Top 5 Small Business Credit Card Sign Up offers for March - These cards provide the best value out of their welcome bonuses

Here are the Rewards Canada Top 5 Small Business Credit Card Sign Up offers for this month! This is not a 'best' credit card list like our Top Travel Rewards Credit Card rankings but instead a look at cards for small businesses that have very good acquisition (welcome/sign up) offers. As always when choosing a card you should always take other factors into account other than the just sign up bonus, but when some of these cards are first year free, they can and do pay off even when you grab them strictly for the sign up rewards. This month we see four first year free cards on the list! And remember this list is based on minimum value towards travel which we calculate as the minimum value of the welcome bonus less the annual fee. It is entirely possible to receive more value out of the welcome bonuses on some the cards below namely those like Aeroplan and Marriott. 

I should note there is one other business card to take a look at and that is the Business Platinum Card from American Express. If you know someone who can refer you to it you can get a pretty big bonus of 75,000 points when you spend $7,000 on the card. The card does have a $499 annual fee so it's minimum travel value is $251 but you can boost that by converting to Aeroplan which would give a minimum $401 value.

Here are our top 5 small business credit card sign up offers for March:

TD® Aeroplan® Visa* Business Card
Minimum value: $600
The new Aeroplan cards are here and the bonus offer on the mainstay TD Business card provides 25,000 Aeroplan points, a Buddy Pass and an annual fee rebate for the primary and first additional cardholder. All told the points and buddy pass are worth no less than $600 in our minds and in reality should be worth much more than that. To get in on this bonus you have to apply by May 30, 2021. Learn more about the Buddy Pass here and the New Aeroplan program here.

CIBC® Aeroplan® Visa* Business Card
Minimum value: $540
CIBC's equivalent of the above TD provides 20,000 Aeroplan points, a Buddy Pass and an annual fee rebate for the primary cardholder but goes beyond and offers first year free on the first three additional cardholders. All told the points and buddy pass are worth no less than $540 in our minds and in reality should be worth much more than that.  Learn more about the Buddy Pass here and the New Aeroplan program here

 

CIBC Aventura® Visa* Card for Business Plus 

 Minimum value: $360
This card offers welcome bonus of 20,000 Aventura Points when the first purchase is made at any time plus an additional bonus of 5,000 Aventura Points. The you can earn 35,000 more points on the card anniversary date if you spend $65,000 or more on the card in the first year.  There is no annual fee waiver this time and since the full bonus is only achieved after your card anniversary we take into account two years of annual fees. So those 60,000 points less two annual fees equates to $360 in value. That is a minimum however as when you redeem the CIBC Aventura flight award chart you can get more value out of those points (up to $700) dependent on the price of the airline ticket you are redeeming for.

Marriott Bonvoy™ Business American Express® Card

Minimum value: $350

This card awards 50,000 Marriott Bonvoy points which are awarded after spending $1,500 on the card in three months. Those points are worth at least $500 in our minds which means after subtracting the annual fee you are coming out ahead by $350. In reality you can pull even more value out of the card (into four figures) as we outlined in our post A look at how The Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card provides huge value!  Don't forget you get an annual free night with the card as well on the card anniversary date! 

 

BMO^® AIR MILES^®† Business^® Mastercard^®*

Minimum value: $330
Like the other BMO Business card on this list, this card comes with a first year annual fee waiver which means the 3,000 AIR MILES welcome bonus comes at no extra cost. To receive the welcome bonus you need to spend $5,000 on the card in the first three months of having the card. We value AIR MILES Reward Miles at no less than 11 cents each when you redeem for travel so that puts this welcome bonus value at a minimum of $330. When you redeem with Cash Miles the value is $310.

 

If you went for all these cards you ultimately could end up with nearly $2,200 in travel credits but even if you only take on one or two you are helping your travel budget significantly at no cost other than regular credit card spend. We don't really recommend getting all five in one month unless you know you can meet the minimum spend for them all at once, rather you'd want to pick one or two right now, perhaps another next month and so on.

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