Editors Note: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.
One of the best credit card offers currently available is the Chase Ink Unlimited 90,000 point offer. At the time I’m writing this (3/2/2023), the card is offering 90,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points after spending $6,000 in 3 months. It’s an offer that won’t be around forever, so you should take advantage of it if you can (Editors Note: This offer is expired. View the current offers here.)
That’s what I did recently, opening up a Chase Ink Unlimited for both me and my wife. I first opened it for myself, which makes me eligible for 90,000 Chase points. I then used my card to refer my wife, earning me 20,000 Chase points and making her eligible for another 90,000 Chase points. Together, that’s 200,000 points that will serve us well.
This is going to be a quick post, but I thought I’d quickly go through the eligibility requirements for the Chase Ink Unlimited, walk through what the application process was like for the two cards I just got, and discuss some of the super secret expert things you should know about this card.
What Do You Need To Be Eligible For A Chase Ink Unlimited?
At the outset, it’s important to remember that the Chase Ink Unlimited (and all of the Chase Ink branded cards) are business credit cards. In the world of credit cards and travel rewards, business credit cards are some of the most important cards available to you. I wrote a long post about exactly why business credit cards are so important – you can read that post if you want to get more in-depth information: Business Credit Cards: The Ultimate Tool For Travel Hackers.
To qualify for the Chase Ink Unlimited, you’ll need to have a business of some sort. However, that doesn’t mean you need to have an official, incorporated business or something that seems like a formal business. Anything that earns you extra income qualifies as a business, even if it’s not a large business and even if it’s not something that seems like a business. That means things like food delivery or other gig economy apps would qualify as a business. Even something as small as selling things on eBay or Facebook Marketplace qualifies as a business. If you look, I’m fairly confident that most people reading this will have something that is a business or could be a business.
When you apply for a business card like the Chase Ink Unlimited, you’ll need to enter your business information in your application. If you’re a sole proprietor – which most businesses are – you’ll be entering your own name and social security number as your business information. You don’t need to make up a business name or anything like that (and indeed, you should not make up a business name because that will mess up your application).
The application has a section where you pick your industry. You’ll need to pick something close to it, but don’t get too hung up on getting this exactly right. It’s possible that there isn’t any specific category that matches what you’re business is – which is totally fine.
Finally, when you’re applying for a business card, you’ll need to enter your expected revenue as part of your application. This usually won’t impact your application, but in my experience, you don’t want to put your revenue as $0 or some really low number. If your business doesn’t make a lot of money, an optimistic, projected revenue is what I’d recommend putting down.
My Applications For The Chase Ink Unlimited
I applied for the Chase Ink Unlimited using my rental property as my business. I don’t have any formal business structure for my rental income, so I applied for the card as a sole proprietor, using my social security number as my business ID. Once I submitted the application, it went pending, which is typical for me when I apply for Chase business cards. All this means is I wasn’t instantly approved and it needs to be reviewed before approval. In itself, going pending isn’t a problem. The majority of the time, you’ll get approved without any other action on your part. If Chase does need anything, it’ll usually be to verify your identity or address using a utility bill or something similar.
Chase has a phone number you can call where you can get an automated update about the status of your application. When I called the number, it said my application has been received and I’d receive a decision within 2 weeks. Again, this is all totally normal. A few days later, I received an email letting me know that my application had been approved.
Once I received my card, I went and generated a referral link for myself through Chase’s refer a business page. I then used that link to refer my wife. For the business, we used the same business – the rental property. This time, we used her name and social security number for the business and used the same revenue numbers. Her card was instantly approved, which was a nice surprise (like me, my wife’s Chase business card applications usually go pending for a few days before getting approved).
And with that, we have two new Chase Ink Unlimited cards that will earn us a combined 200,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points after we hit the minimum spend on each card. That’s 90,000 points for her, 90,000 points for me, and then an additional 20,000 points for referring her.
The Super Secret Expert Things You Should Know About The Chase Ink Unlimited
One of the interesting things about the Chase Ink Unlimited and other Chase Ink business cards is that you can continue to earn signup bonuses on the cards even if you already earned the bonus in the past. Other Chase cards have long restrictions on when you can earn a bonus. Most are 24 months, but the Chase Sapphire branded cards have a long 48-month wait between when you can earn the bonus on them again.
In contrast, you can keep opening up Chase Ink cards and as long as you’re approved, you’re eligible for the bonus. I regularly snag a Chase Ink Unlimited, Chase Ink Cash, or Chase Ink Preferred every few months, depending on how much I have to spend and which cards are offering better signup bonuses. If you’re strategic, you can accumulate a large stash of points by getting new Chase Ink cards for your business.
That gets me to my next point. You can also have multiple Chase Ink business cards. In theory, each card should be for a different business, but in practice, it doesn’t seem like that matters. I rarely change the business I use when I apply for a Chase Ink card and I’ve never had an issue.
There’s no hard limit on how many Chase business cards you can have, but in general, I try to have a maximum of four Chase Business Cards open at a time. I’ve found once I have four, I can sometimes run into problems getting additional business cards from Chase. That being said, my brother has had as many as seven Chase business cards open at once, so your experience may vary.
As for how long to wait between applications if you’re thinking about getting multiple Chase Ink cards, I typically recommend waiting at least 2 or 3 months between cards. Again, none of this is a hard rule, but I’ve found more success getting new cards when I take a break between new cards.
For this round of applications, my last Chase Ink business card was from September 2022, and my wife’s most recent one was from July 2022, so we had plenty of gap between when we last got the cards.
Final Thoughts
The Chase Ink Unlimited is an excellent business credit card offering a great bonus. So long as you can meet the minimum spend requirement, I highly recommend snagging it if you can.
My most recent round of applications will net us 200,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points, which would be worth $3,000 if used in the Chase Sapphire Reserve travel portal. And with the way I use points, I should be able to get more value than that.
Anyway, this is a quick post that I wanted to get out there, just so people can see how I think about these cards and what the application process is like.
If you feel like supporting this blog, please consider using my referral links. You can find my post I wrote with what I think are the best cards for the month on this page: Best Credit Card Offers.
Yervant says
Great article. Wondering if you use the same chase login for all cards or do you create new user accounts as well to manage them? How do you transfer from card to card properly between your accounts as well as between you and your wife?
Phil says
Awesome post, Kevin. If you don’t mind, would you share how exactly you spend the Chase Ultimate Reward points? Which airline partners and hotels or what is best when using the points.
Financial Panther says
Most of the time, I’m transferring Chase points to Hyatt, as that’s really one of the best use cases with them. Otherwise, for my last international trip, I transferred to Aeroplan and Virgin Atlantic.
Using points is a completely different topic that’s I can’t fully explain here, but if you wanted to keep things simple, Hyatt is probably the best transfer partner for Chase.
Jeffrey Lowe says
Chase has changed it to $900 bonus cash back instead of 90,000 points
Todd says
FALSE……as long as you have a Sapphire card, Preferred or Reserve the 90k points can be transferred as UR point.
Financial Panther says
Hey, when it says $900 cash back, it really just means 90,000 points. You can use the points as cashback if you wanted to, but that wouldn’t be the ideal way to use them.
Anonymous says
Understood. Thanks