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Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card
Starting in 2018 Capital One has been growing a progressively better and better reward ecosystem. They have not only made an incredible transition from a mainly a cashback focused program to one that offers incredible transfer partners, but they have created fantastic card products. The focus? Make it straight forward and simple. That’s exactly what the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card is…simple.
Earn 2x miles on every single purchase you make without a cap and they have a great welcome offer.
Many other cards in the marketplace offer a litany of credits, etc that if used properly help to offset the annual fee. This isn’t what Capital One does. They have a simple structure of earning 2x miles on every purchase, 5x miles on specific Capital One travel bookings, a juicy Global Entry $100 credit every 4 years, and a $95 annual fee.
The biggest competitor is the Chase Sapphire Preferred, and over the long run, this card may actually be a bigger earner than the CSP.
Is this the best offer we’ve ever seen?
Capital One Venture Rewards has offered a 100k miles offer in the past, BUT, you needed to spend $20k over 12 months to fully get the bonus. That would be 140k miles, give or take, on $20k spend.
That’s a lot of spend, so personally, I prefer the lower spend requirement offers that yield a lower bonus.
2x miles on everything with no limits
As I just mentioned above, you’ll get 2x Capital One miles on every. single.purchase. No need to worry about category bonuses, etc, you will earn 2 outstanding miles on every dollar you spend. Best part…it isn’t capped at any fixed amount. If you spend $1 Billion dollars, you’d earn 2 Billion miles. Ok…this is extreme but you get the point.
$100 Global Entry or TSAPre credit
You can receive up to a $100 credit, every 4 years, to put towards membership in either program. Quick tip, membership in Global Entry gets you TSAPre as a part of the program, so you’re better off going that route since its a 2 for 1.
What can I do with 75k Capital One Miles?
There are 3 main things you can do with your Miles
- $750 within Capital One Travel
- Offset any travel purchase at 1 penny per point
- Use towards Capital One Entertainment and Dining redemptions
- Transfer to partners
At the very least you’ll walk away with 83k Capital One Miles which you could use in Cap1 travel for a minimum of $830. There have been instances where Capital One has really attractive offers for sporting events whereby you can redeem your miles for tickets at advantageous pricing. But…
You know I’m a transfer freak, so the options listed above isn’t where I’d throw them, but that’s the bare minimum value you’d extract. Instead, I would focus on using them to transfer into partners.
Capital One Transfer Partners are really valuable
A couple of years ago, Capital One decided to lace up their gloves and start throwing punches in the transferrable rewards ring. Some punches landed, but the program was too confusing with 4:3 transfer ratios and people just didn’t get it. That all changed this year. Bit by bit, Cap1 made nearly all of their partners 1:1. Meaning, you no longer need a calculator to understand how many Cap1 miles you’ll use for a redemption.
- The following partners are now 1:1
- Aeromexico Club Premier
- Air Canada Aeroplan
- Avianca LifeMiles
- Air France Flying Blue
- British Airways Executive Club
- Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
- Choice Privileges
- Etihad Guest
- Emirates
- Finnair Plus
- Qantas Frequent Flyer
- Singapore Airlines
- TAP Air Portugal Miles&Go
- Turkish Airlines Miles and Smiles
- Virgin Red
- Wyndham Rewards
- Accor transfer 2:1
- EVA transfers 2:1.5
Read this article to see the 50 best ways to use Capital One Miles
Hotel partners
The Accor situation could be quite interesting. Accor’s redemption is such that 2000 Accor points = 40 Euro credit. So 4000 Cap1 miles = 40Eur off. Since you’re earning 2x on purchases, you’re earning 0.02Eur on each dollar spent when transferred to Accor. Pretty decent hotel discount actually.
Approval tips
Capital One will only process one credit card per 6 months…so if you’ve already applied for one in that time frame, you’re going to have to wait. This means both business and personal.
Can you combine your miles with other Capital One accounts? This is incredible.
Yes, you can combine your miles into one account. This applies to accounts under your name, and also to ANYONE else that has a Venture or Spark account. Pretty awesome.
How quickly do you accrue the bonus and miles?
Anecdotally, people are reporting that Capital One is crediting accounts with miles when the purchases hit the account rather than having to wait until the statement processes.
Can you earn referrals?
Yes, up to 50k miles a year.
Overall
I have the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card which I absolutely love and use for personal expenses whenever I don’t have a category bonus to take advantage of, so I’m not 100% sure I’ll pick this card up. But, I’m quite tempted since its offering a really attractive welcome offer.
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
The responses below 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.