Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card review

• The Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card offers 1.5% cash back on all business spending, with no annual fee.
• Purchase protection and extended warranty benefits make it a good choice for buying office equipment.
• You can get cards for employees at no additional cost.

If you’re a small business owner who spends a lot on your credit card and wants no-nonsense rewards on all of your business-related spending, the Chase Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card could be the most rewarding card for you. The Chase Ink Business Unlimited gives you unlimited 1.5% cash back on all of your business spending with no annual fee, making it one of the best cash back credit cards available.

The card also features Chase’s purchase protection and extended warranty benefits, making it a good choice to use for office equipment and similar purchases. If you need to extend your purchasing power to your employees, you can get employee cards linked to your account at no additional cost.

Here’s what you need to know about the Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card.

• Earn unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase.
• Consumer insurance benefits, including purchase protection and extended warranty protection.
• Secondary auto rental collision damage waiver insurance.
• Travel insurance benefits, including auto rental collision damage waiver insurance, trip delay reimbursement, baggage delay protection, and lost luggage reimbursement.
• 3% foreign transaction fee.
• No annual fee.

The Chase Ink Business Unlimited offers 1.5% cash back rewards on every purchase, plus some essential protections on things you buy with the card.

• No additional reward categories
• 3% foreign transaction fee

New cardmembers can earn $900 bonus cash back after spending $6,000 on purchases within the first three months of opening the card.

The card’s welcome bonus is marketed as cash back but awarded as Ultimate Rewards points. If you also hold a premium Ultimate Rewards card with an annual fee like the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Sapphire Reserve, or Chase Ink Business Preferred, you can transfer your points to your other card and get even more value from them through travel redemptions or point transfers to travel partners.

The Chase Ink Business Unlimited card earns 1.5% cash back on all spending, with no limits on the amount of rewards you can earn. The card also earns a total of 5% cash back on Lyft rides through March 2025.

Like other no-annual-fee cards that earn Ultimate Rewards, the Ink Business Unlimited’s rewards can be redeemed for cash back and gift cards. If you also hold a premium Ultimate Rewards credit card, you can transfer your points to your other card for additional redemption options. Here are the ways you can redeem your Ink Business Unlimited rewards.

The Ink Business Unlimited is marketed as a cash back card and the easiest way to redeem your points is for a cash back award. Cash back redemptions can be done through the Chase website or mobile app and take up to three business days to post to your account.

Most of the time, redeeming your Chase Ultimate Rewards points for gift cards doesn’t offer more value than cash back awards. But Chase does frequently run sales on gift card redemptions, allowing you to get more than one cent of value out of each of your points. 

If you hold multiple credit cards that earn Ultimate Rewards, you can combine points across your cards and take advantage of earning and redemption opportunities available across all of your cards. Combining your points is easy and can be done through Chase’s online banking site.

When you redeem Ultimate Rewards Points for travel with the Chase Sapphire Reserve, you get 50% more value, meaning you’d end up getting an effective 2.25% back toward travel on every purchase with this card combination. 

These other redemption options rarely offer more value than cash back redemptions:

• Apple on Ultimate Rewards lets you use points to pay for part or all of your purchase with Apple.
• Pay with Points lets you use your points to pay for purchases at Amazon or with merchants that accept PayPal. Often this option yields less than one cent of value per point.
• Pay yourself back allows you to use your points to cover select categories of purchases. This might offer an opportunity to get more than one cent of value out of each point, but you’re unlikely to offset common business purchases at increased value. Through December 31, 2023, you can redeem points to offset donations to select charities at 1.25 cents each.
• Chase Travel redemptions allow you to use your points to book travel through Chase. When you use your points to pay for a hotel stay, flight, car rental, cruise, or activities, you’ll get one cent of value per point.

The Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card offers a handful of essential benefits that will keep your business purchases protected and give you some peace of mind when using your card to rent cars.

• Auto rental collision damage waiver insurance – When you reserve and pay for a rental car with your Chase Ink Business Unlimited card, you’ll get secondary insurance against damage to or theft of your rental vehicle. 
• Extended warranty protection – Get one additional year of coverage equivalent to the U.S. manufacturer’s warranty. Coverage applies on eligible items with manufacturer’s warranties of three years or less.
• Purchase protection – If a new purchase is damaged or stolen within 120 days, you can be reimbursed to repair or replace the item, up to $10,000.

The Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card is ideal for a small business owner who wants easy-to-use cash back rewards on every purchase but doesn’t want to pay an annual fee. It’s hard to find better than 1.5% cash back on every purchase on a business card, and the card’s extended warranty benefit means you can feel good about using the card for office equipment and other costly items.

The card is especially useful to small business owners who have a Chase Ink Business Preferred card or one of the Chase personal cards that offers additional value on point redemptions for travel. Because you can freely transfer rewards points among your own Ultimate Rewards-earning credit cards, you can put together a portfolio of several cards that offers the best options for both earning and redeeming your points.

If you simply want maximum cash back on a large amount of business purchases and are willing to pay an annual fee, you might consider the Capital One Spark Cash Plus. 

The Spark Cash Plus is another one of our best cash back credit cards and offers 2% cash back rewards on all purchases for a $150 annual fee. If you spend more than $30,000 annually, you’ll come out ahead with the Spark Cash Plus. 

Finally, small business owners looking for a card for short term financing of business purchases might want to consider the American Express Plum card. The Plum card offers you the option of 60 days to pay or a 1.5% early pay discount. If you plan to carry a balance on the Chase Ink Business Unlimited card, the card’s APR will quickly eat up any benefit you get from your rewards.

If you want cash back rewards on all of your business spending and don’t want to pay an annual fee, the Chase Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card will give you more rewards than most other cards. The card offers unlimited 1.5% cash back on all of your business spending, with the option to transfer your points to other Chase cards for increased redemption value.

Editorial Disclosure: All articles are prepared by editorial staff and contributors. Opinions expressed therein are solely those of the editorial team and have not been reviewed or approved by any advertiser. The information, including rates and fees, presented in this article is accurate as of the date of the publish. Check the lender’s website for the most current information.

This article was originally published on SFGate.com and reviewed by Lauren Williamson, who serves as Financial and Home Services Editor for the Hearst E-Commerce team. Email her at [email protected].