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The Capital One® Venture® Rewards Credit Card has a solid new cardmember offer and some great perks. Learn more about how to get the most out of the Capital One Venture and decide whether or not the card deserves a place in your wallet.
Capital One Venture Welcome Offer
Typically the first feature applicants look at on a rewards card is the new cardmember bonus. The Capital One Venture offers 50,000 Miles once you spend $3,000 on purchases within 3 months from account opening.
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The bonus is neck and neck with other top travel rewards cards, similar in value to the 60,000 bonus points you can earn from the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card.
Earning Potential and Bonus Spending Categories
The Capital One Venture card offers 2x miles for every dollar spent, on all purchases, in all categories. There is no limit to the miles you can earn, and they never expire. For every $1,000 you spend on the card, you'll earn 2,000 Venture Miles.
In addition to every day 2x earning, the Capital One Venture also earns 10x miles on hotel stays booked through Hotels.com, (scheduled to end on 02/31/2020). If you care about earning elite status with your favorite hotel rewards programs, you'll want to check out this overview of the benefits and drawbacks to booking via Hotels.com. However, if you tend to book stays with lots of different hotel brands and generally decide based on price or convenience, this is a huge benefit for the Capital One Venture.
Annual Fee Waived for the First Year
The Capital One Venture annual fee is $0 intro for first year; $95 after that.
Ultimate Flexibility Redeeming Capital One Venture Miles
Following changes to the Capital One's rewards program, miles earned on the Capital One Venture can either be used to ‘erase' travel purchases made on the card, or transferred to more than a dozen airlines as part of Capital One's new airline transfer program.
The Capital One Venture card still offers the flexibility of purchasing travel with your card, then using the Purchase Eraser feature to get a statement credit for the travel purchase.
The Purchase Eraser works for flights, hotels, car rentals, and more. You can redeem only as many miles as you want, from $1 all the way up to the full amount of miles you have in your account. There are no restrictions when it comes to booking with certain airlines or hotels, so choose whatever you prefer when it comes to your travel.
Capital One Venture Miles offer the kind of flexibility that few other rewards points/miles can provide. On one hand, you can use them at a fixed-value of one cent per mile towards any travel purchase, allowing you to take advantage of flash-sales, error fares, and discount economy tickets, situations where using airline miles returns a poor value. Or, for more expensive or premium cabin international tickets, you can transfer Venture Miles to airline partners, and redeem those miles on your chosen airline.
Credit cards without a link are are not available on this site. If you would like to support AwardWallet through an affiliate link, you can find more offers from Capital One on our partner site.
More Travel Perks
In addition to the great flexibility offered by the Capital One Venture card, you get other travel perks including no foreign transaction fees, travel insurance, roadside assistance, reimbursement for lost luggage, and a 24/7 concierge service that provides you with great support.
Potential Downsides
While the flat earning rate of 2x miles on every dollar spent is great for non-bonus purchases, there are plenty of rewards cards that feature bonus points on select spending categories. For instance, there are plenty of Ultimate Rewards and Membership Rewards earning cards featuring 3x, 4x, and even 5x bonus points on select purchase categories that allow you to leverage higher earning rates to earn thousands more points on purchases. The only comparable feature on the Capital One Venture is the 10x miles on Hotels.com purchases.
Straightforward rewards cards with easy to understand earning structures are great, many people like the simplicity of these programs. But, at times you are losing out on additional miles holding cards that earn a maximum 2x miles.
Final Thoughts
If you are looking for a straightforward way to earn rewards points, the Capital One Venture might be just the solution. However, if you want a travel rewards credit card that gives you better options for earning bonus points on specific spending categories, then you may want to look at the other credit cards earning flexible rewards.
Credit cards without a link are are not available on this site. If you would like to support AwardWallet through an affiliate link, you can find more offers from Capital One on our partner site.
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I’ve had the Venture card for several years now and I find that the yearly fee is more than covered by using miles to “erase” the cost of booking a flight. Even if I’m not traveling it allows me to “erase” the cost of booking a ZipCar or other rental car and numerous types of transportation services. It really has been a fantastic credit card.
We’re glad you like it. It functions effectively as a cash back card, keeping things as easy as can be.
It has been wonderful to be able to erase a lot of the travel charges of our last vacation. Will the benefits of the Capitol One Venture card justify paying the $95 annual fee beyond the first year?
I think for a lot of folks (including me), it will come down to whether the 10x points on bookings through Hotels.com is extended past January 2020 or replaced with something valuable. Now that Capital One miles transfer, there are good reasons to keep at least one card open to keep your option to use transfer partners if you have any kind of significant balance.
Assuming I would lose any remaining miles if I close the account before the $95 due on the anniversary, could they be transferred to one of the affiliated airline programs? If so, could 100% be transferred, or only in bundle sizes (like 500 or 1000 miles)?
Hey Chuck, you can (and should) transfer the points out (or redeem for a statement credit) if you plan to close the card. I believe they must be moved in increments of 1,000 points. I think statement credits can be done in increments of 2,500 points, so you should be able to leave less than 500 points on the table.
Thank you, Erik. That is good to know. I will make a plan to follow your suggestions.
I still enjoy handling the metal Venture Card. Is there more of a story regarding the reasons for and against metal vs. plastic credit cards?