Bento for Business Prepaid Mastercard with $125 Signup Bonus Referral Program

Contents

1 Bento for Business Prepaid
2 Pricing
3 Referral Program
4 Final Thoughts

Bento for Business Prepaid

The Bento for Business Prepaid Mastercard is an employee spending solution for businesses which allows the owner/manager strong controls over employee spending.

Many banks have certain controls on employee spending, such as the ability to limit spend, Bento goes a step further and allows users to restrict spend to a specific category. So if your employee needs a gas card, the card will only work at the gas station. You can also limit the spend amount allowed in given timeframe.

Bento has been around for 4 years and was covered on Forbes a couple of years ago. The prepaid card is issued by Community Federal Savings Bank and is FDIC insured.

As is usually the case for prepaid card, no credit check is done when signing up with Bento. They make this clear multiple times during the signup process.

There are various pricing plans depending how many employee cards you’ll need. The good news is that the first two cards are free so you can start small and try it out. They also offer a 60-day free trial even on the paid plans.

Referral Program

FAQ / Terms

Earn $125 for Signing Up

Bento has an excellent referral program with a nice bonus for both new members and existing members:

New members get $125 Amazon gift card

To be eligible for the bonus, the new member must do the following:

Signup for a new Bento card account
Transfer $2,500 into their account
Make one purchase with the card within 30 days of account activation (I think that means ‘card activation’ but it’s possible they’ll start counting from the day you signed up)
After making the purchase, you’ll get $125 Amazon gift card via email within 4-6 weeks

Referral Program for Members

Existing members get two bonuses when they refer friends:

$125 Amazon gift card which comes after 4-6 weeks
$500 after making 4 qualified referrals

“Program Rules: We may revise any of these terms at any time with 30 days prior written notice. In addition, we may terminate program with 30 days prior written notice. If we terminate the program, you will still receive any rewards accrued up to the termination date.”

Final Thoughts

Bento for Business looks like a robust employee spend solution, perhaps better than other banks offer. The downside is that you’ll lose out on credit card rewards when using this solution since the prepaid card is funded via electronic ACH transfer and Bento does not offer rewards are earned on purchases. For the right business, Bento could be a worthwhile option which will save you time and money dealing with unwarranted spend.

The referral bonus especially caught my eye as we don’t usually see such a large bonus for signing up for a prepaid card. Just keep in mind the $2,500 loaded to the account needs to be spent down using the card, either as a credit transaction or as a debit transaction using the PIN. You can’t just pull the funds out of the account with a routing/account number (according to the rep I chatted with). The $125 is a nice starter bonus for someone considering using the Bento system.

Hat tip to Maximizingmoney