The Chase Ink Cards – Ink Cash, Ink Unlimited and Ink Preferred are some of the best cards out there. They make up the Chase Ink Business Trifecta and if you can complete that, you’ll earn almost $6,000 worth of points for just a $95 annual fee. There is another Chase Ink card that doesn’t really get talked about and for good reason. We normally wouldn’t even mention it but the problem is that a lot of people accidentally apply for this card. It’s a complete waste of time and spending and should be avoided at all costs. We’ll show you why this card is horrible and why people apply for it accidentally.
Chase Ink Business Premier
There are only four Chase Ink business cards and this is the only one with a $195 annual fee. There is a sign up bonus of $1,000 after spending $10,000 in the first three months. Hey, 100,000 points is still pretty good right? Wrong! This card does not earn points! It is a cash back only card. This is confusing because Chase says that all of their cards earn cash back but that’s not really true. With these other cards, you earn Ultimate Rewards points which you can (but shouldn’t) redeem for cash back. With the Chase Ink Business Premier, you cannot earn Ultimate Rewards. Since travel hackers avoid cash back cards, this card should be avoided.
The card earns 2% back on everything up to $5,000 and then earns 2.5% cash back on all purchases over $5,000. If you have a business that makes a lot of purchases above $5,000 and you needed a cash back only card for some reason, I guess this would be worth considering assuming of course you have ZERO INTEREST IN POINTS. (see more below). This card is a solid no-go.
What’s the harm?
Some of you might say, “why not just get all the cards?”. After all, there reaches a point where you might run out of good cards to get so some cash back might seem like a good idea. If that’s the case, you’ll want to find a different card. This is a no-go under any circumstance if you have any interest in points. Why? Two reasons. First, Chase has started cracking down on business cards towards the end of 2024, beginning of 2025. The days of getting an endless number of Chase business cards may be over. So, you don’t want to take up a valuable slot with a cash back card.
But wait, it gets worse. The second reason and perhaps more important reason is that the “points” for this card are treated differently than other Chase points. For some reason, Chase allows you to transfer your Ultimate Rewards to this card. It’s a one-way street so if you have 10,000 points that accidently get transferred to this card, you’ll then get “points” that can only be cashed out at 1cpp. In other words, those points that were worth $200 and now only worth $100 in cash. Your transferrable currency is gone forever. I’ve seen this happen to several people. That’s what makes this card flat out dangerous and a total no-go. Even if you are careful, you never know what’s going to happen. I actually read one story where a person claimed that a Chase rep did this on accident and they are not interested in helping them reverse the process. If you don’t have this card, you can’t be put in this situation.
What’s the confusion?
Because of these reasons, most people avoid this card. However, many people get this card by mistake because they confuse it with the Chase Ink Preferred. The confusion likely comes from the similar names. Ink Premier and Ink Preferred are pretty similar. If you’re not paying attention, it’s easier to just see “Ink Pre…” and let your brain fill in the blanks. The other problem is that people get referred to the Ink Preferred and they see this page:
Do you see the problem? The Ink Business Premier is probably the first card you see. The Ink Business Preferred is mostly off screen there to the right. You have to click an arrow to see it. I think it’s very odd that Chase did this because there is all that space to the right of the Premier card. There’s only four cards and they could easily all fit on the same page. I’m sure Chase knows that people have applied for the Premier accidentally and yet they’ve done nothing to fix this. Draw your own conclusions.
G.I. Joe said that “knowing is half the battle” but I think in this case, knowing should help you completely avoid this card. Just click over to the right and make sure you are applying for the Ink Business Preferred. It is the only Ink card with a $95 fee so that will also help you make sure that you’re applying for the right card.
Conclusion
Just stay away from this card. Never apply for it and make sure that you don’t apply for it accidentally. Travel hacking does not involve cash back cards.
Still need help?
We have a great group of people on Facebook that can help you out with all of your travel hacking questions. If you’re a little more experienced, feel free to jump in and help others with their questions. Or do you just want to talk with others about everything points and miles? Join us over at our Facebook group and be part of the conversation.