Capital One Venture Rewards Card Review
Unless you have been living under a rock, you have seen the Jennifer Garner commercials. The Capital One Venture Rewards card is one of the most popular travel rewards cards around and for good reason. It has a very solid earning structure, some unique and interesting perks and a very attractive welcome offer. Here is our review.
Capital One has long been one of the biggest banks in the credit card space, however they are often overshadowed by Chase, American Express and Citi in the coverage they get. Venture is Capital One’s mainstream travel card, a competitor to Chase Sapphire Preferred. We think it is definitely worth considering. Let’s take a look!
Capital One Venture Rewards Card Review – Welcome Offer
The current welcome offer on the Capital One Venture Rewards card is:
- 75,000 bonus miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within the first 3 months from account opening.
- The $95 annual fee is NOT waived the first year
Our take: As you can see, the Capital One Venture comes with a generous welcome offer that is the equivalent of $750 or more. Keep in mind Capital One pulls credit from all three bureaus when applying if that is something that you care about. It is also a difficult card to get if you have had more than a few applications in the last 24 months.
Overall, the Capital One Venture Rewards card is a solid welcome offer considering the earning and bonus.
Capital One Venture – Bonus Restrictions
Capital One has implemented anti-churning language on many of their cards including Venture. Applicants can only get one card every six months plus there are additional restrictions as well.
When digging through the Capital One Venture application, you will find the following bonus terms:
Existing or previous Account holders may not be eligible for this one-time bonus.
In the past Capital One has enforced this restriction loosely. Generally people have received the bonus if they had the card before, but were not current cardholders. This practice could always change based on the terms above.
How Does Capital One Venture Earn Miles
The Capital One Venture Rewards card earns 2X miles per dollar spent on all charges. It does earn an increased rate of 5X on hotels and rental cars booked via the Capital One travel portal. The miles earned are worth 1 cent each when redeemed for travel or gift cards. In 2018 Capital One introduced transfer partners as well in an effort to compete with Chase Ultimate Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards and Citi ThankYou points.
Capital One Venture Transfer Partners
Capital One miles transfer to partners at a couple of different rates depending on the partner. Here is a list of Capital One Venture transfer partners along with the transfer ratio.
Transfer Partners (Transfer Rate) – Unique Partners Are In Bold
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- Aeromexico Club Premier (1:1)
- Air Canada Aeroplan (1:1)
- Air France/KLM Flying Blue (1:1)
- Avianca LifeMiles (1:1)
- British Airways Avios (1:1)
- Cathay Pacific Asia Miles (1:1)
- Emirates Skywards (1:1)
- Etihad Guest (1:1)
- EVA Infinity MileageLands (2:1.5)
- Finnair Plus (1:1)
- Qantas Frequent Flyer (1:1)
- Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer (1:1)
- TAP Portugal (1:1)
- Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles (1:1)
- Virgin Red (1:1)
Hotel Transfer Partners
- Accor Live Limitless (2:1)
- Choice Privileges (1:1)
- Wyndham Rewards (1:1)
Capital One Venture – Cardmember Perks
This wouldn’t be a Capital One Venture Rewards card review without talking about all of the cool perks the card gets you. It even has some unique perks that you won’t find on many other cards. It often adds limited time partnership perks like the previous Hotels.com offer. Capital One also added in some useful perks like waiving foreign transaction and Global Entry fees a few years ago.
The Capital One Venture card comes with the following perks and benefits:
- No foreign transaction fees
- Rewards don’t expire
- Up to $100 Global Entry or TSA Precheck credit
- Visa Signature perks that include extended warranty
Travel & Purchase Protections
Additionally, Capital One Venture Rewards card has some travel and purchase protections built in for cardholders.
- Travel accident insurance – Get automatic insurance for a covered loss at no extra charge when you purchase the entire fare with your credit card.
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver – Secondary coverage for your rental vehicle in case of damage
- Extended Warranty – Purchase an item with your Venture and you will get additional warranty protections
How Much Is the Capital One Venture Rewards Welcome Offer Worth?
The Capital One Venture Rewards card welcome offer is worth at least $750 in free travel. After accounting for the $95 annual fee you are left with $655 in net value. Additionally, since Capital One now has transfer partners with their new program, you can get even additional value in some cases by transferring to travel partners. This does not include the Global Entry credit or any other money saving perks that comes with the card.
Keep Long Term?
The Capital One Venture card earns 2 miles per dollar spent and comes with some unique features and perks plus travel partners. In the old days it made sense to say this card was a “cancel” after one year in favor of a 2% cash back card, however Capital One has changed that calculation a bit with the addition of transfer partners and other benefits. This card won’t be a “keep” for everyone, but for the right person this is a great card to get and keep.
Capital One Venture Card Review – Bottom Line
We give Capital One a lot of credit for all of the changes and additions they have made over the past couple of years to their credit card lineup. Over time they have made the Venture card more attractive by constantly adding limited time partnerships and making their miles more flexible as well. The welcome offer for the Capital One Venture Rewards card is quite attractive as well, meaning it is a great card to get so you can see how well it works with your situation.
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Hotels.com 10x is long gone. You show you have updated the article, but you haven’t really.
We updated the transfer partner rates with the recent changes and missed the hotels.com change. It has been updated – thanks Robert.
The Capital One Venture would be a great addition to my wallet if I could actually get approved for it – but no, my 780 credit score is too good, because Cap1 wants people who will carry a balance and pay interest. Only card I’ve been denied for lol
It is a tough nut to crack for sure.
I have the Venture as my everyday card and think the flexibility of the benefits are great. While I wouldn’t use the points for anything other than travel expenses due to the decreased value (i.e. Amazon points or gift cards), I find the flexibility to use in erasing travel purchases perfect. I can erase flight, hotel, and car for a trip and make it almost free. Especially if you can bill foot to your room. As far as data points my wife just applied two weeks ago for her own Venture card with the upgraded offer and has a 800+ credit score and a history of paying off her credit card in full monthly and was instantly approved.
Thanks for sharing Tim
Between my husband and me, we’ve kept a Capital One for many years. We love to travel by train, especially in Europe and Japan, so use the miles for train travel. Sometimes, we need a hotel room in a place that doesn’t have chain hotels. Or, we just want a no-frills night in a city center to be close to a train station for an early train. We can also use Cap 1 miles to pay for meals/drinks we charged to a hotel room we booked with points. I found out this year, renting an RV from Cruise America codes as a Rental Car, so is reimbursable.
RE: getting approved – My husband was approved for a Venture last year. He had a lot of new accounts, >800 credit score, high income. He got the sign-up bonus with the intention of taking trains around Scotland this summer. Obviously, that didn’t happen. When we realized the points worked with Cruise America, he applied for the business Spark card and was instantly approved. However, they froze both accts & wanted tax returns from the IRS to prove income. Acct’s were held-up for 2 1/2 months – well past our RV trip. It was all resolved and we had 2 weeks to meet the $4K min spend. Thankfully, our son was putting a new roof on his house.
Also, isn’t JetBlue a transfer partner? 1000 to 750
Lastly – Cap 1 often lets you reimburse the same charge more than once. I don’t abuse it, as I don’t want to get shut down. But, I’ve used it a time or two.
Thanks for sharing Dee
Sorry Mark but this one missed the “mark”. You’d have to be pretty stupid to use this card long term when you can get the 2x back Citi doublecash for a $0 annual fee. If you want to pay $95 a year, go with the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the fee free Freedom cards and get a way better return. It’s interesting that blogs advertise junk from this bottom tier bank but you’ll never find it in their own actual setups due to the poor value they provide.
Robert I guess it depends on the person. The Venture comes with transfer partners that some may find useful, you don’t get that with the Double Cash without paying $95 for the Citi Premier. It also has partnerships that can be valuable like the Hotels.com promo they had etc. Mainly people that keep it long term, and there are quite a few in miles and points, need more than one 2% card. Plus you throw in the $1000 welcome offer.
It was said that keeping it long term won’t be for everyone. But yet would you tell someone to sign up for a Citi Doublecash or a Capital One Venture card? Pretty sure you would say Venture card since the Double Cash is not a card you should sign up for but rather downgrade into.
In terms of a $95 annual fee, (which I think is safe to say is what makes a card a keep or not) how is the venture card a keep, as opposed to a Chase Sapphire preferred combined with a Chase ink unlimited or freedom unlimited, or another such combo with the same annual fee?
In other words can you paint a scenario where the venture is preferable to such a setup. Granted that for those that are doing heavy MS it can be beneficial to have multiple cards, but I’m wondering if you have any other instances in mind
I think for people that want to have only one card they would do better in their overall spend with the Venture vs the Sapphire Preferred. It all depends on the individual person’s situation. You have to remember that these reviews are not solely written for people heavy in the miles and points hobby.
I think you forgot to mention that most of your responsible readers will be declined. CapOne wants cardholders who maintain balances – they routinely decline those with high scores. This isn’t a 5/24 or other rule to weed out gamers, it’s a non-transparent policy of preventing people who pay off their cards from getting points. And they also pull all three credit unions. So if you’re a smart credit card user, you probably shouldn’t bother applying.
Bloggers pushing cards doesn’t upset me, but it is unfortunate that none of the bloggers mention this (while their comments sections are filled with decline stories). I’m assuming CapOne doesn’t like this mentioned, as it’s common knowledge at this point.
Darin the three credit pulls was mentioned in the review. I added in a bit about it being tough to get approved if you have more than a few applications in the past 24 months. The credit score thing is more of a myth than anything…credit pulls matter more than anything else.
Curious why you think it’s a myth. I was declined for it a month ago with 1 pull this year, 3 accts opened in the past two years, high income and a score above 800. I’ve read scores of similar results on other blogs. I’m not trying to be difficult, honestly would love to know why you think this isn’t the case and who they actually approve. I’ve never been declined for a card in my life.
People with high scores have been approved as well. I do think they tend to lean towards mid tier scores a little more but don’t think people are automatically disqualified for having a high score. They are kind of all over the place to be honest. I don’t think anyone has pinned down exactly what they are looking for.