6 Best Credit Cards for Sales Reps

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* Advertiser Disclosure: How to Money has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. How to Money and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact on how and where card products appear on the site. Lastly, the site does not include all card companies or all available card offers.

The best credit cards for sales reps are the ones that offer the highest rewards (or cash back) for the most common spending activities you do at your job. That might mean a travel rewards card if you cover a multi-state territory and travel a lot, or a cash back restaurant card if client lunches and dinner meetings are a regular occurrence in your life.

I was in sales for over 15 years, and trust me — having the right credit card to pay for reimbursable business expenses is a meaningful job perk!

Here are the best credit cards for sales reps, based on common expenses and most likely spending activities in the field 👇

1. Chase Freedom Unlimited® 🏆

The reason we picked card_name as the top credit card for most sales reps is because it has a $0 annual fee, and offers a really high percentage cash back for both dining and travel purchases.

This is perfect for salespeople who eat out a lot, sponsor lunches or host marketing events at restaurants and bars. All the charges you accrue will net you significant cash back!

There’s also a great welcome offer right now! bonus_miles_full

Even if you only use this card for restaurant spending (and have another primary card for all the other stuff) it’s still worth getting because of the high cash back percentage. And keeping it open doesn’t hurt you one bit because there’s no annual fee to worry about.

2. Capital One SavorOne Cash Rewards

The card_name was built mostly for dining rewards. But, it also offers great cash back for travel. It’s perfect for sales reps that might do a mix of both for work.

This card also has a $0 annual fee, and gives 3% cash back for dining, just like the top pick Chase card above.

Rewards at a glance:

Unlimited 3% cash back on dining, entertainment, and streaming services
Earn 5% cash back on all travel booked through Capital One
8% cash back on Capital One Entertainment purchases

The sign up promotion for the card_name is very attractive. You’ll earn a $200 cash bonus once you spend $500 in the first 3 months after opening the card. Cha-ching!

One last note about Capital One… From my experience their mobile app and web portal is one of the most user friendly for booking travel and managing card benefits. Their credit cards are actually great for both business and personal use!

3. Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card

Instead of cash back, the card_name card earns you “Ultimate Reward Points.” But don’t let that scare you off, because Chase has one of the widest point redemption systems out of all the credit card companies.

In general, you can think of Chase points being worth anywhere from 1 – 1.5 cents each. Depending on how you redeem the points, you can make them stretch even further!

There’s a HUGE welcome offer for the card_name right now. bonus_miles_full

Here’s a run down of all the benefits and reward opportunities:

$50 annual Ultimate Rewards Hotel Credit
5x points on travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
2x points on other travel (cabs, uber, travel booked on other sites)
3x points on other dining and take out
1 point per 1$ spent on all other purchases
Each anniversary year you ‘ll earn 10% bonus points of your total purchases made the previous year
Instacart and Doordash free trial subscriptions

There is a annual_fees annual fee for the card_name. But it’s still well worth applying for because of the huge welcome credit, and reward opportunities across all the categories. This is one of the best credit cards for sales reps out there, especially if you’re a frequent traveler.

4. Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card

If your job involves a constant variety of spending, the card_name might be a good fit. It gives you 2 miles per dollar for everything you spend on, no matter the category.

Capital One miles are worth 1 cent each when redeemed for travel. Or, you can request a “travel credit” which is basically just a cash credit applied directly to your cc balance for reimbursing travel costs.

Highlights of card:

Earn unlimited 2 miles per dollar, on every purchase
Earn 5 miles per dollar on hotels & rental cars booked through Cap One
$100 Global Entry or TSA Precheck credit
2 x free airport lounge visits per year

There’s a $95 annual fee for this card. But there’s a killer welcome offer right now which earns you 75,000 bonus miles when you spend $4,000 in the first 3 months after signing up. That’s a quick $750 back in your pocket!

Overall, the card_name isn’t just one of the best credit cards for sales reps… If you like to save money on travel, this might be a great fit for your personal use, too!

5. Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express

The card_name is perfect for road warriors that drive a lot or take Ubers and local transit! Back when I was in sales I covered a huge territory in Southern California which put me behind the wheel a lot and always filling up at gas stations.

It does have a $95 annual fee, but it’s waived for the first year – PLUS there’s great welcome offer right now: bonus_miles_full

Here are the Cash Back Categories:

3% cash back at US gas stations
3% cash back on all transit (rise share, parking, taxis, etc)
6% cash back on groceries and supermarkets (up to 6k)
Everything else 1% cash back
$120 Equinox credit annually

Pro tip: Back in the day I used to buy a lot of wine, cookies and cupcakes as drop-off gifts for my clients. So using the annual_fees and getting 6% cash back at groceries stores was a huge perk. There’s a limit of $6,000 per year for this – but still, maxing that category out gives you $360 cash back. Not bad at all!

6. The Platinum Card® from American Express

First off, don’t be intimidated by the crazy annual fee – it’s annual_fees for card_name! But the reason it’s so high is because of the cornucopia of rewards and perks stuffed inside the package. They’re extensive and we’ve listed them all below.

In addition to the annual benefits, there’s a HUGE welcome offer right now… bonus_miles_full That alone is worth up to a whopping $1600!

Some of card’s best features:

$200 Fine Hotels or Hotel Collection credit each year
$200 airline credit for incidentals, every year
$240 digital entertainment credit annually
$200 in Uber cash ($15/month and bonus in December)
$300 Equinox credit annually
$189 CLEAR credit for skipping airport TSA lines
Free Walmart+ subscription
Centurion lounge access at airports
AND MORE!!!

You’ll also earn 5x points on all flights and hotels you book (and you don’t need to book via the Amex travel portal). These points rack up fairly quickly for sales reps that travel a lot.

Pro tip: The Amex Rewards system sometimes has promotions for converting points to partner hotels or airlines. For example, they recently had a +30% bonus for exchanging Amex points to Hilton Honors points. So, 100k points would become 130k! It’s worth keeping an eye on these opportunities to maximize your points value.

Check out all card_name benefits here!

What About Corporate Credit Cards for Salespeople?

I’ve worked for large companies that issue corporate cards to all sales reps, and prefer that they use those cards for all business expenses. Most of the time this makes sense, because company cards usually connect with expenses systems (like Concur, Paylocity, etc.) so all of the transactions easily import into your expense report.

Whilst using a corporate card saves time doing expense reports, the downside is that you usually don’t get to keep the rewards points you are racking up. Some large companies offer a way you can “buy” points from them for a small annual fee – ask your HR department if this is possible. Sadly, most companies do not offer this.

For smaller companies and service providers, it’s unlikely sales reps will get issued a company credit card. In these scenarios you can use whatever credit card you want! My advice is to have a few cards up your sleeve that cover a wide variety of spending activities. Don’t forget to write down which cards give you the highest % rewards so you can remember to use the right one when swiping!

Best Credit Cards for Account Executives

Whether you’re an AE, SE, Account Manager or Customer Service Rep, any time you spend money on business activities it’s a chance to personally benefit from rewards points.

The best credit cards for sales reps (or any customer facing role) are the ones that gives you the highest rewards for whatever you’re buying regularly. If you travel a lot and only stay at Marriott Hotels, you might benefit from the card_name which offers ongoing benefits and discounts at Marriott hotels. If you’re main activity is ordering food delivery for client lunch n learns, you’ll probably benefit most from the card_name which gives you 10% cash back on Uber services including Uber Eats.

As I’ve mentioned a couple times, it never hurts to hold 2-3 different credit cards. When a new opportunity arises to buy something you usually don’t, you’ll still have a card to cover it and give you a good return!

The Bottom Line:

Picking the best credit cards for sales reps is quite easy… you just need to figure out where you spend the most money at work, then pick a card (or two!) that give you the highest rewards or cash back in those areas.

Since there are 1000’s of cards to choose from and various rewards programs, we actually launched a credit card search tool that you might like. By toggling a few preference buttons, this tool lets you browse the top matched cards based on your criteria. Give it a whirl!

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_{*Advertiser Disclosure: How to Money has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. How to Money and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact on how and where card products appear on the site. Lastly, the site does not include all card companies or all available card offers.}

_{*Editorial Disclosure: Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.}

_{*User Generated Content Disclosure: Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.}