have been dramatically limited. Others could have seen what I was doing long before I could scale to the levels I wanted to be at.

Even better, Chase gave me 3x points for every dollar in adspend, leaving me with nearly 1.2 million rewards points to spend on travel. That’s nearly $15,000 in free travel when booked through Chase. It allowed me to take my wife to Iceland for free. And because I was quick to pay off the credit and still am, I have spent little to nothing on interest charges.

I now highly recommend to every business I talk to to have credit available. Whether they use it or not, it never hurts to have it ready. When an opportunity comes that is virtually a guaranteed profitable venture, you don’t want to be stuck without the funds while the opportunity passes you by.

Chase Ink Business Preferred Credit Card: A Deep Dive Analysis