Most business owners eventually reach the same point: you realize cash back isn’t cutting it, and you want to start earning points or miles instead.
But once you make that switch, a new question comes up pretty quickly: what’s the right approach to earning?
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. But most strategies fall into two camps: simple and consistent earning, or more complex bonus-category optimization.
Simple and consistent
If you’re too busy to sink a lot of time or planning into earning travel rewards, a card with a simple earning structure can be a good choice. The brand-new Capital One Venture Business and its bigger sibling, the Capital One Venture X Business, are good examples of this. Every time you make purchases with these cards you’ll earn 2 miles per dollar spent.
The only exception is booking travel through Capital One Business Travel, where you’ll earn at higher rates (even better).
The upside to this structure is the “set it and forget it” mentality that allows you to focus on running your business. You’ll never have to worry about which categories your spending falls into, or whether an employee used the less-optimal card with a merchant. And, if you don’t mind booking through Capital One Business Travel, it’s a simple and lucrative way to earn some extra Venture miles.
The downside is the lack of other bonus categories where you can really pile up the points. And, specifically with Capital One’s transfer partner network, the lack of a major U.S. airline partner can be limiting.
Yes, you can use points with foreign airlines to book domestic flights on U.S. carriers (and there are actually some good options for this, like Finnair Plus and Air Canada Aeroplan). But that may ultimately make the simple strategy feel more complicated than it should.
A bit more complicated
On the flip side, there are a number of credit cards that feature a variety of bonus categories tailored to small business owners. The obvious benefit here is to increase the pace you earn points or miles. But a strategy of this nature requires a bit more attention.
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You’ll need to make sure you’re spending more in those business categories than a category which only earns 1 point or mile per dollar, such that your effective earning rate exceeds the 2 miles per dollar you can earn in the previous example. Chase has a number of cards that fit the bill for small business owners, including the Ink Business cards and the relatively new Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business℠ (see rates and fees).
Let’s use the Sapphire Reserve for Business as our example here. While the $795 annual fee on this card is higher than the Venture X Business’s, it also has a variety of bonus categories that let you stack up points, like:
- 8 points per dollar spent when booking travel through the Chase Travel℠ portal.
- 5 points per dollar on Lyft rides (through Sept. 30, 2027).
- 4 points per dollar when booking flights or hotels directly with an airline or hotel chain.
- 3 points per dollar on social media and search engine advertising.
- 1 points per dollar on all other purchases
Comparing both strategies
Let’s take a theoretical $10,000 in business spending and compare these two earning strategies.
Spend $10,000 with virtually any merchant other than Capital One Business Travel, and you’ll earn 20,000 Capital One miles.
Spend that same $10,000 on your Sapphire Reserve for Business card, it could look something like this:
- $2,500 in spending on social media: 7,500 points
- $2,500 in direct airline or hotel bookings: 10,000 points
- $5,000 in spending on everything else: 5,000 points
This scenario gives us more points (22,500), but if your spending habits don’t align well with the bonus categories, you could earn less than you would with the straightforward double points on everything.
Bottom Line
There’s nothing wrong with simple and straightforward, especially when it comes to earning miles and points. But there are so many bonus categories across various small business credit cards (think utilities, cell phone bills, digital and software subscriptions and a number of other categories businesses invest heavily in) that it may be worth seeing if a more complicated card can help optimize your spending.
Or, consider a combination of both, where you use one card to target your largest recurring business expenses and let a simple double-miles-on-everything card cover everything else.
Stacie Harris is a local resident and reporter of the Maple Grove area. Stacie reports on medicine and science for the Maple Grove Report.
