Business cards have often have the same benefits as personal cards. They do have less legal protections on fees, rates, and unauthorized charges.
There are various protections offered on credit cards. Always check your credit card to ensure they carry a given benefit as these certainly vary by issuer and card:
- Price protection A few card issuers will refund the difference if an item you buy goes down in price soon after the purchase
- Return protection Some card issuers will refund you for buyers remorse if the store won’t take it back
- Purchase protection Some card issuers will refund you in the event of damage or theft within 90 days of purchase
- Extended warranty Some card issuers will lengthen the warranty offering by the manufacturer for damage and defects
- Car rental insurance Some card issuers will cover collision insurance on your rental car
- Travel protections There are various protections offered on some cards for things like Trip Delay, Baggage Delay, and Lost Baggage
- Cell phone protection A few cards offer protection on your phone when the bill is paid with their card
For some time, I’ve had this idea in my head that business cards have less protections than personal cards, and found myself deferring to personal cards for clothing and electronics purchases where the protections matter to me.
In fact, business cards clearly offer many of the same benefits that personal cards do. As mentioned, these do vary by card issuer and specific card, but broadly the same benefits are found on both. As an example, my favorite benefit is Return Protection which makes the decision to buy easier. Many business credit card have the exact same return protection as personal cards do.
Amex is my favorite issuer for protections. Almost all Amex card have similar protections, and most of their business cards show the same protections as personal cards. Blue Business Plus is an exception in that it only has warranty and purchase protection, not return protection. Also note that some of the premium personal and business cards have higher limits on purchase protection.
One thing to be aware of is that some issuers put a caveat in the car rental insurance protection of business cards that it’s only for business rentals, not personal. Since there are big dollars at stake in case of an accident, it would be prudent to use a personal card for personal rentals.
There are some legal protections offered on personal credit cards which are not offered on business card. Things like getting notice before the APR changes, 6-month introductory interest rate, 21-day payment window, and similar things which are included in the CARD Act of 2009. Business cards also, theoretically, don’t offer the same protections against unauthorized charges; though as far as I know, in practice, the major card issuers do reimburse for unauthorized charges.
