Amazon Business Prime American Express Credit Card review: Is it the best business card for online spending?

The Amazon Business Prime American Express Credit Card is an excellent choice for business owners with Prime memberships. It gives cardholders access to great prices on business supplies and offers exclusive benefits to Amazon Prime members. In addition to receiving 5 percent cash back on Amazon purchases (up to $120,000, then 1 percent thereafter) and free employee cards, cardholders have access to financial tools to track business spending, as well as insurance and protection on specific services or items.

Rewards: Great rate for Amazon shoppers

This card offers cash back in the form of points. Amazon Business Prime members earn 5 percent back on the first $120,000 spent at Amazon (including Amazon Business and Amazon Web Services) and Whole Foods each year, then 1 percent; 2 percent at U.S. gas stations, restaurants and wireless phone service; and 1 percent on other purchases.

In the card’s 5 percent categories, you’ll earn 500 points or $5 for every $100 you spend — and if you’re earning 1 percent back on non-bonus-category spending, you’ll earn 100 points or $1 for every $100 you spend.

Business owners who spend a lot on Amazon.com, Whole Foods or Amazon Business will get the most value from this card. Earning 5 percent back can add up quickly, and this is especially true if you spend a lot on equipment and supplies each year. With $120,000 in Amazon spending on your card in a calendar year, you can earn $5,000 in cash back in this category alone.

Cardholder perks: Expense management tools

This card gives you access to various employee benefits that can boost your business’ productivity. Through Amazon Business Prime, you gain access to many expense management and tracking tools, including a mobile app for saving receipt snapshots and monitoring employee spending. If you have a QuickBooks account, you can also transfer your transactions there.

You also order free employee cards, which you can use for additional rewards. Employers can track spending, set spending limits, get alerts and pull summary reports on these cards, as well.

The Amazon Business Prime card also includes monthly statements and year-end summary of all purchases. If you find you don’t have time to oversee everything, you can add a team member as an account manager to handle tasks like making payments, reviewing expenses and adding employee cards.

Protections: Shopping and travel protections add to value

The Amazon Business Prime Amex provides rental car insurance coverage of up to $50,000 per rental agreement for the first 30 consecutive days. However, this coverage excludes deliberate damage, manufacture defects, wear and tear, mechanical failures and failure of any other vehicle or property.

As an added benefit for traveling business owners and employees, American Express offers baggage insurance coverage ranging from $500 to $1,250 for carry-on bags, checked luggage and high-risk items — but you can only claim this coverage if youbook your trips with the Amazon Business Prime American Express Card. This baggage insurance excludes perishable items, living plants, animals or pets, credit cards, cash and other travel documents.

Purchase protection coverage is available to cardholders for up to $1,000 per qualified item and up to $50,000 per calendar year (items eligible for protection coverage are those that have been damaged, lost or stolen within 90 days of purchase). The following items are not covered:

• Consumable or perishable items
• Tickets or rare collectables
• Motorized vehicles or vehicle parts and components
• Rented items
• Inventory

You are also protected against purchases you make with your American Express credit card that you can’t return within 90 days (items must be in the original purchase condition and cannot be returned to the original merchant). Return protection coverage is limited to $300 per item and $1,000 per year, excluding shipping and handling expenses. Certain items, however, are not included, including:

• Healthcare items, such as prescriptions or medical aids
• Computer parts or software
• Fine jewelry

Though the Amazon Business Prime American Express Credit Card comes with many business benefits, it is still a co-branded card and comes with the limitations of one. This card and its benefits are all based around Amazon as well as its partnerships. For business owners who don’t use Amazon regularly, this card can be sorely lacking. If you are unimpressed by its rewards rate outside of Amazon and Whole Foods purchases or requirement of an Amazon Prime membership to have the card, you may want to look at other business card options.

Rates and fees: No annual fee, but a membership cost

The Amazon Business Prime American Express card is popular among business owners due to the absence of most traditional fees, although it does require a paid membership to Amazon Prime to access the best rewards rate and payment terms.

There is no annual fee, foreign exchange fees, or fees associated with employee cards, so taking advantage of the Amazon Business Prime card could be extremely lucrative as you could earn rewards on client meetings and travel expenses. Basic Amazon Prime membership begins at $119 per year, whereas Amazon Business Prime membership begins at $69 per year.

Welcome offer: Far from the best

With the Amazon Business Prime American Express Card, eligible Prime Members can get a $125 Amazon.com gift card upon approval.

This welcome offer is lower than the Amazon consumer card version’s. For example, the Prime Visa — which Chase issues — Get a $200 Amazon Gift Card instantly upon approval exclusively for Prime members. While the consumer card has a higher gift card welcome offer, it also offers similar rewards rates. Furthermore, many business cards with no annual fee also offer higher welcome offers. Granted, you have to meet certain spending requirements to earn them, but they can be much more lucrative.

Payment terms: Great option, but limits rewards

In lieu of a traditional 0 percent APR offer, the Amazon Business Prime Amex gives you an option: Amazon rewards or payment terms. At checkout with Amazon businesses, you can choose to earn your card’s highest rewards rate on purchases or have a 90-day (with eligible Prime membership) 0 percent APR on the purchase. After this period, the ongoing variable APR of 18.74% - 26.74% Variable applies.

It’s not a true APR offer with an expiration date starting from when you open the account, like many other APR offers, which can provide some flexibility in spending and paying off purchases. It moreso resembles Amex’s Pay It Plan It program — so you can choose to add eligible Amazon purchases to the 90-day payment terms. If you do so, you forfeit the highest rewards rate on the card and will only earn 1 percent back on the purchase. Furthermore, make sure you pay off the purchase by the end of the period or else the ongoing interest will apply.

This payment terms program is a double-edged sword. On one hand, you have an ongoing option to finance large, eligible purchases with the card. On the other hand, choosing between a financing option and earning the card’s best rewards rate restricts and limits the card’s value.

Redemption options: Lacks flexibility of most business cards

Redeeming rewards you earn with this card is pretty simple considering you only have two options: Amazon purchases or statement credits to cover purchases on your card.

When you redeem for Amazon.com purchases, you do so through the card’s Shop with Points program (which Amex automatically enrolls you in). If you don’t have enough rewards to cover the purchases you want to pay for, you have the option of using your rewards balance and covering the difference in cash.

You can also use your rewards to cover purchases you make with your credit card if you’re a basic card member, have an enrolled card that is not past due or canceled and have at least 1,000 points ($10 in rewards) in your account.

In addition:

• The charge must have been made in the U.S. or in a U.S. territory
• The charge must appear on your statement or in recent activity
• The charge must not have been disputed in the past
• The purchase must be for at least $1

If you already have an Amazon Business Prime membership, the Amazon Business Prime Amex card would allow you to save money on the purchases you already make. However, if you’re uncertain about signing up for a Business Prime membership because of the Amazon Business Prime card or don’t believe the majority of your purchases would fall under its 5 percent categories, you may prefer a card with lower fees or spending categories that don’t conflict with your routine business purchases.

Amazon Business Prime Amex vs. Amazon Business Amex

As you compare business credit cards, keep in mind that Amazon.com also offers another co-branded business card: the Amazon Business American Express Card. This card doesn’t charge an annual fee or require you to pay for an Amazon Prime membership, but you’ll only earn 3 percent back on U.S. purchases at Amazon Business, AWS, Amazon.com and Whole Foods Market.

You can also choose 0 percent APR for 60 days (18.74% - 26.74% Variable APR thereafter) over earning rewards with the Amazon Business Amex, but if you need longer than 60 days, however, Amazon Business Prime’s competing 90-day 0 percent APR offer or a balance transfer card with 0 percent APR (some of which waive interest on transferred balances for up to 18 months before the regular APR applies) may be a better option.

Amazon Business Prime Amex vs. Ink Business Cash

The no-annual-fee Ink Business Cash® Credit Card may be an excellent choice if you want to earn decent rewards, but don’t wish to do most of your spending online like you would have to with the Amazon Business Prime card. Plus, its rewards structure also offers generous rewards in categories business owners might find valuable.

You’ll earn 5 percent cash back on the first $25,000 you spend in combined office supply stores, internet, cable and phone services purchases each account year. Additionally, you earn 2 percent cash back on the first $25,000 spent on combined gas stations and restaurants purchases each year (on every other purchase, it earns 1 percent cash back).

As with the Amazon Prime Business Card, the Ink Business Cash card offers a decent rewards rate. However, the way you can redeem rewards is more flexible and may be more convenient for travelers. New cardholders may also take advantage of an excellent welcome bonus — Earn $350 when you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first three months and an additional $400 when you spend $6,000 on purchases in the first six months after account opening.— which is significantly more generous than the Amazon’s Business Prime card’s welcome offer

While this card is great for Amazon purchase, it could be helpful to have a card that covers other areas. For that, you may want to pair this card with travel perks and stronger redemption options.

Business owners who spend a lot on Amazon.com, Whole Foods or Amazon Business will get the most value from this card. Earning its high cash back rate can add up quickly, and this is especially true if you spend a lot on equipment and supplies each year.

Having an Amazon Business Prime American Express Card, along with your Prime membership, can help keep your business running smoothly by providing free shipping and faster delivery on qualifying items. There are also other benefits to being a Prime member, including music to listen to while you work as well as books and videos for after business hours.

However, the biggest downside of this card is the fact you can only use your rewards in two ways: to pay for Amazon.com purchases or to redeem rewards for statement credits to cover specific purchases charged to your credit card. This makes the Amazon Prime Business American Express Card a poor choice if services like internet and phone or traveling are necessary for your business.

The information about the Amazon Business Prime American Express Card and the Amazon Business American Express Card has been collected independently by Bankrate.com. The card details have not been reviewed or approved by the card issuer.

Our proprietary card rating system takes into account a mix of factors when scoring business credit cards, including each card’s rewards rate, estimated annual earnings, welcome bonus value, APR, fees, perks and more.

We analyzed over 50 of the most popular business credit cards and scored each based on how its key features stacked up compared to those of other cards in its category.

Here are some of the key factors that gave this card its score: