The New Card I’m Looking Forward to Getting Most

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Ink Business Preferred℠ Credit Card

This is the latest premium card, with a big signup bonus and strong points-earning. But it’s a $95 annual fee card, not a $450 annual fee card.

It comes with an 80,000 Point Signup Bonus: Spend $5000 on your new card within 3 months and you’ll get 80,000 points. As you’ll see below, that can even be enough for a roundtrip business class award ticket between the US and Europe. (Chase points are super valuable because they transfer directly to a variety of airlines and hotels.)

And earning is strong with 3 Points Per Dollar on Travel — that’s airlines, hotels, rental cars, tolls, even Uber — and 3 Points Per Dollar on Shipping and Advertising on Social Media and Search Engines which is great for anyone who advertises on Facebook or Twitter, or who spends money advertising with Google.

Unlike earlier Ink products with bonus category earning capped at $25,000 or $50,000 in a year, the cap on this card is $150,000.

But the biggest reason I want this card is to put my next cell phone purchase on it. That’s because it comes with $600 protection against theft or damage for your cell phone.

Get up to $600 per claim in cell phone protection against covered theft or damage for you and your employees listed on your monthly cell phone bill when you pay it with your Chase Ink Business Preferred credit card. Maximum of 3 claims in a 12 month period with a $100 deductible per claim.

I got my cell phone’s cracked screen covered when I paid for it with my Chase Sapphire Preferred Card — but that was purchase protection, cracked the screen shortly after I purchased the phone.

This benefit is significant, it’s real ongoing cost savings, since I view it as replacing a monthly cost for insurance on a phone.

Points transfer to Singapore Airlines, Korean Air, Air France, United, and more.

The rub is that “5/24 limits” apply to the card. That’s not a surprise, there are cards that Chase won’t give to some people who have had 5 or more new cards within the last 24 months. This doesn’t apply to everyone, but it does apply to many.

However I do not believe that getting this card, as with other small business cards, will count towards your total number of new cards in the last 24 months. So getting it may not trade off with getting other Chase products.

Ink Business Preferred℠ Credit Card

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Editorial note: any opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any card issuer. Comments made in response to this post are not provided or commissioned nor have they been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any bank. It is not the responsibility of advertisers Citibank, Chase, American Express, Barclays, Capital One or any other advertiser to ensure that questions are answered, either. Terms and limitations apply to all offers.

Comments

  1. At the risk of harping on something I’ve already said before: Kudos to you, Gary, for not just flagging a potentially great benefit of this card but also that the Chase 5/24 rule applies (and again, I urge you to similarly flag Chase and Amex caveats). In addition to it simply being an ethical, helpful thing to do, it is in your self-interest as being a go-to place for reliable information on credit cards, since it can save folks time, effort and wasted credit pulls.

  2. I suspect you’ve already answered elsewhere, but while this card doesn’t count against 5/24, will they approve you for it if you’ve already exceeded the 5/24 limit?

  3. Not to be a Negative Nancy but the way I’m reading this is that 5/24 applies, but because it’s a business card it won’t count against 5/24 for future card applications? I’m I the only one a bit confused on this wording.

    For those of us with the predecessor Ink Bold card, I’ll stick with the 5X on office supplies, internet and mobile phone and 2X on gas and hotel and the $50K limit. The new card almost seems like a travel blogger’s dream with 3X on travel and 5X on online advertising.

    I don’t like that the cell phone protection is only available on the “new card” but I would consider any Well Fargo card which offers $600 reimbursement limited to 2 claims a year with only a $25 deductible and no annual fees.

  4. I’d plan on getting this, but when I did the math with my personal spending (and looked at my other current cards), the Sapphire Reserved made more sense. The cell phone benefit is nice, but it’s also speculative as to whether or not I would ever use it.

  5. I’d hate to trade my 5x points on my cell phone bill for 3x points to get a benefit like this. But probably for most people we aren’t talking about 7000+ points per year difference.

    Also, the deductible is awful to the point of laughable. AppleCare (which used to suck) now does screens for $29 and is built into the iPhone Upgrade Program. That *doesn’t* cover theft or less, but it does give you much better damaged-screen coverage.

    And if you want to upgrade your iPhone often, the seamless upgrades through the program are a winner.

  6. churn churn churn.

    I don’t mind you pushing credit cards, and this card really does have some appeal, but does anyone expect anyone to switch credit cards for cell phone insurance? No way.

  7. Similar cellphone protection is available on the Wells Fargo Visa card, which can also be used as overdraft protection on your WF Checking account.

    Not a reason to switch banks, but if you already have a WF account, this is a no-brainer. And I’ve used the benefit twice already…works great. Limited to $600 per year.

  8. “However I do not believe that getting this card, as with other small business cards, will count towards your total number of new cards in the last 24 months. So getting it may not trade off with getting other Chase products.” Are you sure of this? I have an ink plus card that I am counting towards my 5/24. If chase business cards do not count towards 5/24 then as of today actually I will be at 4/24. I need to be sure because if this is the case I will go for the CSR and I had always been told the opposite when it came to other chase business cards.

  9. It doesn’t count towards 5/24, but 5/24 does apply to your application.

    And as @Steve says – thank you Gary for being ethical in mentioning 5/24. There have been too many instances when you don’t mention that people will get caught by 5/24, or by the “once in a lifetime” on many Amex deals. Amex approved me for a platinum card with one of your links, charged me the $450 fee and allowed me to reach the spending threshold, and then didn’t award the bonus because I had the card five years ago.

  10. Hi Gary,

    FYI I applied and indeed they do count all credit cards against you in the last two years. No offer to reduce other credit lines. Zip.

    George

  11. @george what do you mean? You were over 5/24? By how much? Were they business or personal cards or a combination? Did you apply in branch or online? I have read a number of posts of people claiming their chase business cards did not count towards 5/24.

  12. @George I think Gary meant that if you were under 5/24 and got this card it would not push you to 5/24 if they approved the card. Since you were at 5/24 they declined. Maybe wait a few months and give it another try. He mentions 5/24 applies to this card when you apply for it.

  13. For at least a decade a few month before christmas I get a slew of CC offers offering me a year of zero interest on balance transfers. This to me is a no brainier as I transfer my current balance after doing all my holiday shopping. Some cards have zero transfer fees and zero interest for using the card for the year. I will look over all the offers then choose the best one and pay no interest for a year on the balance. If I can’t find a zero balance I will choose the cheapest and go with it. I will always have a credit card for normal use and pay it off every month so I can just keep the big balance and make payments on the other card. This has saved me at least a couple thousand in interest over the years.

  14. If you got it for the cell phone protection then you aren’t doing yourself a favor. Wells Fargo comes with a $25 deductible and there is no annual fee. So assuming you have a claim every 4 years you’d be out of pocket $95 x 4 = $380 plus $75 for a total additional expense of $455 compared to that card. Even if you had a claim every year you’d still be $170/year worse off.

Comments are closed.