The Outlier of Inks: How the Ink Business Premier® Credit Card is Different From the Rest

There are two types of rewards that Chase credit cards can earn: Chase Ultimate Rewards points and cash back. Chase Ultimate Rewards points can be redeemed in various ways that aren’t directly available for cash back-earning cards, such as transferring to travel partners and redeeming through the Chase Travel℠ portal. If you have a cash back-earning credit card, your points are only redeemable for gift cards, as statement credits, as offsets for online or travel purchases or by check or deposit.

Earning Chase Ultimate Rewards points is more desirable for most people because, while cash back points are always worth exactly 1 cent per point, Chase Ultimate Rewards points can either be worth 1.25 or 1.5 cents per point when redeemed through Chase Travel℠ and possibly even more if you transfer them to travel partners.

The following table lays out which Chase credit cards earn Chase Ultimate Rewards points and which ones earn cash back:

However, there is an important loophole that you should know about if you’re open to signing up for multiple Chase credit cards to maximize your rewards. If you have one of the Chase Ultimate Rewards-earning cards listed above in addition to a Chase cashback card, you can transfer cashback points from most cards into your Chase Ultimate Rewards-earning account, and those cashback points can then be used through the Chase Travel℠ portal or with transfer partners.

In this article, we’re going to look at how you can transfer points between Chase credit card accounts as well as the one exception to this rule: the Ink Business Premier Card.

Can You Transfer Chase Points Between Card Accounts?

If you have multiple Chase credit cards, most Chase cards give you the option to transfer points (either cash back or Ultimate Rewards points) between accounts. For instance, if you have both the Chase Freedom Flex and the Ink Business Cash (both of which earn cash back), you can transfer points between these accounts to consolidate your cash back in a single account.

However, you can also use this feature to convert cash back into Chase Ultimate Rewards points if you have the Sapphire Reserve, Sapphire Preferred or Ink Business Preferred. For example, if you had 20,000 cash back points in a Chase Freedom Unlimited account, you could transfer those points to your Chase Sapphire Preferred account and then redeem them through the Chase Travel℠ portal or transfer partners.

It’s worth noting that, even if you already have a large balance of cash back sitting in an account, you can sign up for the Sapphire Reserve, Sapphire Preferred or Ink Business Preferred card today and convert that cash back to Chase Ultimate Rewards points.

There is, however, one exception to this rule: the Ink Business Premier Credit Card. While all other Chase cashback credit cards allow you to transfer points between card accounts, the Ink Business Premier doesn’t offer this option to cardmembers (most of the time).

The Exception: Ink Business Premier

For reasons that aren’t very clear, the Ink Business Premier card ($195 annual fee) doesn’t allow you to transfer rewards to other Chase card accounts. This means that any cash back earned with the Ink Business Premier can only be redeemed for gift cards, as statement credits, as offsets for online or travel purchases or by check or deposit (regardless of whether or not you also have a Chase Ultimate Rewards-earning credit card).

It is worth noting that some Ink Business Premier cardholders reported that the option to transfer points to a Sapphire card or the Ink Business Preferred card was available at a certain point in 2023. However, other users have reported that that option is no longer available in 2024.

So, if you were hoping to sign up for the Ink Business Premier, earn its welcome bonus and then transfer those points to a Sapphire or Ink Business Preferred account, you’ll probably want to hold off. Chances are you’ll only be able to redeem those points as cash back.

Why Should You Transfer Chase Points Between Accounts?

Converting cash back to Ultimate Rewards points (by transferring it into a Sapphire Reserve, Sapphire Preferred or Ink Business Preferred account) can dramatically increase the value you can get out of the rewards you’ve earned from your Chase cashback card. This is because Chase Ultimate Rewards points can be redeemed through the Chase Travel℠ portal or with transfer partners.

Chase Travel℠ Portal

If you have either the Sapphire Preferred Card or the Ink Business Preferred, your Chase Ultimate Rewards points are all worth 1.25 cents when redeemed for travel through the Chase Travel℠ portal. If you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve, your Ultimate Rewards points are worth 1.5 cents through Chase Travel℠. These value boosts also apply to any cashback points that you’ve transferred into your Sapphire Reserve, Sapphire Preferred or Ink Business Preferred account.

So, for instance, let’s say that you want to buy a flight through the Chase Travel℠ portal that costs $1,500 in cash. If you had either the Chase Sapphire Preferred or the Ink Business Preferred, you could pay for this flight with 120,000 Ultimate Rewards points (a value of 1.25 cents per point). If you had the Chase Sapphire Reserve, you could pay for this flight with 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points (a value of 1.5 cents per point).

Transfer Partners

It’s possible to get even more value out of Chase Ultimate Rewards points by transferring them to Chase’s transfer partners. These partners include the following:

• Aer Lingus AerClub
• Air Canada Aeroplan
• Air France-KLM Flying Blue
• British Airways Executive Club
• Emirates Skywards
• Iberia Plus
• IHG One Rewards
• JetBlue TrueBlue
• Marriott Bonvoy
• Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
• Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards
• United Airlines MileagePlus
• Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
• World of Hyatt

All of the programs above offer a 1:1 transfer ratio. So, if you transfer 10,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points to any of these programs, you’ll receive 10,000 points or miles in that program’s currency.

With some of these partners, it’s possible to find redemptions that offer value exceeding 1.5 cents per point (which means that utilizing transfer partners can be even more lucrative than redeeming through Chase Travel℠, even if you have the Sapphire Reserve card).

For example, the World of Hyatt program is often considered one of the best Chase transfer partners. Through this program, we found a 1 King Bed Room at the Hyatt Regency Grand Reserve Puerto Rico for 23,000 points per night.

If you were to book this same room on the same night with cash, it would cost you $915 at the Members Advance Purchase rate (the lowest available cash rate).

Thus, by transferring 23,000 Ultimate Rewards points to the World of Hyatt program and redeeming them for this stay, you’d get an outstanding value of nearly 4 cents per point.

So, while utilizing transfer partners can be more complicated and time-consuming, you can get considerably more value through transfer partners than you can through the Chase Travel℠ portal if you’re savvy.

Is the Ink Business Premier Card Worth It?

The fact that the Ink Business Premier Card doesn’t allow transfers to other Chase card accounts is definitely disappointing. This restriction means you can’t convert cash back earned with the Ink Business Premier Card to Ultimate Rewards points (which would allow you to access the Chase Travel℠ portal and transfer partners).

However, despite this drawback, there’s still a lot to love about the Ink Business Premier card. For one, this card offers a sizable welcome bonus, which you can earn by signing up for the card and then spending a certain amount of money in a certain period of time after account opening. Here’s the current welcome offer from the Ink Business Premier:

This card also offers normal spending bonuses and some other benefits. The following table includes all of the major aspects of the Ink Business Premier Card:

All in all, the Ink Business Premier provides relatively low value for a card that charges a $195 annual fee. While this card does provide a baseline earnings rate of 2% cash back on all purchases, by comparison, the Ink Business Preferred Card offers arguably better spending bonuses and only charges an annual fee of $95. Plus, with the Ink Business Preferred, you have the option to utilize the Chase Travel℠ portal as well as transfer partners.

Plus, most cards that charge an annual fee of over $100 provide some kind of premium benefit, such as lounge access, statement credits, or automatic elite status. The Ink Business Premier Card does not include such additional benefits.

The Ink Business Premier Card does include certain travel and purchase protections. However, these protections are standard across almost all Chase credit cards, even those that don’t charge an annual fee.

So, if you’re looking to sign up for a new credit card, we’d recommend going with something other than the Ink Business Premier. This card simply doesn’t provide enough value for its annual fee compared to other credit cards on the market and even other credit cards within Chase’s lineup. Plus, any rewards you earn with this card can only be redeemed as cash back.

The Bottom Line

One of the best ways to maximize the value you can get from Chase’s lineup of credit cards is to transfer the rewards you earn from cashback cards to a Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire Reserve or Ink Business Preferred account. Thus, you can spend these points through either the Chase Travel℠ portal (in which case they’re worth either 1.25 or 1.5 cents apiece, depending on which card you have) or through transfer partners (which can provide even more value than 1.5 cents per point in some cases).

However, the one exception to this rule is the Ink Business Premier Card. This card, which is a cash back card with a $195 annual fee, doesn’t allow points transfers to other Chase card accounts. So, the only way to redeem points earned with the Ink Business Preferred is for gift cards, as statement credits, as offsets for online or travel purchases or by check or deposit. These points will always be worth exactly 1 cent apiece using all these methods.

With this drawback in addition to the fact that the Ink Business Premier card doesn’t provide a lot of value for a card that charges a $195 annual fee, it’s hard to justify signing up for this card. There are other cards out there that earn better rewards and offer better benefits for a lower annual fee than the Ink Business Preferred.