The rumor that Chase will no longer offer the Ink Bold Charge Card as of 11/16/2014 has been confirmed. I stopped by at a Chase branch the other day to verify whether the phase out was actually going to happen and the branch manager confirmed that the card it would in fact be phased out in November. My guess is that the application links will actually disappear before that date.
As of today, October 3, 2014, the card is available online directly at Chase.com. There are reports that the card is no longer available in-branch, but the marketing material appeared to remain at the branch I was there.
Should you Apply for the Ink Plus or Ink Bold?
Given that Chase also recently launched the highest welcome bonus offer on the Ink Plus Business Card, if you're in the market for an Ink Business card which card should you choose to apply for?
There is no clear cut answer to this. One route would be to apply for the Ink Bold and earn the 50,000 points with the expectation that the card may be converted into the Ink Plus sometime in the near future--- possibly eliminating the option to apply for the Ink Plus within the next 24 months. Also, the $95 annual fee is waived on this card for the first year. If you already have the Ink Plus this would be the clear route and you would get 50,000 points without an annual fee.
However, if you don’t have either of these cards, then you can apply for the Ink Plus with its all-time high 70,000 points offer to lock in a higher bonus. The caveat on this higher bonus is that the annual fee is not waived for the first year. So the Ink Plus is packaged as 70,000 points with a $95 annual fee.
What to Do With Ultimate Rewards Points
Chase Ultimate Rewards points remain among the most valuable flexible bank-points out there. With a handful of great transfer partners it is easy to get a value of 2.0 cents per point when redeeming. The recent addition of Singapore Airlines means you now have the option of transferring points to 11 travel programs.
Here is a full list of Ultimate Rewards transfer partners:
- Singapore Airlines
- British Airways
- Korean Air
- Southwest
- United
- Virgin Atlantic
- Hyatt
- Marriott
- Ritz-Carlton
- Priority Club
- Amtrak
Among my favorite programs to transfer points to include United when booking international awards with free stopovers and Hyatt, which is easy to redeem points at a value of 2.0 cents per point.
The Bottom Line
If you are in the market for applying for a Chase Ink Business Card, you will have to weigh your options to decide which Ink card to go for. If you have not had either version of the Ink Card a safer bet would be to apply for the Chase Ink Plus Business Card and earn 70,000 Ultimate Rewards points. If you want to take a gamble, then you could go for the Ink Bold card and try to apply for the Ink Plus in the future as well.
What’s your take? Are you going to apply for either of these offers?
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