Please recommend a small business card for me
 

Here's my situation: I currently have a AMEX Platinum small business card, and it's my sole business card other than a Visa debit card. I travel heavily for business, and spend about 60-90K/year on the AMEX.

I'm currently in Europe quite a bit, where Amex has about a 50% acceptance rate. I am also swimming in miles (about a million miles between 4 programs and tons of spg points) so I'm not obsessed about a mileage card. I do like Amex MR points; I know they're not the best, but I like getting a cool gadget "free" each year. I fly almost exclusively on *A, so the lounge benefit doesn't do me much good. I also use the platinum concierge far less than I thought I would.

I had been generally happy with Amex until they pulled a bunch of my credit in "the great purge of '09" that affected many others here, and their unappealing fx rates and lack of EU acceptance have me wanting to add a visa/mc to the stable. What I'm looking for in a card:

- Good travel-related benefits like car rental protection (would like to "walk away" in the event of an accident), upgrades/compainion upgrades on US Air/UA, lost luggage coverage, AD&D
- Some sort of compelling benefits program, probably not mileage/hotel related. Maybe cash back/merchandise is the way to go?
- Large line of credit similiar to amex (I'm charging around 10K some months)
- Ability to "let it ride" at a reasonable rate when needed
- *A lounge access although I usually get it free when I'm flying internationally with *A gold so not a huge deal
- Decent fx rate/or at least build it into the charge. Splitting it out on my debit card kills me for expense reporting
- A blackberry compatible website or application of some sort to check balances/pay bill on the road

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Forgot to mention I might just dump the AMEX platinum and go to SPG business amex, although I already have a personal SPG Amex. I book 95% of my hotels (mostly starwood) through my business AMEX so I'm probably missing out on some good earning opportunities.

Welcome to Flyertalk.

Your ideal card does not exist, but if you prioritize your wish list it will narrow down pretty quickly.

Do you specifically want a business card rather than a personal card? Business cards are based on your personal credit, but do not appear on your credit reports unless you default. Business cards also allow you to easily segregate expenses by employee, assign idividual spending limits, terminate or replace individual cards. Business cards tend to have better car rental protection than personal cards. On the other hand, business cards do not carry the consumer protections of personal cards, but there is some question about whether protections would apply in the event a personal card is used exclusively for business.

If you carry a balance on any credit card you will also pay interest on new charges from the transaction date. This is different from charge cards where a revolving balance can sometime be carried on a linked but separate account. I would think about obtaining a separate line of credit that you can use to pay the card in full if the needs arises.

If you truly are redeeming Membership Rewards points for gadgets you may wish to spend some time browsing Flyertalk's MR section. The best use of those points is for intercontinental business or first class travel, typically on Star Alliance carriers.

Hi Mia,

I specifically want a business card and thought I had listed my criteria in the original post. Probably the two most important would be travel-related benefits (rental car insurance, companion tickets or something like the old AMEX free companion business class ticket), and a decent non-milesage points/cash program.

You are correct that a business line is probably a more effective tool for "rainy days."

Thank you for the clarifications. I think this is the most recent discussion of business cashback cards.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/other...cashback.html?

Visa and MasterCard have a feature and card selector that may help. http://usa.visa.com/cardadvisor/CardAdvisor
http://www.mastercard.com/us/gateway.html

A number of us lurking around this and similar forums work in the industry and/or have lots of experience with these issues. All of us have our own biases. These two selectors are more objective than any others because MC and V cannot favor one issuer over another. All you need to do is set your criteria and choose away.

In Europe there is very little difference between the two for acceptance or FX charges, but there are big differences between issuers, whose FX charges beyond MC and V vary from nothing to as much as 4.5%. The selectors don't let you choose on the basis of FX fees so you'll need to select on other criteria and then check the T&C's of the individual card to know the charges. Even their customer lines often don't know. Other things remaining equal, no extra charge FX comes with smaller issuers such as credit unions and community banks. If you're eligible for USAA that is your first place to check. Capital One has no extra charge for FX, but read all the T&C's very, very carefully. You may not like some of them.

The categories to look at will be:
Visa Signature Card/MasterCard World Card- these are T&E cards designed to compete with American express and have good benefits such as rental car insurance coverage and purchase insurance.
Business Cards- all of these other than American Express are really individual cards designed to look as though they are business ones by adding a handful of benefits. they're issued on your credit, not the businesses. American Express checks the business also fairly closely.

The deferred debit cards, such as Merrill Lynch, are built on the MC World Card/Visa Signature base and have similar features. They often have the best benefits if you want accounts with Merrill Lynch (Bank of America), Schwab or whoever.

Finally, new regulations are coming into effect that will diminish card benefits and make usage more restrictive, including a move to lower credit limits.

I hope this helps. I've worked around the card industry for many years and I still learn new things in FlyerTalk, among other places.