Today there are newly increased offers on two of the best business credit cards on the market. After years of only offering 50K bonuses, you can now earn 75,000 Ultimate Rewards points after minimum purchases with a new Chase Ink Business Cash credit card or Chase Ink Business Unlimited credit card. Either bonus is a fantastic deal given the huge value of Ultimate Rewards and excellent earning structure of either card.
The Offers & Key Card Details
For more information and to find application links, click the card names below to go to our dedicated Frequent Miler card pages.
| Card Offer and Details |
|---|
Up to 75K points ⓘ Affiliate 35K after $3K spend in 3 months and an additional 40K points after $6K spend in 6 months. In addition, 10% Business Relationship bonus if you have the Ink Business Cash and a Chase Business Checking account on your first anniversary.No Annual Fee Alternate Offer: If you have a household member with an Ink card, you may prefer the referral offer whereby the referrer can earn 40,000 points and the new account holder can earn 75,000 points after $6,000 in purchases in the first 3 months since it will yield more total points. Recent better offer: 90K after $6K spend in 6 monthd (expired 1/17/24 FM Mini Review: This one should be in everyone's wallet. Incredible welcome bonus for a no-annual-fee card. Great card for 5X categories. Excellent companion card to Sapphire Reserve, Sapphire Preferred, or Ink Business Preferred. Click here for our complete card review Earning rate: 5X office supplies and cellular/landline/cable (on up to $25,000 in total purchases in 5x categories annually) ✦ 2X on the first $25K in combined purchases at gas stations and restaurants each cardmember year ✦ 5X Lyft through March 2025 Card Info: Visa Signature Business issued by Chase. This card imposes foreign transaction fees. See also: Chase Ultimate Rewards Complete Guide |
| Card Offer and Details |
|---|
75K points ⓘ Affiliate 75K after $6K spend in 3 monthsNo Annual Fee Alternate Offer: You may be able to get an offer of 120,000 points after $6,000 in purchases via a Business Relationship Manager. Recent better offer: 90K after $6K spend in 6 monthd (expired 1/17/24) FM Mini Review: Great welcome bonus for a fee-free card. Good option for earning 1.5X everywhere. Good companion card to Ink Business Preferred, Sapphire Reserve or Sapphire Preferred. Click here for our complete card review Earning rate: 1.5X on all purchases ✦ 5X Lyft through through March 2025 Card Info: Visa Signature Business issued by Chase. This card imposes foreign transaction fees. See also: Chase Ultimate Rewards Complete Guide |
Quick Thoughts
Both of these cards are excellent ones to have and hold, particularly if you like the Chase Ultimate Rewards ecosystem. While these are marketed as “cash back” cards (and the bonuses are thus advertised as “$750 cash back”), both the initial bonuses and ongoing rewards are earned in the form of Chase Ultimate Rewards points. You’ll need a “premium” or “ultra-premium” Chase card (like the Ink Business Preferred, Sapphire Preferred, or Sapphire Reserve) in order to transfer to partners, but you can easily combine points among your own cards or with one person in your household or co-owner of your business. That means you could also take advantage of being able to use points at a higher value, like 1.5c each via the Chase Sapphire Reserve (either to book travel through the Chase portal or for the awesome Pay Yourself Back feature). That could make the 75K introductory bonus on either of these cards worth as much $1,125 for those with the Sapphire Reserve.
Of course, the points could be even more valuable if leveraged with the right Chase transfer partners. Given that you’d have at least 80,000 points after meeting minimum purchases, you could get to most regions of the world in business class one-way (perhaps even round trip to Europe — maybe even for two or more passengers if we see a promotion like this again and you’re able to combine it with a transfer bonus). To be clear, you likely won’t earn the bonus on one of these cards before that transfer bonus ends, but the point is that these points can have a ton of value in the right circumstances.
And that is before considering that either of these cards are worth having and holding long-term for ongoing spend.
Given that the Chase Ink Cash card offers 5x at office supply stores and on wireless and Internet services (on up to $25K in purchases per year), it has been a long-favored card for me. I’ve also decided to start going after 5x on my cell phone bill rather than opting for a card with credit card insurance.
The Chase Ink Business Unlimited used to be the best Ultimate Rewards card for “everywhere else” spend given that it earns 1.5 points per dollar everywhere. These days, given that the Chase Freedom Unlimited has picked up some additional bonus categories, the Chase Ink Business Unlimited isn’t quite the no-brainer everywhere else card anymore, though at the same time it provides the same excellent return on unbonused spend, so it is still well worth considering (particularly if you have the Freedom Flex, which already has the Freedom Unlimited’s bonus categories)
Both the Chase Ink Cash and Chase Ink Business Unlimited are of course business cards. Chase had really tightened up on business card approvals this spring and summer, but anecdotally at least they seem to be easing up a bit. Historically, these cards have been easier to acquire than the Ink Business Preferred given that they can be approved with lesser credit limits.
More:
You must have a business (but you probably do): In order to apply for a business credit card, you must have a business. That said, it's common for people to have businesses without realizing it. If you sell items at a yard sale or on eBay, for example, then you have a business. Similar examples include: consulting, writing (e.g. blog authorship, planning your first novel, etc.), handyman services, owning rental property, renting on airbnb, driving for Uber or Lyft, etc. In any of these cases, your business is considered a Sole Proprietorship unless you form a corporation of some sort.When you apply for a business credit card as a sole proprietor, you can use your own name as your business name, use your own address and phone as the business' address and phone, and your social security number as the business' Tax ID / EIN. Alternatively, you can get a proper Tax ID / EIN from the IRS for free, in about a minute, through this website.
Is it OK to use business cards for personal expenses? Anecdotally, almost everyone I know uses business cards for personal expenses. That said, the terms in most business card applications state that you should use the card only for business use. Also, some consumer credit card protections do not apply to business cards. My advice: don't use the card for personal expenses if you're not comfortable doing so.
Of course, you’ll still need to be under 5/24 in order to be approved. The good news is that Chase business cards don’t add to your 5/24 count, so these won’t push you farther from being able to acquire other Chase cards (though I wouldn’t advise applying for multiple in close succession in the current environment).
To determine your 5/24 status, see: Easy Ways to Count Your 5/24 Status. The easiest option is to track all of your cards for free with Travel Freely.
Overall, these cards are well worth it for those qualified: the bonuses and ongoing earning structures are fantastic for cards with no annual fee. In my memory, we’ve never seen an offer this high on either card, so this is probably the time to strike on these if you can.
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Been denied 3 times in last 6 months trying to get CIC. Most recently was 2 weeks ago. Automatically denied despite long history with Chase personal cards, 3/24, 800+ credit score and rental property business with $175,000 income. What am I doing wrong?
Applying too much would be my first impression. If you get denied, a good rule of thumb is to wait about 6 months before you apply again. Three times in 6 months was probably not going to work. Did you call reconsideration and talk to a human being? I might bet that the system is set up to automatically decline if you were recently declined, but maybe a person could overturn the decision. Do you have any other Chase business cards? If you do, it might be as simple as calling the reconsideration line and offering to reallocate some of your credit from another existing business card. Sometimes explaining that you don’t need new credit but are just hoping to get the card open with the benefits and that you are willing to shift limits around can get it approved. Note that you can’t do this from personal to business, it has to be a business card to a business card. And that it’s YMMV with the recon dept. Do be prepared to answer questions about your business though as Chase business recon agents are known to ask a lot of questions sometimes.
Thanks, Nick. I was under the impression waiting 60 days was long enough. I don’t have any Chase biz cards. I thought about calling the recon line, but probably will just wait 6 months now. The increased SUB would be nice, but really just want it for the 5X categories.
DP, Ink Cash LLC Instant Approval
2nd business with chase (2 years history on that, and 5 yrs history with personal cards)
category: Nonretail toys, hobby store
business history: 2 years
30,000 income
3k credit limit. Hopefully, it will auto raise after a month
Thanks for the link guys!
[…] for a moment consider the awesome 75K bonuses available on the Chase Ink Cash and Chase Ink Unlimited cards. That kind of bonus is worth $750 in straight cash back on either card. If you hold a premium or […]
[…] Big new 75K offers: Pick 5x office supply or 1.5x everywhere […]
Nick: any idea if this is a time limited offer? I don’t do MS and am currently working on Chase Business United (75k for $5k spend). I’m hoping to apply for this business unlimited in early/mid December. Do you think the offer will go away/be reduced? I’d prefer not to apply now as that starts the clock ticking, but I’ll do it if there’s a chance the offer will be reduced. Also, my spouse has this card already but I don’t see any referral bonus (although it seems like at one time there was a referral bonus)
Until now, I don’t think we’ve ever seen an offer higher than the standard 50K offer on these cards. I don’t have any inside info as to how long these offers will last, but I can’t imagine that these no-fee business cards will feature welcome bonuses worth $750 (or more than $1100 if you move the points to a Sapphire Reserve!) indefinitely. I can’t think of a card without an annual fee that has offered a bonus anywhere near as generous. So I am nearly as confident that these offers are limited time as I am that the sun will rise tomorrow.
Unfortunately, I have no idea when they will end. Chase typically keeps increased offers around for at least a month or so, but we recently saw that 5 free night Marriott offer end after just a few weeks. Your guess is as good as mine, particularly given the unpredictability of 2020.
I guess it comes down to how disappointed you’ll be if you miss out on the extra 25K. If the answer is “very”, I’d err on the side of applying sooner rather than later. If you can live with it because it’ll otherwise be tough to meet the spend, then take your chances.
And no, there’s been no refer-a-friend bonus on these since early in the pandemic. Chase really tightened up on the business cards for a while, so I think they just didn’t feel the need to drum up new business through referrals when they weren’t particularly interested in new customers. Obviously the increased offer here tells a different story, but I think they just haven’t turned referral bonuses back on yet for these cards.
[…] 70K United miles don’t feel like a particularly generous bonus right now given that the Chase Ink Cash and Chase Ink Business Unlimited are both offering 75K Ultimate Rewards points right…. Given that you could move those points to a premium or ultra-premium Chase card like the Chase […]
Data point:
Applied for the Ink Unlimited and got denied
$150k+ income
$25k+ in various Chase checking and savings account
Business is a rental property (Sole proprietor; $10k+/year revenue)
Logged in through my account; already had the Ink Cash and put about $400/month spend.
EIN or SSN?
PSA, don’t rely on the automated system as fact. Last month when I applied under the standard offer I got denied initially, then the automated line said 7-10 days, then 2 weeks, then approved. I called them and they said I was still denied I didn’t get anything in the mail either. rep says the automated messages are buggy..
Is anyone able to point me to terms and conditions for this particular offer that might disqualify me from having received another promotional offer within the past 24 months?
I’d expected to find it easily, but I’m coming up short. It seems too good to be true.
Ink cards don’t have that restriction.
And that is fantastic. Thank you for correcting my gross misunderstanding of how Chase Ink cards work.
My Ink Cash is over 5 years old. Would I need to cancel it and wait a certain amount of days before applying for a new one? With all the OfficeMax/Staples gift card sales coming fast and furious I would hate to be without an Ink Cash card for weeks with an application in pending limbo. What is your take on the risk of using those sales to do part, maybe $2000 of the min spend?
I’m in the same boat, I was going to ask the same question.
I don’t think you need to cancel in order to get approved for a second. You definitely don’t have to if you apply under a second business. If you only have one business then I recommend signing up instead for the Ink Unlimited (same signup bonus). You can later product change that to a second Ink Cash.
[…] new 75,000-point introductory bonus offers that have debuted on two popular business cards (See: Big new 75K offers: Pick 5x office supply or 1.5x everywhere). There may be good news for those who recently applied under the previous 50K-point offer: we had […]