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Management may guide a business to big profits, but advertising is the growth engine that drives those profits, and shipping drops the product into your customer's lap. Advertising and shipping make up two of the biggest expenses for many businesses. Companies should seize any opportunity they can to maximize the points earned on advertising and shipping spend. And, luckily for business owners, there are small business credit cards that offer bonus points on advertising and shipping.
Advertising has changed significantly over the last decade. The rise of online search engines, social media, CPC advertising, and big data, has pushed the majority of advertising spend away from traditional media such as TV, print, and radio, moving it online to sites like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And credit card companies are responding.
American Express offers two small business cards that provide advertising as a bonus spending category. And, just recently, Chase’s Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card launched with advertising as one of its bonus categories, in addition to perks that place it squarely in the sights of SME’s and online entrepreneurs. Likewise, the same three cards listed also offer bonus points on shipping, making these cards the perfect companions for small business owners in the U.S.
Amex and Chase have different definitions of what transactions will code as advertising or shipping for bonus categories and also operate different earning structures to max the bonus categories out.
Credit Cards That Earn Bonus Points on Advertising and Shipping
- Earn 100k bonus points after you spend $8,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That's $1,000 cash back or $1,250 toward travel when redeemed through Chase Ultimate Rewards®
- Earn 3 points per $1 on the first $150,000 spent on travel and select business categories each account anniversary year. Earn 1 point per $1 on all other purchases
- Round-the-clock monitoring for unusual credit card purchases
- With Zero Liability you won't be held responsible for unauthorized charges made with your card or account information.
- Redeem points for cash back, gift cards, travel and more - your points don't expire as long as your account is open
- Points are worth 25% more when you redeem for travel through Chase Ultimate Rewards®
- Purchase Protection covers your new purchases for 120 days against damage or theft up to $10,000 per claim and $50,000 per account.
- Member FDIC
- 3X points per $1 on the first $150,000 spent in combined purchases on travel, shipping purchases, Internet, cable and phone services, advertising purchases made with social media sites and search engines each account anniversary year
- 1X point per $1 on all other purchases
The Ink Preferred comes with a gigantic signup bonus and well thought through bonus categories. The 100,000-point bonus could provide substantially more than $1,250 in value if transferred out to Chase’s travel partners and redeemed for high-value travel. The combination of social and search advertising with shipping, phone, and travel, should cover the majority of small business owners for bonus categories. It also offers the potential to earn close to half a million Ultimate Rewards points if maxing out the bonus categories.
If you maximize the bonus categories to the $150K cap, you’ll earn 450,000 Ultimate Rewards, or a return of roughly 6% depending on how you value your points — 300K more than the base 1 point/$1 base.
- Welcome Offer: Earn 70,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $10,000 on eligible purchases with the Business Gold Card within the first 3 months of Card Membership.*
- MORE REWARDS: Get 4X Membership Rewards® points on the 2 select categories where your business spent the most each month. 1X is earned for other purchases.**
- **4X points apply to the first $150,000 in combined purchases from these 2 categories each calendar year.*
- PAY OVER TIME OPTION: Decide whether you want to pay eligible purchases in full each month-or pay over time with interest.*
- *Terms Apply
- Rates & Fees
- Airfare purchased directly from airlines
- U.S. purchases for advertising in select media (online, TV, radio)
- U.S. purchases made directly from select technology providers of computer hardware, software, and cloud solutions
- U.S. purchases at gas stations
- U.S. purchases at restaurants
- U.S. purchases for shipping
*4X points applies to the first $150,000 in combined purchases from these 2 categories each calendar year; then earn 1 point per dollar.
The Amex Business Gold card is a go-to card for small business owners wanting to benefit from advertising spend. The kicker with this card: Earn 4X Membership Rewards points on the 2 select categories where your business spent the most each month, 1X on other purchases. 4X points apply to the first $150,000 in combined purchases from these 2 categories each calendar year. Categories include:
- Airfare purchased directly from airlines
- U.S. purchases for advertising in select media (online, TV, radio)
- U.S. purchases at gas stations
- U.S. purchases at restaurants
- U.S. purchases for shipping
- U.S. purchases made directly from select technology providers of computer hardware, software, and cloud solutions
Amex's definition of ‘advertising’ on the Amex Business Gold is a touch broader than the Ink Preferred‘s, incorporating online, television, and radio advertising.
The cap for all bonus categories is $150K before purchases revert to 1 point/$1 spent. Equivalent to the Ink Preferred and you don't need to pick a category — whichever category you spend the most, that is your 4x category for the month!
SimplyCash® Plus Business Credit Card from American Express
The SimplyCash® Plus Business Credit Card from American Express was closed to new applicants in July 2019. If you already have the card, it offers excellent value for advertising spend. Rather than earning rewards points like the two cards above, the SimplyCash® Plus Business Credit Card from American Express is strictly a cash back card. Bonus earnings are capped to the first $50K per calendar year on the combined category spend, which, although smaller than the other two cards, is fantastic for a card with no annual fee. Again, like the Amex Business Gold card, you can only select one of eight categories to receive 3% cash back on. The list includes:
- Airfare purchased directly from airlines
- Hotel rooms purchased directly from hotels
- Car rentals purchased from select car rental companies
- U.S. gas stations
- U.S. restaurants
- U.S. purchases for advertising in select media
- U.S. purchases for shipping
- U.S. computer hardware, software, and cloud computing purchases made directly from select providers
Important to note with the SimplyCash® Plus Business Credit Card from American Express is that it allows you to spend over your credit limit (within reason) without any penalty. This could be a handy feature if you have a big purchase to make that will stretch your credit limit — just be sure to pay that balance in full when due to avoid any interest charges.
Final Thoughts
All three cards have attractive features, and if you spend heavily on advertising and shipping, you may need to have them all on your radar. If the majority of advertising spend is online or you’ll spread an even mix of spending across different categories, the Ink Preferred comes out ahead on points earning potential.
If you're in a position to spend a significant amount on advertising, you might consider getting both cards to ensure you're getting the most out of every dollar you spend.
For rates and fees of the cards mentioned in this post, please visit the following links: American Express® Business Gold Card (Rates & Fees)
The comments on this page are not provided, reviewed, or otherwise approved by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
My Chase Ink Business Preferred and AMEX SimplyCashPlus are both keepers in my business wallet, The Ink card’s earning power is boosted by transferring UR points to the CSR, and the SimplyCashPlus card’s earning power is boosted by AMEX Offers.
Hi . I check with American Express for business Gold card .The answer is Amazon not on the list for Advertising.
Looks just good for Google or Facebook.
May I ask any cards good for Advertising at Amazon?
Thank you
.
Hey Joanne, that’s a good question. I’m sorry I don’t know the answer. Please chime in if anyone has experience with a category bonus for Amazon ads. The Ink Business Preferred would be a potential candidate, but I don’t have any data points to confirm.
Hello. I currently have a Chase Ink Visa for the cash back benefit.
However, their consumer protection has be realllllly lacking.
I spent $232,251 on my Chase Ink card and now I’m thinking of switching to Amex Gold for the consumer protection.
I like the cash, cash is king.
Any thoughts?
Suggestions?
Hi Ann,
The best card is highly dependent on the categories where you spend the most money. We have a couple of posts which may help you decide.
The first is The Best Rewards Cards For Each Spending Category, which links out to separate posts covering each major spending category and goes into detail on each card, but includes consumer and business cards.
The second is The Best Small Business Cards of 2019 which focuses on business cards only. Work backwards by detailing which categories receive the most spend and narrow your card selection down from there.
Is the Chase ink under the 5/24 rule?
Yes, the 5/24 rule will be applied to this and all other Chase Ink products.
Would you recommend getting CSR as well to get the most value out of the points? How difficult is it to obtain business credit cards?
Personally, that is exactly my plan to max things out. I honestly think it is foolish to have a bunch of Ultimate Rewards and not have the Sapphire Reserve — the 20% instant bump in point value makes it well worth it for any significant balances.
As far as the difficulty — keep in mind the card falls under 5/24, but Chase wants small businesses to engage with them. Just like with a personal card that requires you prove your creditworthiness with solid credit history, enough income and expenses, you’ll need to do the same with a business card. Keep in mind, you don’t need an EIN to have a business credit card. For many years I operated solely as a Sole Proprietorship and then finally incorporated for a few reasons … none of which so I could get credit cards.
Might have to make a business for this then. Sounds like a great card.