Rumor: Changes Coming To The Lucrative Chase Ink Card Offers

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I received notice that the no-annual fee Chase Ink Business Cash Card and the Chase Ink Business Unlimited Card will have their offers refreshed tomorrow. 

Chaikel and DoC point to rumors that the cards will lose their signup offer of 0% intro APR on purchases and balance transfers for the first 12 months that the card is open. It’s not surprising to see that offer go away in an era of rising interest rates.

It’s a lucrative offer as carrying balances on consumer cards can have a very harmful effect on your credit score, but because the Ink cards are business cards, those balances won’t hurt your credit score.

Both cards currently offer their highest ever signup bonuses that are practically unheard of on no annual fee cards. It’s unknown if the signup bonus offer will be changing. Previously the Ink Cash signup bonus was $200-$300 in the form of 20K-30K Chase Ultimate Rewards points.

• The Chase Ink Business Cash Card is currently offering $500 in the form of 50,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points after spending $3,000 within 3 months.
  • This is an excellent card for people willing to spend the time to make purchases in the bonus categories offered on this card. You’ll earn 5 points per dollar spent at office supply stores and on internet, cable, and cell phone bills on up to $25k/year. It also earn 2 points per dollar on at gas stations and restaurants on up to $25k/year. Office supply stores sell gift cards for hundreds of other stores, from Amazon to Uber to Visa gift cards that can be used anywhere, so you can rack up the points by shifting your spending to these gift cards.
  • Pair this card with a Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card and you’ll be earning a minimum of 7.5% back via gift cards bought from office supply stores or on any other spending at office supply stores and on internet, cable, and cell phone bills as the Sapphire Reserve allows you to redeem your points at a minimum value of 1.5 cents each. Transfer your points into miles and redeem them at a value of 2 cents each to effectively earn 10% back on the 5 point categories.

• The Chase Ink Business Unlimited Card is currently offering $500 in the form of 50,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points after spending $3,000 within 3 months.
  • This is an excellent card for anyone trying to maximize their everyday spending. It fulfills the same function as the Chase Freedom Unlimited® card by earning 1.5% back everywhere in the form of 1.5 Chase Ultimate Rewards points per dollar everywhere. As the Ink Unlimited is a business card, you won’t hurt your credit score with your spending and it offers a higher signup bonus than Freedom Unlimited.
  • Pair this card with a Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card and you’ll be earning a minimum of 2.25% back everywhere as the Sapphire Reserve allows you to redeem your points at a minimum value of 1.5 cents each. Transfer your points into miles and redeem them at a value of 2 cents each to earn 3% back everywhere.
• The Ink Cash and Ink Unlimited signup bonuses are marketed as $500, but it will actually come in the form of 50,000 points which are worth $750-$1,000 when points are transferred into miles with the help of someone in your household having a Chase Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card® Card, Chase Sapphire Reserve®, or Chase Ink Business Preferred.

Spending categories

• The Ink Business Cash® Credit Card card is part of my Chase Quinfecta and is highly recommended for anyone trying to maximize their spending.It earns a whopping 5 points per dollar at office supply stores and on internet, cable, and cell phone bills on up to $25k/year. It also earn 2 points per dollar on at gas stations and restaurants on up to $25k/year. You can earn the bonus points on up to $25K in annual spending on the 5 point categories and up to $25K in annual spending on the 2 point categories. Again, these categories are advertised as 5% cash back and 2% cash back, but you will actually get 5 or 2 Chase Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent in those categories.You can even earn 5 points per dollar for cell phones that are charged on your bill or bought from sites like Samsung.
• You can earn 5 points per dollar for hundreds of other stores by buying gift cards at office supply stores like Office Depot/Max and Staples. If you shop at Amazon, Airbnb, Bed Bath & Beyond, Bloomingdale’s, BP, Cabela’s, Delta, DisneyLand/DisneyWorld, eBay, Express, Gap, Google Play, Groupon, Home Depot, iTunes, JCrew, Kohl’s, Lands End, LLBean, Lowe’s, Macy’s, Marshalls, Nike, Nordstrom, Safeway, Sears, Shell, Southwest, Starbucks, StubHub, Target, TJMaxx, Uber, Whole Foods, and much more, you can be earning 5 points per dollar by buying their gift cards at office supply stores on an Ink Cash card. Some gift cards are available online and many more are available in store. Office Depot/Max and Staples often run promotions to save even more on Visa gift cards.
• Your local school or charity will be more than happy to accept donations of Amazon gift cards for supplies or any other useful gift cards for chinese auctions, raffles, fundraisers, etc. They will give you a tax deductible receipt for the full face value-the price you paid for the gift cards. And at the same time you’ll earn 5 points per dollar. So while doing good you can still get a nice chunk of points and you’ll save on your taxes!
• The Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card card is also a critical part of my Chase Quinfecta and is highly recommended for anyone trying to maximize their spending. It fulfills the same function as the  Chase Freedom Unlimited® card by earning 50% bonus points, or 1.5% cash back or 1.5 points per dollar everywhere.

Business card information, benefits, signup rules, and 5/24

These are business cards, but you may already have a business that needs a card to keep track of expenses. For example if your name is Joe Smith and you sell items online, or if you have any other side business and want a credit card to better keep track of business expenditures you can open a business credit card for “Joe Smith” as the business. You don’t need to file any messy government paperwork to be allowed to do that. Just be sure to select “Sole Proprietorship” as the business type and just use your social security number in the Tax Identification Number field.

It’s important to just write your own name as the business name if you are just applying for your own small business as a Sole Proprietorship that doesn’t have any business paperwork.

If you’re like me and you run more than one business, you can signup for multiple of the same card for each business to manage each businesses expenses separately.

You can receive a signup bonus on each type of Ink card once every 24 months for each business that you manage.

All Chase cards appear to be subject to 5/24 restrictions. That means it will be hard to get approved if you have been approved for 5 or more consumer credit cards in the past 24 months. Read more about that here. 

However, it’s important to note that business cards from most banks, including Chase business cards, do not get added to your 5/24 count of recently opened cards. That’s because business cards from most banks don’t show up on your personal credit report and the 5/24 count is based off of your personal credit report. That means that applying for these cards won’t “hurt” your 5/24 count.

Another benefit of the card not reporting on your personal credit report is that when you spend money on personal cards your credit score will be hurt even if you pay your bill on time. A whopping 30% of your credit score is based on credit utilization. You can pay off your card bill before your statement is generated to avoid that, but that takes effort and laying out money well before you have to. Additionally it’s good to have the statement close with a couple dollars to show the card is active and being paid every month. On an business cards from banks like AMEX and Chase it’s just not reported, so you can wait until the money is due without it having a negative effect on your score. That also means if you close the card, it won’t have an effect on your credit score.

That makes the 0% APR on a business card a very strong offer.

Read more about Chase Ink cards here.

Will you be signing up for an Ink Cash or Ink Unlimited card?