Having a credit card is essential for a business owner. The benefits are fantastic and help us in many situations, especially as photographers. First an foremost if you put every business purchase on the card, it helps you in your accounting and keeping track of your biz expenditures. Art Producer’s Perspective mentions this in her latest post on invoicing.
Credit cards also come in handy if you need to put a deposit on rental photo gear, float expenses, etc.
Those are just general benefits of having a credit card. Different cards offer many amenities if you will. Among the credit cards available, I’ve gone through a few, as my airline carrier loyalties have changed. I finally found the best card out there from what I’ve seen. It’s the CitiBusiness Premier Pass.
Here are some of the awesome benefits of it:
•You earn airline miles for the airline carrier you are flying plus the same amount of mile points(ThankYou points) for the card. So you can still earn airline status and rewards with their program while earning rewards through the ThankYou network.
•I have a Personal Business Assistant that is a personal concierge. They’ll research many different things for you as well as help with travel arrangements.
•Travel & Emergency assistance: This is awesome and I just learned about it . If you are traveling abroad and get into a bind, you can get medical, legal, translation services, lost luggage assistance, and many other services. All included with the card. You also get Accidental Travel Insurance if you’re hospitalized or something.
•Auto Rental insurance: A lot of cards have this one, but regardless it’s very useful. You can deny all the extra insurances that rental car places try to upsell you on when renting a car.
•Warranty extension: They will double the warranty of anything you purchase on the card up to a year.
•I can get free companion tickets within the US if I spend a certain a amount.
There are more benes, but these are the basics.
Unfortunately they stopped accepting new applicants at this time, but hopefully they’ll reopen it in the near future. The next best card they have is the CitiBusiness Card with ThankYou Network. The only difference between the two are double airline miles.
Credit Cards have great power and benefits, but can be dangerous for some people. Regardless, I believe they are essential to any business.
Do you have one?
Thanks so much Nick, that post was really helpful! I just filled out the online application to get the CitiBusiness Card. You rock!
great post nick! i have a few credit cards for different purchases an uses. they key is to also keeping them paid off and to not acrue all tha lame interest. but definitely the best benefit to my business that fits in my wallet next to my business card.