Video Sunday Reader Question: Meeting Business Credit Card Spend Requirements

TPG reader Kevin asks:

“I recently applied for an American Express small business credit card and I have to reach the $10,000 minimum spend in several months. I’ve read your post on clever ways to reach the minimum spend bonus, but I’m unclear on if the strategy differs on personal or small business cards. If I’m the sole propitiator for a business, are there certain personal spends I can’t make? This is my first business card, so I’m worried groceries/smaller personal purchases would prompt a Fraud Report from Amex.”

As you see in the video, there’s no need to be nervous. It’s true, you don’t want to trigger a financial investigation from Amex, but a business card is basically the same thing as a personal card, and it doesn’t matter what expenses you put on it. Obviously don’t to anything shady, and for your own accounting purposes, you might want to keep your business and personal expenses separate, but from the perspective of meeting minimum spending requirements Amex doesn’t care.

For instance, I got the Amex Business Gold card for business earlier this year and had to hit $10,000 for the full point bonus, so I put some personal expenses on it to do so, and for my own accounting, I just made sure to notate that it was a personal expense. But there is no problem putting these expenses on your card. If you play by the rules and don’t put anything shady on the card–Amex will even let you buy Amex gift cards and count these purchases toward your minimum spending requirement–you should have no problems.

If you need more minimum spend ideas, check out this post.

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