HotelEngine, Inc. d/b/a Engine (Denver). Travel-booking + spend-management platform. Engine is not a bank.

Engine X

No-annual-fee travel charge card: 6–10% Engine points on Engine hotel/car bookings, 1.5% on other spend; no personal guarantee

Annual Fee
$0
Base Earn
1.5% back in Engine points on Qualifying Card...
Intro APR
Not offered (not a revolving product)
Rating
8.2/10

Costs & Pricing

Annual fee (primary): $0

Employee card fee: $0; unlimited physical and virtual cards

Purchase APR: N/A — charge card. No purchase interest if paid by due date. No published purchase APR range. Marketing “0%” means no annual fee plus charge-card float until the due date, not an intro APR.

Intro APR (purchases): Not offered (not a revolving product)

Intro APR (balance transfers): Not offered. Balance transfers not available.

Foreign transaction fee: $0 (International Transaction Fee: $0 / None). Ordinary Visa FX conversion still applies (rate not separately itemized).

Cash advance APR: Not available. ATM withdrawals not available.

Late payment fee: $40 per late payment

Penalty APR: Not disclosed / N/A as a published penalty APR. Default remedies are administrative (freeze, collection), not a revolving default rate.

Other fees: Overlimit fee $0. Expedited shipping $30 (replacement card itself $0). Paper-statement fee $0. Application fee $0. Inactivity and wire-payoff fees not disclosed. Traditional Regulation Z Schumer box is not posted as a standalone PDF — fees are in Program Terms effective 4/1/2026.

Rewards & Value

Base Earn Rate
1.5% back in Engine points on Qualifying Card Purchases (everyday / off-Engine spend, including flights even if booked on Engine)
Welcome Bonus
20,000 Engine points after the company activates an Engine X card and completes $2,000 in Qualifying Off-Platform Purchases within 30 days of first Card activation. Off-platform = card spend not booked through Engine.com. Engine travel bookings do not count. Employee/additional-card off-platform spend does count (company-level). First-time Engine X customer; one bonus per company. Offer ends 11:59 p.m. ET, 31 December 2026 (incentive terms updated 1 Jun 2026).
Redemption
Official cents-per-point not disclosed. Points have no cash value and are redeemable only through the program. Checkout shows a point-to-dollar value before confirm. Secondary (TPG, 20 Aug 2026): statement credit described at ~50% of booking value — unofficial; do not hard-code 1¢ or 0.5¢ as issuer fact. Disclose user-selectable factor: 1.0× if redeemed for Engine bookings; 0.5× if using TPG’s statement-credit haircut.

Bonus Categories & Promotions

  • Qualifying Travel Purchases = hotel and rental-car bookings made through the Engine platform only (rewards terms win over marketing “up to 10% on travel”).
  • Silver (new accounts; trailing-12 Qualifying Spend under $250,000): 6% on Engine hotel + rental car
  • Gold ($250,000–$2,499,999): 7% on Engine hotel + rental car
  • Platinum ($2,500,000–$4,999,999): 8% on Engine hotel + rental car
  • Diamond ($5,000,000+): 10% on Engine hotel + rental car
  • Tiers are not capped as a quarterly bonus bucket. Engine hotel/car bookings can earn the travel rate even when not charged to Engine X; paying with Engine X is required for the 1.5% off-platform rate and the welcome-bonus off-platform leg.
  • Points typically calculated on booking subtotal excluding taxes and fees (general Engine Rewards FAQ) — confirm at checkout.

Partner Credits & Perks

  • None published. No airline-fee, hotel, Dell/Indeed/wireless/Uber/streaming, or Global Entry/TSA PreCheck credits.
  • Platform-level hotel-rate savings and FlexPro cancel-up-to-check-in are booking-platform economics, not card statement credits — do not load into an annual-fee offset calculator.

Transfer partners: Not offered (no Chase/Amex/airline transfers)

Credit, Limits & Spending

Credit limit: Assigned line of credit after underwriting. Not marketed as Amex-style NPSL. Limit can be reduced. Exact ranges not disclosed. Increases determined after review of business profile and financial information; ask-for-increase process not detailed.

Personal guarantee: Official apply page: “We also do not require personal guarantees.” Program terms: company is the liable party. Owner KYC still collected. Confirm no hidden guaranty in the Issuing Bank Terms accepted at offer.

Credit check: Official: no hard pull, will not impact personal credit score. Soft-pull vs none-at-all on a bureau file is not separately named. Last-4 SSN is for identity verification (CIP), not described as a full credit pull.

Recommended credit: Not published. Do not invent a FICO cutoff. Business UW still applies.

Employee cards: Unlimited physical + instant virtual, including 1099 / temporary workers. Spend controls by employee, project, expense type, category, merchant, transaction. Physical cards ~8 business days. Company remains liable.

Virtual cards: Instant; marketed for online spend and contractors. Limits by merchant, category, transaction at a marketing level; exact virtual-card SKU limits not in a public spec sheet.

Product type: Business charge card + spend-management card (pay-in-full each cycle; assigned line of credit; no revolving APR). Not a consumer credit card. Sibling: Direct Bill (credit line limited to Engine hotel/flight/car bookings — not this card).

Network: Visa Commercial

Benefits, Protections & Tools

Travel

  • No lounge access, TSA PreCheck / Global Entry / NEXUS credit, airline-fee credits, hotel status, or companion certificates as card credits
  • Hotel/airline loyalty passthrough is an Engine booking feature where the rate allows
  • Trip delay/cancel/interrupt, baggage, auto rental CDW, roadside: not disclosed in a public Engine X benefits guide. Do not assume generic Visa Business CDW applies without the issuer’s guide.
  • Platform extras (not card insurance): FlexPro refundable Engine rates; International SOS duty-of-care partnership at platform level (Engine AI-information page, updated 29 May 2026) — confirm whether a given account is enrolled

Purchase Protections

  • Purchase protection / extended warranty / return protection / cell-phone protection / event tickets: not disclosed in a public Engine X benefits guide. Mark Not disclosed, not “not offered,” until the Fifth Third/Visa commercial benefits PDF is in hand.

Business Tools

  • Expense reporting / receipt matching via Engine dashboard; folio chase is a platform selling point
  • Travel booking is native (the differentiator vs Ramp/Brex). Controls tied to Engine travel policy (block / allow-with-reason / approval).
  • Accounting integrations claimed: QuickBooks Online, NetSuite, Sage Intacct, Xero (QBO is the most clearly repeated official-adjacent claim; confirm live connector list in-app). SAP Concur at platform level, not as a native Engine X-only rail.
  • Project / job-code / cost-center fields marketed. Not positioned as a full AP product (not BILL/Ramp Bill Pay).
  • Engine Corporate Travel app (HotelEngine) — travel + account, not a separate card-only consumer-bank app

Eligibility & Application

Who can apply: U.S.-incorporated registered legal entities (LLC, corporation, LLP named) with U.S. operations and a U.S. physical address (no P.O. box). Sole proprietors and unincorporated businesses not eligible. EIN required. Nonprofit / partnership / DBA / holding company not enumerated — treat as unclear unless the entity is a registered U.S. legal entity with EIN. Controlling officer U.S. residential address must match government-issued ID. Non-resident founder path not published.

Business requirements: No published time-in-business or revenue floors. Collects business revenue and estimated monthly Engine X spend. Optional financials for larger lines. Prohibited industries not published on the public apply/terms pages reviewed.

Issuer rules: No Chase 5/24 or Amex POP. Welcome bonus is for first-time Engine X customers. Direct Bill → Engine X is the published adjacent path (higher rewards, physical/virtual cards, all-expense spend). Extra cards after approval: no new application required.

Application impact: Official: no hard personal inquiry. Business-bureau inquiry unknown.

Best for: No annual fee No personal guarantee Charge card Travel booking platform Employee spend controls No foreign transaction fee

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • $0 annual fee and $0 employee/virtual-card fees
  • 6% (scaling to 10%) Engine points on Engine hotel and rental-car bookings — unusual on-platform travel earn at $0 fee
  • No personal guarantee and no hard personal credit pull (official apply language)
  • Charge card + Autopay + spend controls + unlimited cards for employees and 1099s; travel booking, policy, and folios in one dashboard
  • $0 foreign-transaction fee in the fee table

Cons

  • ✗ Elevated earn does not apply to flights or off-Engine hotels; marketing “up to 10% on travel” is broader than the legal category
  • ✗ Pay-in-full charge card; $40 late / $40 returned-payment fees; no revolver
  • ✗ Points have no cash value; official ¢/point not published; statement-credit value may haircut vs booking (secondary)
  • ✗ Sole proprietors ineligible; U.S. entity + EIN required
  • ✗ No published lounge, TSA/Global Entry, or card-insurance benefits guide; product is new (Mar 2026) so limit ranges and servicing quality are thinly documented
Overall Verdict

Buy (Engine hotel/car channel)

Engine X is a TMC + charge card, not Direct Bill and not Ramp/Brex. Most SMBs stay Silver (6% / 1.5%). Skip it if travel will not move onto Engine, if you need revolving credit or transferable miles, or if you are a sole prop. Confirm the live 20,000-point offer (through 31 Dec 2026) requires $2,000 off-Engine spend within 30 days of first card activation.

8.2
Rating