This post is part of our series titled “Weird Wednesday’s” where we have a look at credit cards you might not have heard of before. You can view more posts in this series by clicking here.
American Express offer a business credit card that isn’t talked about much called the “Blue for Business Credit Card“, I decided to do a bit of digging and have a look at this card in a bit more depth.
- Sign up bonus of 10,000 Membership Rewards points after making your first purchase
- Card earns at the following rates:
- 2x points on purchases made when booking on the American Express travel website each year
- 1x points on all other purchases
- Receive 30% more points with the annual relationship bonus (1.3x on all other purchases and 2.6x on purchases made on the AmEx travel website)
- Annual fee of $0 and additional cardholders can also be added for free
- Introductory APR of 0% for 9 months on purchases
- Standard American Express benefits
- Standard American Express OPEN benefits
- You cannot transfer these points to transfer partners unless you have another American Express card that allows this
30% Anniversary Bonus
The main reason this card is of interest is the 30% anniversary bonus, this is awarded at the end of your card member year (e.g twelve months after being approved) and not on a calendar year. You’ll earn a 30% bonus on all points earned (excluding sign up bonuses). For example if you spent $20,000 at the American Express travel website you’d receive 40,000 points for that spend originally and then an additional 12,000 points at the end of your card member year.
The bonus points post to your account within thirty days after the anniversary of your card. Your account must be in god standing to receive the bonus.
Transferring Points To Travel Partners
For some reason this card does not allow you to transfer Membership Rewards points to their travel partners (if you look at the fine print “Membership Rewards® Program – Transfer Points” sub section is missing). If you have another credit card that allows these transfers then you’ll be able to transfer the points earned on this card – otherwise you’ll be out of luck.
| American Express Membership Rewards Transfer Partners | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Airline Partners (1:1 Unless Otherwise Noted) | |||
| Delta SkyMiles | AeroMexico Club Premier (1:1) | Air Canada Aeroplan | KLM/AirFrane Flying Blue |
| Alitalia MilleMiglia Club | ANA | Asia Miles | British Airways Avios |
| Emirates | EL AL Israel Airlines (50:1) | Frontier | Hawaiian Airlines |
| Iberia Plus | jetBlue (1.25:1) | Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer | Qantas |
| Virgin atlantic flying club | Etihad | Aer Lingus | Avianca Lifemiles |
| Hotel Partners (1:1 unless otherwise noted) | |||
| Choice Privileges | Hilton Hhonors (1:2) | Marriott (1:1) |
Final Thoughts
It’s a shame this card does not have a higher sign up bonus/some bonus categories. I like having no annual fee American Express cards so I can use them for sync offers and small business saturday. The best direct comparison to this card is the relatively new AmEx EveryDay & AmEx EveryDay Preferred which offer bonuses of 20% & 50% extra points respectively.
The upside to both of those cards is that they have bonus categories of supermarkets & they can transfer points directly to travel partners. The downside is that they require you to make a minimum of 20/30 transactions per month to get these bonuses (and the Preferred card has an annual fee)
I personally don’t think the Blue for Business card is worth applying for (I’d rather 2% or 3% cash back), but if you find 1.3x Membership Rewards points on all purchases with no annual fee attractive then this might be a good option for you. Fingers crossed they increase the sign up bonus on this card at some stage (I’m not holding my breathe).
doesn’t AMEX have a limit of 4 personal/biz CCs? so yeah it’s nice to have another no-AF fee in your portfolio building your AAoA/credit history long term. but its also taking up space for another card, its sign up bonus and/or higher category spend that might be more valuable. whether that be an MR card or CB card from AMEX.
so what’d be your strategy for the best AMEX cards to have in your wallet at all times or long term? as well as perhaps on a rotational basis? like closing and then replacing it with another, even with keeping the one personal bonus in mind.
just assume someone is new to AMEX cards and hasn’t had any bonuses so they’re eligible. at the same time they have a stellar cred history so assume they will be approved for even the most primo AMEX cards.
Used this card for parking the MR points from personal PRG , while i wait for a good bonus on the everyday cards.
I think this card is great. After my 2.22% runs out with Barclay (annual fee), I’m definitely debating between this card and the Fidelity Amex for my unbonused spend. Are MR worth 1.54 cents each? Probably.
You can usually get the annual fee rebated on the Arrival if you call retention. You might also be better off with the AmEx EveryDay preferred, that’d give you 1.5x on every day spend, but also a nice boost on grocery store spend as well.