Because business cards have higher swipe fees than regular ol’ consumer cards, they’re more profitable for the issuing bank. This is why you need to demand better rewards and benefits when you get one. After all, if the banks are making more, shouldn’t you?

The CitiBusiness credit card offers high rewards, but there are a couple drawbacks to consider. Hopefully my review of the advantages/disadvantages will help in your decision.

Part One: The Rewards

Advantages: On normal spending you get 1 ThankYou point per dollar. The bonus categories – professional services and office supply stores – will give 3 points per dollar. What counts as “professional services?” The fine print lists the following: stand-alone tax preparation, bookkeeping, accounting, and legal services.

Disadvantages: It makes sense you spend a lot on those professional services. If you don’t, the 1x on regular spending on 3x on office supply stores isn’t enticing enough to apply. Why? Because a couple other business cards give 5x on office supplies as well as other categories.

Part Two: The Benefits

For a no annual fee business credit card, it gives you a lot of benefits:

• Extended Warranty: This is better than what you will get with Visa, because their benefit only applies to original manufacturer’s warranties of 3 years or less. However with the CitiBusiness World MasterCard, it applies to warranties of 5 years or less.
• Retail Purchase Protection: The MasterCard Purchase Assurance is slightly inferior to Visa and American Express and that could be considered a drawback. But regardless, it does cover eligible purchases if they are damaged or stolen under most circumstances during the first 90 days from purchase.
• Auto Rental Insurance: The fine print says that this applies to “most rental vehicles with an MSRP of $50,000 or less.” This is actually better than what some other cards give you. For example, Discover will typically only cover a max of $25,000. As is the case with most credit card policies, keep in mind this is secondary coverage and there are some countries excluded (but “some” is better than excluding “all” foreign countries like AmEx business cards do).
• Prescription Discount Plan: The CitiBusiness card is the only one on the market (to the best of my knowledge) that offers such a benefit. With it you will save 10% to 85% on many prescriptions at over 60,000 drugstores nationwide. While I don’t have an experience with this particular program, I used something similar in the past when I didn’t have insurance and it did save me quite a bit.
• Travel Accident Insurance: Only applies during eligible common carrier travel. Almost every credit card offers this, so I won’t go into great detail.
• Free Employee Cards w/ Individual Credit Limits: With some business credit cards all of them share the same credit limit. Bad idea if you want to keep tight reigns on an employee. Citi allows you to set credit limits on a per card basis, in case you want to give one person more spending power than another.
• Free Quarterly + Annual Summaries: Most business cards give annual summaries, but the CitiBusiness will give you the quarterly too, if desired. This can definitely be helpful when it comes to figuring out what your company owes for income taxes each quarter.
• Instant Live Phone Support: When you call the number on the back of your credit card, you can press “2” to bypass the automated mumbo jumbo and get connected immediately to a representative.
• Personal Business Assistant: If you’re familiar with credit card concierge service, this is like that but it’s geared towards small businesses. You can call Citi 24/7 and get assistance with some business-specific things (like getting referrals for admin and marketing, gathering business information, etc.) as well as some of the more common concierge services such as travel and restaurant reservations.
• Travel & Emergency Assistance: This is a hotline you can call if you’re traveling, encounter an emergency, and need advice on what to do. For example if you lose your passport, get your luggage stolen, or get in some legal trouble and need a referral to a local attorney ASAP.

Part Three: The Verdict

The bottom line is this: If your biggest categories of spending are stand-alone accounting, legal, bookkeeping, tax preparation businesses, then the 3x points on these services will save you money. If that’s the case, I would recommend you apply for the CitiBusiness card. Below is the current promotion they are offering.

On the other hand, if your main spending categories are things like travel, office supplies, and/or gas, then you may be better off with one of these other business reward credit cards.

Special note about credit reporting: In the past Citi never reported business cards to your personal credit report, unless there was negative action to report (i.e. defaulting on account). However when I was speaking with their business card customer service in November 2011, the guy told me that they are in the process of transitioning the system where Citi business cards WILL be reported to your personal credit file. He doesn’t know exactly when, but he suspects soon.

If you manage your account responsibly and keep a low balance this won’t be a problem. But if you carry a high balance and don’t want that high credit utilization on your record, then you may want to consider a different card. The two issuers which don’t report to personal credit (assuming your account is in goodstanding) are Chase and American Express.