Amex Blue Business Plus Card

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  American Express Credit Cards

BlueBiz2.png

Amex Webpage
Business Card Only
Annual Fee

No annual fee

Current Offer
15,000 Membership Rewards points with $3,000 initial spend. But some people can access a 50,000 point with $15,000 spend offer (try this link) or a 30,000 point with $5,000 spend plus 10,000 points for an employee with $1,000 spend offer (try this link).
Typical Signup Offer

None

Signup Bonus Chart
Bonus Categories

2x All Purchases (≈3%)


2.7% Foreign Transaction Fee


Membership Rewards Guide


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If you are willing and able to use a business card for the bulk of your purchases, and you are comfortable earning Membership Rewards points and redeeming them for frequent flyer tickets, the Blue for Business card is the best general-purpose reward card available. It earns 2x Membership Rewards points on every purchase. At a value of 1.5 per point, that's 3 cents per dollar, and the points are even more valuable if you highly value premium cabin award tickets.

If you had the Blue Business Plus Card before November of 2020, you should have an Amex Offer that gives you $25 back on a single purchase of $500 or more. You can use this offer up to 10 times until the end of June, for a total of up to $250 back.

Introduction to Membership Rewards Points

Membership Rewards is the name of Amex's own rewards program. Membership Rewards Guide

  • Membership Rewards points can be transferred to many different frequent flyer programs. This gives you the flexibility to take advantage of award space on over a hundred different airlines. In many cases, you can choose to book a flight through one of several different partner programs, allowing you to take advantage of whichever program requires the fewest miles and fees for your trip.
  • Membership Rewards has many more airline partners than the other big credit card reward programs, such as Chase's Ultimate Rewards and Citi's ThankYou Rewards. They also have many more credit cards with Membership Rewards bonuses. If you are willing and able to use your points to book frequent flyer tickets, especially premium cabin award tickets, Membership Rewards is the most valuable reward program.
  • Amex frequently offers promotional transfer bonuses. When the promotion is active, you'll get extra airline miles when you transfer your Membership Rewards points to a specific airline. For example, if American Express is offering a 40% bonus for British Airways, you'll receive 14,000 British Airways points for every 10,000 Membership Rewards points you transfer. See Take Advantage of Transfer Bonuses to Get More Value from Your Reward Points for more information or visit Frequent Miler’s Current Transfer Bonuses page for a list of current (and past) promotions.
  • Unlike Ultimate Rewards points, frequent flyer tickets are usually the only good option for redeeming your Membership Reward points. Membership Rewards' transfer rates for hotel programs aren't very attractive, it doesn't partner with any fixed-value airline programs (like Southwest), and you'll only get 1 cent per point when you use them to purchase travel through Amex.
  • The only exceptions are for certain Amex Platinum cardholders:
    • Amex BUSINESS Platinum Cardholders get a 35% rebate on some airfare purchases made through Amex. This works out to a value of 1.54 cents per point. While this isn't as much as we hope to get by using our Membership Reward points for frequent flyer tickets, you'll always get decent value from your points and don't have to worry about finding available award space. It is a lot better than purchasing travel at only 1 cent per point.
    • Amex SCHWAB Platinum Cardholders get an option to cash out their points at 1.1 cents per point (1.25 cents through September).
  • We value Membership Reward points at 1.5 cents each. Because you can take advantage of award space and "sweet spots" from many different frequent flyer programs and the occasional transfer bonus, Membership Reward points are worth more than any single type of airline miles. If you highly valuable premium-cabin award tickets, Membership Reward points are worth even more. But if you want to avoid the hassles associated with frequent flyer tickets, they are worth significantly less. How Much are Points Worth?

Collecting the Signup Bonus

The Blue Business Plus Card doesn't normally have a signup bonus. You might be able to take advantage of an occasional promotional signup offer, but otherwise the card is only interesting for its excellent reward earning rate.

Notable Benefits

  • Access to Amex Offers. Amex continuously provides discount offers to their cardholders. Most of the offers are in the form of "Spend $x, get $y back", but other offers are in the form of "x% off your entire order" or "Earn an extra Membership Reward point on your purchases". To take advantage of the offers, you need to go to the Amex website, find the ones you are interested in, and "add them" to your card. Each offer will then be automatically applied when you use your card to make the corresponding purchase. Amex Offers Website.
  • Free ShopRunner membership. As with all Amex cards, you are entitled to a complimentary ShopRunner membership, which provides free two-day and return shipping from around 150 of the largest online retailers. ShopRunner Website
  • Exclusive access to entertainment events. Amex sponsors cardmember-only events around the country and also provides early ticket access for some other shows.

Using the Card for your Everyday Spending

  • For many people, the Blue Business Plus card earns the most valuable rewards on everyday purchases. You'll earn 2x Membership Rewards points, valued at 3 cents per dollar, regardless of the category. Get a Great General Purpose Reward Card and Use It for All of Your Spending.
  • But it's a business card. You'll need to have some sort of small business to qualify for the card. And you'll need to be comfortable using the card for your personal expenses, even though you are only supposed to use it for business expenses. Unlock Extra Reward Points with Business Credit Cards.
  • In addition, you'll typically only get good value from Membership Rewards points when you use them to book frequent flyer tickets. To get more than 1 cent per point, you need to transfer them to a partner frequent flyer program and then use the resulting frequent flyer miles to book award tickets. You'll need patience, flexibility, and/or luck to get good opportunities to use your points.
  • But if you also have the Business Platinum Card, you can redeem your points for the equivalent of 1.54 cents each when purchasing certain airline tickets through the Amex website. With that option, the two card combination earns 3.1 cents per dollar, without having to worry about award space.

  • You won't get price or return protection. The Blue for Business Card comes with purchase protection (for items that break or are stolen during the first 90 days) and extended warranty coverage. But it doesn't provide any price protection (which refunds the difference if you find the product for a lower price during the first couple months after your purchase) or return protection (which refunds the purchase price even if the store won't accept a return). Automatic Protection for the Things You Buy with Your Credit Card.
  • Amex cards aren't accepted at every merchant. You'll need to carry another card, for any merchant which doesn't take Amex.
  • The Blue Business Plus card has a foreign transaction fee. You'll also need to use another card for any purchases you make overseas. However most of your overseas purchases are likely to be made with a card that earns bonus rewards on travel and restaurants, anyway, rather than your general-purpose reward card.

Getting Rid of the Card

  • You need to be careful or you could lose your Membership Rewards points when you cancel your card. To keep your points, you need to hold onto at least one card that earns Membership Rewards points. If you don't have one, you either need to hold onto the card, open up a new Membership Rewards card, or transfer all your points to your favorite airline program. Before cancelling, make sure to check that the card you're cancelling is linked to the same Membership Rewards account as your other cards (as it should be).
  • We usually recommend cancelling your card, rather than doing a product change. If you change to a card that you haven't had before, you won't be able to earn the signup bonus for that card in the future. In addition, signing up directly for the new card would earn a referral bonus for your Amex referral partner. And it usually isn't hard to get approved for a new Amex card when you need it.
  • You can product change between the Blue Business Plus ($0) and Blue Business Cash ($0) cards.

  • You might be able to receive a retention offer to keep your card. It could be enough to make it worthwhile to keep the card.



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