bartman9

Depends what your spending is like. I use the following:

Chase Ink Bold: office supplies, communications (5x) and when AMEX is not accepted

Amex Gold Business: advertising, shipping (2x)

Amex SPG Business: everything else...

TheNoobTraveler

I am all about the Chase Ink Bold because of 5x points on certain categories. I also like the flexibility of the Ultimate Rewards program.

dlerner

Capital One Spark offers 2% cash back and no foreign exchange fees.

crimson12

I know there are lots of people who apply for business credit cards as sole proprietors. This (as I understand it) basically treats your card application as if you were applying for a personal card: hard pull on your credit; application denied if you, personally (as opposed to the business itself) can't handle the additional credit; etc.

But let's say I have a bunch of side hobbies, etc., that have money coming in and out. It's perfectly appropriate to have a "sole proprietor" business card for that purpose. What if I created an LLC? In that case will the business app still pull my personal credit? Presumably the LLC will have an EIN that will stand in for my SSN, so why would it? (Maybe in that case the business may not get credit at all, if revenue is very small, and applying as a SP would allow me to impute my income to the company.)

In short the question is, will creating an LLC allow me to get rewards from business cards without the hard pull on my personal credit?

Moorea

We tried this with Chase. We have 4 very legitmate businesses all with their own EIN but Chase still wanted SSN. Seemed like a good thought to us in theory, but no luck in execution.

crimson12

Now my "day job" company has given me a company card, though. It's an Amex Green that I never use, but it earns MR points and could be linked to my Platinum MR account. They never did a credit pull for that; I just got it when I started. So I wonder how that worked?

MisterSelfish

I'm in the same boat as crimson. The wife and I started an LLC and were wondering what effects it would have, if any.

Did it end up with a hard pull to your personal credit?

I just applied for two cards a month ago and am itching to apply for more since I have some additional expenses coming up, but am worried about the dreaded "too many recent inquiries" response...

Moorea

Yes - I see your point. I have a corporate card as well and no, they did not pull my credit for that but I have no idea how it is set up.

We asked if Chase could just use our EIN and they said no - so we had to have a hard inquiry.

mia

Corporate and Business cards are very different products. Corporate cards are issued based on the enterprise's credit, although some issuers (e.g. American Express) may decline to issue a Corporate card to an employee who defaulted on another account. Business cards are issued based on the applicant's credit, and you are personally responsible for the debt. The company is also responsible.

Moorea

Great info! Thanks!

On that note, does anyone know of any corporate cards with good sign-up bonuses?

MisterSelfish

Good to know, thanks!

TheManofaThousandPlaces

From what I understand, in order to not have your personal credit pulled, you have to create and cultivate a Business Credit Profile.

This article is somewhat helpful:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/76886

The article states the major business credit bureaus that compile and provide copies of Business Credit reports are:

• Dun & Bradstreet
• Experian Business
• Equifax Business
• Business Credit USA

I imagine there are fees to have these profiles created and monitored. However, it could be a good approach to multiplying a person's bonus earning potential.

StckFigure

I just applied for my first business card, for a new business idea (the easiest bucket to classify it is in consulting). I picked the Chase Southwest RR Premier card, because I already got the personal version of the Plus card this year and would love to be almost all the way to Companion Pass (I got the Plus then only because that was the one I found with a 50K bonus, and not the Premier). Since the business - a sole proprietorship - doesn't have any income or anything yet, I expected to be flat-out rejected and have to do a reconsideration call. However, I got a "decision pending" notice, and so now I'm not sure what to do. I assume I'll be rejected, still, on the no-revenue-at-this-point part. Do I call Chase reconsideration now, before I've gotten something in the mail, or do I wait until I have the notice? What questions should I expect the agent to ask (I figure things like "How will you be making money, why do you want a business card, and why do you specifically want THIS business card" are logical, and I have answers to those).

Thanks!

MidTierStatus

Chase sometimes takes time to approve cards. You can keep checking the status on the automated status line, and only call the reconsideration line if you get rejected.

StckFigure

I didn't see anything about an automated status line... do I just call it (I assume I can Google the number) and use the SSN as the identifier for the application? Is it a different line for each card product, or one central line for all Chase cards?