The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express (learn more) is one of Amex’s most lucrative and overlooked business cards. The card has no annual fee (Rates & Fees), and earns 2x Membership Rewards points on the first $50,000 spent every calendar year (and then 1x points), making it Amex’s most compelling card for everyday spending (at least up to that limit).
Despite its consistently modest welcome offer, this is a card that I think could absolutely be worth it. This is the only no annual fee Amex card that’s open to new applicants that earns Membership Rewards that can be moved to airline & hotel partners, so that’s a major benefit of the card.
In this post, I’d like to cover one aspect of this card that people often don’t consider, and it’s actually the thing that gets me the most value from the card at the moment, given my overall Amex strategy.
How the Amex Blue Business Plus makes my points more flexible
The various transferable points currencies have different policies when it comes to who you can move your points to. The idea is that you can’t transfer your Amex points to someone else’s Amex account, but in some cases, you can transfer your Amex points to someone else’s airline or hotel loyalty account.
The policy is generally that you can transfer your Amex points to the account of an authorized user on one of your cards, as long as they’ve been an authorized user on your card for at least 90 days. If you ask me, the Amex Blue Business Plus Card is the best product for adding authorized users in order to accomplish that. Why?
- When you add an authorized user on a business card, it won’t show up on their personal credit report, for the purposes of the Chase 5/24 rule, or anything along those lines; meanwhile if you were to add them as an authorized user on a personal card, it would show up in that way
- The Amex Blue Business Plus Card is a card that it costs nothing to hold onto in the long run, and which allows you to add authorized users at no cost, so it’s the ideal hub card for keeping authorized users in the long run
So I have the Amex Blue Business Plus Card and have Ford and my dad as authorized users, they have the card and have me as authorized users, etc. To me this is just the easiest, long term, “set it and forget it” way to be able to move points to loyalty accounts of others, and that’s a perk I value.
Is being able to consolidate points in that way really valuable?
Some people may say “okay, but does it really matter if you can transfer points to someone else’s frequent flyer account?” Maybe for some people it doesn’t, but as I see it, there’s a lot of upside.
For one, if you don’t have enough points in one account for a redemption, it’s useful to be able to consolidate points from multiple Amex cards toward one transaction.
But beyond that, sometimes there are just some accounts that are more valuable for redemptions than others. For example, I have Air France-KLM Flying Blue Platinum status, which gets me access to a lot more business class award space.
So there’s a huge advantage to Ford being able to move his Amex points to my Flying Blue account, rather than to his own account, for example, since I often have access to much better award pricing.
Bottom line
The Amex Blue Business Plus Card has no annual fee and earns 2x Membership Rewards points on the first $50,000 spent every year (then 1x points), arguably making it the most compelling Amex card for everyday spending.
While that’s great in and of itself, there’s a hidden feature of the card that I particularly value. That’s being able to add authorized users to the card at no cost, all while not having that show on the personal credit report of the authorized users (ideal for staying under the 5/24 limit).
When you have an Amex authorized user for at least 90 days, you can then transfer points to their airline or hotel partner accounts, and I consider that to be super useful. I find this to be easiest way to maintain that flexibility at no cost, and it’s one of the reasons that everyone in my family has this card.
Anyone else use this Amex Blue Business Plus Card strategy for authorized users and moving points?
The following links will direct you to the rates and fees for mentioned American Express Cards. These include: The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express (Rates & Fees).
