We may receive a commission when you use our links. Monkey Miles has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Monkey Miles and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Monkey Miles is also a Senior Advisor to Bilt Rewards Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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 on every single purchase you make without a cap and they just upped their welcome offer to 75k Miles after $4k spend.
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 on every purchase, 5x on specific Capital One travel bookings, a juicy Global Entry $100 credit, 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.
Details:
- 75k welcome bonus after spending $4k in 3 months
- 2x miles on every purchase
- up to a $100 credit for Global Entry and TSA Pre
- Earn 5X miles
- on hotels booked via Capital One Travel
- rental cars booked via Capital One Travel
- Enjoy two complimentary visits per year to Capital One Lounges or
- to 100+ Plaza Premium Lounges through our Partner Lounge Network
- Transfer miles to 17+ partners
- $95 annual fee
Is this the best offer we’ve ever seen?
Capital One Venture Rewards has offered a 100k 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.
Personally, I think this offer is more attractive since you hit the 75k bonus after just $4k spend which would total 83k miles. If you put another $16k on the card over the course of the year, you’d earn another 32k miles. and hit 115k miles on $20k spend. This is clearly fewer than the 140k, but you may opt to put that spend elsewhere to hit another bonus, etc.
2x on everything with no limits
As I just mentioned above, you’ll get 2x on every. single. purchase. No need to worry about category bonuses, etc, you will earn 2 outstanding points 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 points. Ok…this is extreme but you get the point.
Comparing to the Chase Sapphire Preferred
| Capital One Venture Rewards | Chase Sapphire Preferred |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
$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 points = 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 points 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 points when the purchases hit the account rather than having to wait until the statement processes.
Can you earn referrals?
Yes, up to 50k a year.
Overall
I have the Capital One Venture X 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.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based.
Welcome Offer
60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months
80k offer in branch currently – I think this should be online soon
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
Super solid welcome offer.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash , Ink Business Unlimited you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
- 3x on dining
- including eligible delivery services for takeout
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards – Chase Travel Portal
- $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Ultimate Rewards/Chase Travel
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred® continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel Portal and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including primary rental car insurance, purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 13 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in the Chase Travel center for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Primary rental car coverage is my favorite
There is currently an 80k offer after $4k spend in 3 months available in branch, and up to 90k after $6k spend in 6 months. I suspect some version of this will be online soon if you don’t want the hassle of going into a branch.
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 60k is a very, very good offer. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back. .
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
22 Comments