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Do you ever see how often points & miles enthusiasts travel, and wonder how they earned so many points and miles? They’re probably opening both personal and business credit cards.

For years, we’ve funded Disney trips to U.S. Parks & Disneyland Paris by opening credit cards, putting our regular spending on the cards, paying them off every month and collecting welcome bonuses good for booking hotels, flights and more. Three keys to this strategy include staying organized, paying off the credit cards every month, and never overspending. The problem is, there are a finite number of personal credit cards one can open! Enter business cards.

I used to think only people with large, thriving businesses could open business credit cards, but business cards are actually available to many more people than you think!

We used to only open personal credit cards to earn points & miles to redeem for Disney trips; now that we open personal AND business credit cards, we’re able to take longer trips to Disney more often!

Today’s post will cover:
Who can Open Business Cards?
Easy Side Hustles to Start
Whether Chase 5/24 Matters
What you Have to Gain
The Application Process
Business Card to Open now

Who can Open a Business Card?

You. You can probably open a business credit card and you don’t even know it. More people than ever have side gigs, and you don’t have to own a Fortune 500 company or even a small business with multiple employees to open a business card. If you have a profitable lemonade stand, you can apply for a business card. Or if you babysit, tutor, sell things on the internet, whatever: you have a business!

Anyone with a side income and a social security number might be able to open a business card. No need to go create an LLC and obtain an EIN or launch a startup–whether you rent out a room on Airbnb or freelance occasionally, open a business card and watch the points roll in.

I’m not kidding: I’ve heard of someone opening a credit card with a projected annual business revenue of $75. Just go for it.

The Easiest way to Start a Side Hustle

Maybe you legitimately don’t have a side gig. If you don’t have a side income yet, now is the time to start! One of the easiest ways to start a business that will qualify you for business cards is to leverage your assets: either rent out your house on Airbnb or start selling belongings on Facebook Marketplace. Facebook Marketplace is probably easier than Airbnb–you can sell just about anything there! Use it as an excuse to clean out your kids’ rooms, or your garage or attic–it’s like a garage sale, but online. Sell your kids’ castoff toys and clothes, your own clothing and accessories, furniture you no longer need, the list goes on.

As soon as you’ve made your first dollar, open a business card (I’ve actually heard of people opening business cards before they even earned $1 on their business).

They don’t Count Against Your 5/24

Chase is a bank that offers a lot of great credit cards, but they also stop issuing credit cards to individuals who’ve opened five personal credit cards across banks, in a rolling 24 month period. Even being added as an authorized user onto someone else’s credit card contributes to your 5/24 count (although there is a way around this particular situation that we will cover under the application process below).

With Chase business cards: you can’t open one if you’ve opened any five personal credit cards across banks in the past 24 months, but business cards (including Chase business cards) don’t count against your 5/24.

That’s why it’s strategic to work business cards into your points & miles plan: if you can’t open any more Chase cards because you’ve maxed out the Chase limit of 5 credit cards in the past 24 months across banks, you can still open business cards from other banks until you’re back under 5/24 and able to open Chase cards again!

They Often Have Higher Welcome Bonuses & Spends

If you’re concerned you won’t have enough business expenses to hit the business card minimum spend, it’s fine to just put personal expenses on the card.

The tricky aspect of business credit cards is that they often require you to spend more money in three months than personal cards do; the benefit, however, is that you often earn a higher welcome bonus than you do opening personal cards. Make sure you’re able to spend the designated amount of money in the required amount of time before you open a business card.

Try to schedule opening business cards requiring high spends around your most expensive purchases: annual property taxes, auto or other insurance, private school tuition, etc. Ask your orthodontist if you can use a credit card to pay for children’s braces. If you have a Health Savings Account through your employer, put your medical expenses on a credit card and then submit reimbursements through your HSA.

If you have kids in college, ask the University if you can pay with a credit card. They might charge you a fee, but if the welcome bonus is high enough, it might be worth the fee! Going out to dinner with friends? Pick up the tab and ask everyone to Venmo you. Going on vacation with friends? Offer to pay for shared short-term rentals, and ask to be reimbursed. Get creative! Every expense possible from here on out goes on a credit card.

How to Open a Business Card

The simplest way to open a business card, without an EIN or LLC, is to use your personal information. Here are fields you can expect, and how to populate them:

Legal Name of Business (first/last name)
Business Name on Card (first/last name)
Doing Business As (Select ‘no)
Business Mailing Address (home address)
Type of Business (Sole Proprietor)
Business Phone Number (Your own)
Tax Identification Number (SSN or EIN)
Business Category (Choose the best fit)
Number of Employees (0)
Annual Business Revenue (project annual side hustle revenue)
Years in Business (however old, even before monetization)
Authorizing Officer (owner)
Gross Annual Income (entire household income)

What to do if your Application goes Pending

If your application goes pending, don’t sweat it. Wait 24 hours and see if it processes through on its own (they will typically send you an email if you’re approved).

If you don’t hear from the bank for a few days, call them and ask about your application, but sometimes this is more trouble than it’s worth. If they’re just processing your application you might get approved if you just wait.

What to do if your Application is Denied

If you’re denied*, call the bank’s reconsideration line–sometimes they just want to make sure it’s not fraud! Have all of your application information in front of you, because they might ask you a lot of questions. Answer all the questions honestly. You’ll be surprised how often they’ll approve you for the credit card.

*If you’re denied because you are 5/24 but one or more of those five is an Authorized User card, call the bank and explain. You do NOT have to cancel the AUs, either. Just explain the situation to the bank, and you’ll probably get approved (this happened to me recently).

There are also times when you’ll just be denied, you won’t know why, it won’t make sense, and calling them won’t help. This has only happened to me once. Try not to get discouraged. Wait 30 days and try opening a different business card with a different bank.

The Best Business Card to Open Right now

Now that you know the basics when applying for business cards as a sole proprietor, let’s talk about the best business card on the market:

Open a Chase Ink Business Unlimited Credit Card and you’ll earn $750when you spend $6,000 in three months, for no annual fee! I like the Ink Unlimited because you earn 1.5% cash back on every purchase.

If you’d like to unlock the ability to convert the $750 into 75K transferable points, pair it with the best starter card that everyone should carry in their wallet:

Open a Chase Sapphire Preferred Card and earn 80,000 bonus points
after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. You’ll pay a $95 fee to keep this card in your wallet, and if you’re going to double or even triple the value of your Ultimate Rewards by transferring them to Hyatt, Southwest Airlines or another parter, the annual fee is well worth it.

The Disney Points Podcast

Click through to listen to our podcast episode all about business cards:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6YkYNQlYSwAQJznJpqNoFa?si=7bb4129f58cf4751

Takeaways

Gone are the days when there weren’t enough personal credit cards to open to fund all the trips of your dreams! Now you have the power to also open business cards, and more than double the amount of available points and miles. So open the business card above, or another card that matches up with your next Disney trip, and start taking more trips funded primarily using points & miles!

Learn more about how we travel for almost free on Instagram @almostfreetraveling and join the conversation on facebook.com/almostfreetraveling. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post. The content on this page is accurate as of the posting date; however, some of our partner offers may have expired.