How About Credit Card Savings Plans for Small Web Businesses?
August 7, 2007
What about the little guys on the web? Why can’t we get savings on services we actually use?
Credit Card Savings Plans
I’ve mentioned before I’m using my business credit card to build a credit history even though it doesn’t offer cash back rewards. I was hopeful when I heard my bank was offering the MasterCard BusinessCard with a rewards program but was disappointed to discover the plan was only the MasterCard Easy Savings, saving 10 – 20% at select merchants, not the cash back rewards I was looking for.
I checked out the participating companies and was frustrated to see I didn’t do business with any of them. The merchants fell into the following categories:
- Airlines
- Hotels
- Car Rentals
- Business Services
- Print & Shipping
No Savings for Me
One of the nice things about a home web-based business is that you don’t have to fly all over the country to meet clients, work with partners, and make deals. That knocks out any business credit card savings from airlines, hotels, car rentals.
The business services consist of things like staffing, payroll, and human resource software, again things my one-person Web business does not need. I do quite a bit of shipping for my eBay business but it is all through UPS or the Postal Service, not the express shipping vendor the savings program uses.
Web Businesses Savings Plan
I propose a financial institution come up with a credit card savings plan for small Web businesses that includes services we actually use. They could offer discounts with domain registration and Web hosting companies or I would love to save even a few percent on payment processing. How about partnering with a company like Elance so we could get rebates on a wide variety of services such as web design, application development, copywriting, search engine optimization, and more?
I suppose if there was money to be made banks would have already pursued something along these lines and I am sure there are logistical issues. However, as the number of netrepreneurs continues to grow maybe there would be a market for small web business credit card savings plans. Not to be greedy but of course I’d want it to be a cash back card as well. 
Unfortunately, stay at home business (especially internet folks) is still way under the radar. I cannot imagine “corporate folks” even remotely thinking about this idea! And elance! ha ha! forget about it.
Haha, I almost worked at Elance. They gave me an offer but I nixed it because it involved too much traveling. Thank goodness!
Nice suggestions here !
thanks for the great information