Chase Ink Bold: 50,000 Sign-Up Bonus and 5 Points Per Dollar at Office Supply Stores

I very frequently recommend to people the Chase Ink Bold® Business Charge Card or Chase Ink Plus® Business Card. Not only does it have a very valuable sign-up bonus, but it also offers the following perks:

• access to the Ultimate Rewards Mall to get bonus points for all shopping
• 5 points per dollar at Office Supply stores (to buy gift cards to Sephora, Macy’s, Home Depot, etc before shopping)
• transfer to top airline and hotel programs such as United Airlines, British Airways, Southwest Airlines and Hyatt Gold Passport.

Chase Ink Bold® Business Charge Card

• Earn 50,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That’s $625 toward travel when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards.
• No interest charges because you pay your balance in full each month.
• Earn 5X points per $1 on the first $50,000 spent in combined purchases at office supply stores and on cellular phone, landline, internet and cable TV services each account anniversary year.
• No foreign transaction fees
• Direct access to a live service advisor anytime.
• 1:1 point transfer to leading frequent travel programs with no transfer fees.
• $0 Intro Annual Fee for the first year, then $95.

Chase Ink Plus® Business Card

Note: The offer below is no longer active. Please visit the updated Chase Ink Plus offer page for the latest terms.

• Named “Best for Travel Rewards for Small Business” MONEY® Magazine, October 2013
• Earn 50,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That’s $625 toward travel when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards.
• Flexibility to pay your balance over time or in full.
• Earn 5X points per $1 on the first $50,000 spent in combined purchases at office supply stores and on cellular phone, landline, internet and cable TV services each account anniversary year.
• Earn 2X points per $1 on the first $50,000 spent in combined purchases at gas stations and hotel accommodations when purchased directly with the hotel each account anniversary year.
• No foreign transaction fees.
• 1:1 point transfer to leading frequent travel programs with no transfer fees.
• $0 Intro Annual Fee for the first year, then $95

The Chase Ink Bold is a charge card, meaning the balance must be paid in full every month. As rewards cards have very high interest rates, you should be paying the balance in full every month anyhow or any interest rates will easily negate the value of any rewards. That said, this card has a flexible spending limit. It also comes in credit card form (as opposed to charge card) and is called the Chase Ink Plus. Other than that, the two cards are exactly the same.

Chase Ulti­mate Rewards Mall

The Chase Ink Bold Card gives you access to the Ulti­mate Rewards por­tal where you can shop online and earn bonus points for reg­u­lar mer­chants such as drugstore.com, Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, etc. Given how lucra­tive shop­ping through the Ulti­mate Rewards Mall is, I think access to the shop­ping por­tal is cru­cial for any miles col­lec­tor who shops online.

As I point out in my post Chase Ulti­mate Rewards Mall: Earn miles for reg­u­lar shop­ping, I earn about 60,000 points a year by shop­ping through the Chase Ulti­mate Rewards Mall. This is enough for a roundtrip ticket to Europe or almost enough to visit Singapore, Phuket and Tokyo on a single roundtrip ticket with United miles.

5 Points Per Dollar at Office Supply Stores

You don’t have to just get office supplies at stores that mainly sell office supplies. They also sell gift cards to many merchants as well as Amex/Visa/MasterCard gift cards. When I want to shop (through the Ultimate Rewards Mall, of course!) at places like Sephora, Macy’s, Home Depot, Bed Bath and Beyond.

Trans­fer Ultimate Rewards Points to Miles and Hotel Programs

Chase Ulti­mate Rewards points trans­fer 1:1 to many air­line and hotel pro­grams. In my opin­ion, the top part­ners are:

• United Air­lines
• British Air­ways
• Hyatt Gold Passport
• Southwest Airlines

Each of these cards has its own co-branded card with Chase, but the Chase Ink Bold/Chase Ink Plus cards are far more lucrative than any of them. Not only is the current 50,000 Ultimate Rewards signup bonus at least as high as the signup bonus on any of the partner co-branded cards, but earning an extra 5 points per dollar buying gift cards at office supply stores lets you get points very quickly.

Summary

• The Chase Ink Bold card is one of my top cards, allowing me to earn points buying gift cards at office supply stores that earn 5 points per dollar.
• It also gives access to the Ulti­mate Rewards Mall portal for online shopping, where I can use the gift cards I bought for a total of 10+ points per dollar on all my online shopping.
• With the Chase Ink Bold card, I can transfer Ultimate Rewards points 1:1 to part­ners such as United, British Air­ways, Hyatt and Southwest Airlines.
• The card currently has a 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points signup bonus, no foreign transaction fees and no annual fee for the first year.