Today I received a solicitation from CapitalOne for a Professional Mastercard. To my knowledge, the only previous MasterCards marked Professional are Diners Club, Carte Blanche and the Citi Professional series. See discussion from 2005 when Diners introduced this nomenclature...

http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?p=4195328

The Capital One website...

http://www.capitalonecash.com/CardInformation.aspx

...does not use the term professional, but it's in the invitation letter and appears on the picture of the card. Searching Mastercard's site I find that Mastercard Professional is a trademark...

http://www.mastercard.com/us/merchant/copyright.html

...but this doesn't seem to represent a bundled level of benfits like World or World Elite.

Included with the invitation is the usual Important Disclosures insert, and on the back the very last statement is "The No Hassle Cash Professional MasterCard is intended to be used for business-to-business purchases only." There is absolutely no other indication in the offer that this is a business product.

The card is actually worth considering for international travel because it offers 1.25% cash back, no earning cap, no annual fee, and no foreign transaction fees; plus Concierge service, Travel Assistance Service, MasterCard Global Service (emergency cash and card replacement) and MasterRental Insurance for rental cars.

Anyone aware of any other Mastercard Professional cards, or have experience using CapitalOne business grade cards overseas? At present I use Merrill+ VISA for international transactions because my account still has no foreign currency fee, but I do expect this to change and this card might be useful, even though the maximum credit limit is evidently $20,000.