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The Savor Rewards from Capital One is a unique card — not just in the Capital One portfolio but also amongst its competitors with similar annual fees. While the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is targeted at earning points via travel and dining purchases, for example, the Capital One Savor allows you to quickly earn a lot of cash back on dining and entertainment purchases.
As we'll explore more in this article, “entertainment” is a very broad category, and you quickly may realize that the Capital One Savor is a better match for your spending habits than its competitors.
- This card is no longer available to new applicants
- 4% cash back on dining, entertainment, and popular streaming services, plus 3% at grocery stores and 1% on all other purchases
- No foreign transaction fees
- 4% cash back on dining
- 4% cash back on entertainment
- 4% cash back on popular streaming services
- 3% cash back at grocery stores
- 1% cash back on all other purchases
Page Contents
Capital One Savor Key Features
What are the main things to know about the Capital One Savor?
- Earn 4% cash back on dining, entertainment, and popular streaming services.
- Earn a one-time $300 cash bonus after you spend $3,000 on purchases within 3 months from account opening
- Earn 3% cash back at grocery stores.
- $95 annual fee
- Cash back can be converted to miles if you hold a miles-earning Capital One card.
- No rotating categories or sign-ups needed to earn cash rewards; plus cash back won't expire for the life of the account, and there's no limit to how much you can earn.
- No foreign transaction fees.
- Access to premium experiences in dining, entertainment, and more.
Related: Full Capital One Savor review
4% Cash Back On Dining, Entertainment, and Streaming
The crown jewel of the Capital One Savor is the unlimited 4% cash back on dining, entertainment, and streaming services. While many cards offer dining as their premier rewards category, few credit cards emphasize entertainment as a category that earns significant rewards. Rather, other credit cards typically narrow down the definition of “entertainment.”
For example, the U.S. Bank Cash+® Visa Signature® Card allows you to choose two categories for earning 5% cash back each quarter (on up to $2,000 of these purchases, then 1% back). However, the only categories covering entertainment are “TV, Internet, and streaming” and “movie theaters.” If your entertainment spending falls outside these categories, few cards will provide bonus earnings.
Except, of course, for the Capital One Savor. It not only provides 4% cash back on streaming and movie theaters but also on a wide array of additional forms of entertainment. The Capital One website defines entertainment as:
“…ticket purchase made at a movie theatre, record store, video rental location (excluding digital streaming and subscription services), tourist attraction, amusement park, aquarium, zoo, dance hall, billiard and pool establishment, bowling alley, commercial sports promoter (professional or semi-professional live sporting events), theatrical promoter, or concert promoter.”
That is a significantly larger definition of entertainment than you'll find on other credit cards. Several of these expenses would fall into the “everyday” earning rate on other credit cards, likely earning 1 point or 1% cash back for each dollar spent. However, the Capital One Savor significantly powers many purchases simply by having a wide entertainment category.
While many of the Capital One Savor competitor credit cards earn rewards on travel purchases, the Capital One Savor offers bonus cash back on activities that pair with your travels. Traveling to a city to see a concert? Planning on spending the weekend visiting tourist attractions that you need tickets for — or maybe going for a round of bowling with friends? The Capital One Savor earns 4% cash back on all of those purchases.
Earning more rewards through the Capital One Entertainment portal
While entertainment purchases usually earn 4% cash back, the Capital One Savor earns 8% cash back on purchases made in the Capital One Entertainment portal. This is a great option for buying tickets to sporting events, concerts, theater shows, and more.
Converting Cash Back to Miles
We've been talking about cash back significantly since that's what the Capital One Savor earns. Thus, if this is the only Capital One card you hold, you can't earn miles or transfer those to Capital One's 19 hotel and airline partners.
However, similar to the Spark Cash cards, your rewards can be converted to miles (and then transferred to airline and hotel partners) if you have a Capital One card that earns miles. Options include personal cards like the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card and Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card and small-business cards like the Capital One Venture X Business and Capital One Spark Miles Select for Business. To turn cash back into miles, log into the Capital One website and go to the “combine rewards” section.
This makes the Capital One Savor an excellent way to earn miles on dining and entertainment purchases, assuming you also hold a Spark Miles- or Venture-branded card to earn miles. And lest you think there aren't any options for earning miles without an annual fee, note that the Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card is an option.
Premium Dining Experiences
The Capital One Savor has access to the Capital One Dining program, giving cardholders better access to reservations at a prestigious list of 400 restaurants in cities across the United States. If you're anxious to try some of Chef Jose Andres' top establishments (such as Minibar in Washington, D.C.) or popular other restaurants, the Capital One Dining program makes it easier to obtain reservations.
This is an especially quality perk because the list doesn't contain tons of restaurants; instead, it contains top restaurants that have been carefully curated and selected. In addition, access to Capital One Dining makes the Capital One Savor a top-notch card not just for earning rewards on dining and entertainment purchases but also for providing access to premium experiences.
Welcome Bonus
The Capital One Savor comes with a generous bonus of $300 cash back after you spend $3,000 on purchases within 3 months from account opening. This is pretty good for a cash back-earning card and sweetens the overall value of the card. However, there are better welcome bonuses available this month if that's your primary motivation.
Our Take
If you spend a lot of money on dining and entertainment each month, the Capital One Savor is an excellent card for earning rewards on these purchases. Through its great cash-back earning rates (and expansive category of purchases that qualify as entertainment), the Capital One Savor will quickly become one of the most utilized cards in your wallet. Plus, if you also hold a miles-earning card from Capital One, this card can function as part of a larger strategy when combining rewards for upcoming travel redemptions.
- This card is no longer available to new applicants
- 4% cash back on dining, entertainment, and popular streaming services, plus 3% at grocery stores and 1% on all other purchases
- No foreign transaction fees
- 4% cash back on dining
- 4% cash back on entertainment
- 4% cash back on popular streaming services
- 3% cash back at grocery stores
- 1% cash back on all other purchases
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