I've heard various stories of companies covering their entire travel budgets with miles earned by company credit card spend --- true? If so, which vendors? Is Amex the cream of the crop, or are there other rewards cards that a small business would qualify for to earn either miles or cash back to help cut costs? Thanks in advance!!
Credit Cards with Rewards
Answers
You can get a lot of free trips if you work it right. I have done that at a few companies before. The whole travel budget? Never. But you can put a nice dent in it. Of course like anything else there are trade-offs. If you go with the airline's credit cards to get a multiple on miles your employees might end up spending more on any particular flight just to get it on a single carrier. Obviously, if you are paying an extra $100 for a flight just to get the mileage bonus you will probably end up under water when it all nets out.
There are some good sites for comparing these programs and
http://www.frequentflier.com/index.html
and many others if you do some google searching.
An alternative to going with an airline card whose points are only usable for that airline, you could go with a business bank card with points usable anywhere. I have been a Wells Fargo business customer for a long time and we pay $50/year to get in their points program and we get multiple free trips per year out of it for the company. We can use the miles directly with airlines or simply to get cash back. Their program has good $-to-points value and I don't feel stuck on a particular airline.
I'm sure many business banks have a similar program. The ROI is a no-brainer for us.
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