I Ranked Every Capital One Credit Card (Best Cards in 2025)

00:00:00.160 | Capital One might not be the first issuer you think of when it comes to premium rewards,

00:00:04.640 | but over the last few years, they've made major moves, and if you were going to carry

00:00:08.160 | just one card to earn points and miles, they might just have my top pick.

00:00:12.160 | From flexible points and elevated travel perks to unique benefits that most people overlook,

00:00:16.800 | Capital One has quietly become one of the most rewarding programs out there.

00:00:21.120 | In today's deep dive, I'll walk through their full card lineup, highlight the hidden perks,

00:00:25.280 | explain how their point system works, and break down everything you need to know to

00:00:28.960 | decide if Capital One should have a spot in your wallet. I'm Chris Hutchins.

00:00:32.800 | If you enjoy this episode, please share it with a friend or leave a comment or review,

00:00:36.800 | and if you want to keep upgrading your life, money, and travel, click follow or subscribe.

00:00:41.520 | All right, so far we've done these issuer deep dives for credit cards on Citi and Amex,

00:00:46.560 | and today I want to continue with Capital One because there is so much to get excited about,

00:00:51.120 | both on the personal and business side. Now, I only got my first Capital One card a few years ago when

00:00:56.560 | the Venture X card launched, and since then we've added a few more cards in our household and built

00:01:02.080 | up a pretty good stash of Capital One miles, but despite that short tenure, for this episode today,

00:01:07.840 | I've done dozens of hours of research, read hundreds of pages about Capital One on their site and other

00:01:13.120 | sites, so we've got a lot to cover and we're going to go deep. First, I want to run through the entire

00:01:18.480 | Capital One card lineup, giving every card a rating as we go, and then I want to talk about some of the cool

00:01:24.480 | benefits and perks you get from just being a Capital One customer. Everything from free drinks, co-working

00:01:30.000 | spaces, exclusive reservations, to a few things I didn't even know about until I started doing this

00:01:35.200 | research. Then I want to cover the entire Capital One miles ecosystem, how it works, how it's a great

00:01:41.440 | program for families, especially larger ones, and then I'm going to cover all the rules and other quirks

00:01:47.440 | of applying for cards, earning welcome bonuses, getting approved, and more. Finally, I'll share a bit of a

00:01:53.280 | comparison of Capital One cards, their miles, and how that compares with other major issuers and the

00:01:59.200 | different card combos you can have. There is a lot to cover and whether you're new to Capital One, have

00:02:04.000 | never had one of their cards, or have been a customer for decades, I'm confident you're going to learn

00:02:08.480 | something today that could help you level up your points and miles game. Also, keep in mind there's

00:02:13.280 | timestamps in the show notes if you want to skip around or find links to anything we discuss, and if you're

00:02:18.240 | interested in any of these cards, we have links to all of them on the website at allthehacks.com/cards.

00:02:24.960 | Using those links is a huge way to support the show and all the work we do, so thank you so much

00:02:30.160 | in advance for using them for the next time you're looking at a card. Okay, if you look at the Capital One

00:02:34.800 | website, you can see that there's over 30 different cards, but we're going to break them down into three

00:02:39.840 | major buckets. We're going to first focus on miles cards, then we're going to talk about cashback, and then we'll

00:02:44.560 | talk about some of the co-brand cards they have that at least make sense to cover in this episode.

00:02:49.360 | Keep in mind that all this information is only as good as of August 13th, 2025 when I'm recording it,

00:02:55.600 | but things in this space don't change that fast, so it will probably be pretty relevant whenever you're

00:03:00.160 | listening to this, especially things about the ecosystem. So let's start with miles cards, and the

00:03:05.600 | first one I want to start with is the Capital One Venture card. This card earns 2x miles on every purchase,

00:03:11.760 | and that's a pretty rare thing. There aren't a lot of cards, if any, other than Capital One, where you

00:03:16.560 | can earn 2x transferable miles on all purchases without needing to have another card in that ecosystem.

00:03:23.920 | There is the Blue Business Plus business card at Amex, which will give you that, but only on up to

00:03:30.240 | $50,000 of spend a year. Almost every other card that earns 2% back or 2x points earns it because it's

00:03:37.360 | paired with another card that has transferable points. So right out the gate, the Venture card

00:03:42.160 | is a really unique card and something that I think adds a ton of value to anyone who just wants a card

00:03:48.720 | that's super straightforward and simple that earns 2x miles on every purchase. Right now, it also has a

00:03:53.920 | great welcome bonus of 75,000 miles, and that's after spending $4,000 in the first three months, and it comes

00:04:00.800 | with a $95 annual fee and no foreign transaction fees. It has a few benefits, not as many as the

00:04:07.680 | next card we'll talk about, but you do get status with Hertz, you do get a credit for TSA Pre or Global

00:04:13.920 | Entry, and then you do get access to Capital One Lounges, but you have to pay for it. So let's look at

00:04:20.080 | this card on the tier list, which is something I'll do for all cards, and I'm going to put this card at

00:04:24.960 | the A tier. Now, right out the gate, you've got a card that earns 2x transferable points on all purchases.

00:04:30.880 | That's awesome. The benefits are a little lacking. There's not a lot of other things, but you do get to

00:04:35.600 | transfer those points to over 15 different transfer partners of airlines and hotels, which is amazing.

00:04:41.120 | By the way, if you're not following along on YouTube, you can find a link to the tier list in

00:04:45.600 | the show notes and take a look at that picture as we're talking about this. So venture card, great.

00:04:50.800 | There's a couple variations of it, so I'm going to run through those also. There's the Venture One card,

00:04:56.800 | which is very similar in its name, in its look, except instead of earning 2x miles on everything,

00:05:03.680 | it earns 1.25x miles on everything. So way lower earning rate, not that competitive. The signup bonus

00:05:10.480 | is also a lot smaller, 20,000 points on $500 spend in three months, but it does come with a 0% intro APR

00:05:17.680 | for 15 months and recently has been added a $100 Capital One travel credit. Now, that's a pretty

00:05:25.040 | good signup bonus and offer and 0% intro APR for a card with no annual fee and no foreign transaction fees,

00:05:31.680 | but it's 1.25 miles on everything, not 2x like you would see with a venture card. It does also have

00:05:39.600 | that elevated 5x miles on hotels and rental cars when you book through Capital One travel, but given

00:05:45.760 | that 1.25 miles is just not as competitive as most cards out there, I'm going to put it down at B tier.

00:05:52.560 | Now, it's not a terrible earning rate. There are tons of people I meet who are using cards that earn just

00:05:57.680 | 1x miles or points for their everything else purchases and with no annual fee, no foreign

00:06:03.840 | transaction fees. It's not a terrible card, but it's certainly not elevating itself to the S tier or the

00:06:09.360 | A tier. Now, there's another card called the Venture One card for good credit and Capital One does this

00:06:15.120 | thing sometimes where there's a version of a card and then there's a version for good credit and a version

00:06:19.680 | for students and even in some cases a version for fair credit. And you got to keep in mind that the cards

00:06:25.120 | actually look very similar. So you definitely want to make sure you're clicking the right one when

00:06:28.640 | you're looking around, but the features and the benefits change a little bit. So the Venture One

00:06:33.200 | rewards card for good credit is very similar to the Venture One card, except there's no signup bonus,

00:06:39.280 | there's no 0% intro APR, and there's no Capital One travel credit offer. So still that $0 annual fee,

00:06:45.680 | zero foreign transaction fee. For the purpose of the tier list in this episode, I'm not going to rank all of

00:06:51.040 | the for good credit for students versions of the cards. I'm just going to stick to the main cards as

00:06:56.320 | we go through. So next, let's talk about my first card with Capital One, which is the Venture X card.

00:07:02.480 | Now, this card was a big splash. Tons of marketing went into it. When they originally launched it,

00:07:07.520 | it had a welcome offer of 100,000 miles, which I know a lot of people were excited about. Right now,

00:07:12.800 | the welcome offer is 75,000 miles after spending $4,000 in three months from account opening. So

00:07:20.160 | same welcome offer you would get with the Venture card. The main difference between the Venture card

00:07:25.040 | and the Venture X card is all around the benefits you get. So you're still getting 2x miles on every

00:07:30.880 | purchase. But if you're spending in the Capital One travel portal, now you're going to get 10x miles on

00:07:36.000 | hotels and rental cars, and 5x miles on airfare and vacation rentals. It's probably worth pausing

00:07:42.160 | for a second to talk a little bit about travel portals. In general, the reason that I don't love

00:07:47.520 | travel portals is that when you book a flight, or you book a hotel room, often the airline or the hotel

00:07:54.080 | group is not going to allow you to directly manage those reservations with them. And they're going to kick

00:08:00.320 | you back and say, hey, if you need to change your flight, go to Capital One travel. Hey, if you need to

00:08:04.640 | cancel your hotel, go to Capital One travel. So on one hand, that's a little bit frustrating. On the

00:08:09.520 | other hand, if you can earn 10x miles on a rental car, or 5x miles on a flight, that can be really

00:08:14.640 | compelling. And so I would just keep in mind what type of trip you're taking, how likely it is that

00:08:19.520 | it's going to need to be changed. On the hotel front, often you're not going to earn any points or elite

00:08:25.520 | status with the hotel chain if you're booking a hotel through a travel portal. And so in that case,

00:08:31.440 | if I were booking something with Hyatt, where I'm trying to build up status, I probably wouldn't

00:08:35.360 | book it in a travel portal. That said, if I was booking a boutique hotel that wasn't any part of

00:08:39.440 | a travel program, and I also found the best rate in a travel portal, I'm not going to pay more for it,

00:08:45.600 | I would totally have no issue booking for 10x miles in the Capital One travel portal, which can make this

00:08:50.640 | a great card for travel, as long as you're willing to understand those differences. If you need to change a

00:08:56.160 | flight in the Capital One travel portal, it's not like you can't do it, you can go in and change it.

00:09:01.120 | And in some cases, airlines will let you take over that reservation and manage it through their site.

00:09:06.400 | But I can just say that sometimes there are some issues. If you go search around for why not to use

00:09:11.760 | a travel portal, you'll find some articles about that. I'll try to find one and link it in the show notes.

00:09:16.480 | It's not a don't do it. I've done it plenty of times. It's just to understand what you're getting

00:09:21.200 | into. And so without some added benefit, which by the way, 10x miles or 5x miles or using a $300

00:09:28.720 | travel credit are all great benefits and reasons to do it. But you just want to understand that before

00:09:33.760 | you're doing it. This episode is brought to you by Superhuman, which is absolutely one of my top apps.

00:09:40.320 | It's on my dock on the phone. It's my first pin tab on my browser, and I've used it for years.

00:09:46.080 | It is hands down the best way to do email if you like to save time. And that's because Superhuman is

00:09:52.080 | the best at inbox decluttering and enhanced productivity. It's also the fastest email

00:09:57.120 | experience I've used. And I am certain I have saved hundreds of hours a year using Superhuman.

00:10:02.240 | They have every feature you could want built right into email, split inboxes for prioritizing,

00:10:07.520 | keyboard shortcuts and snippets for everything, AI tools to draft responses and summarize emails,

00:10:13.440 | automated reminders, integrated calendars. And if you're using Superhuman at work like we do,

00:10:18.800 | you can share emails and drafts and comment on both of them with your team. It is so great and saves so

00:10:25.280 | much time. Best of all, Superhuman works with your existing Gmail or Outlook. So unless you love wasting

00:10:31.520 | hours of your day to email, you have to check out Superhuman and every All The Hacks listener can get

00:10:36.800 | their first month free at allthehacks.com/superhuman. Again, that's allthehacks.com/superhuman

00:10:42.720 | to get back hours of your time each week. This episode is brought to you by Built. If you're paying

00:10:50.480 | rent every month without earning anything in return, let me introduce you to Built, the rewards program

00:10:56.400 | designed for renters who want to earn my favorite transferable points for their largest monthly expense,

00:11:01.840 | their rent. Let me explain. By paying rent through Built, you can earn flexible points that can be redeemed

00:11:07.760 | towards hundreds of hotels and airlines, a future rent payment, your next Lyft ride, and more. But it doesn't

00:11:13.440 | stop there. Built is about making your entire neighborhood more rewarding. You can dine out at your

00:11:18.480 | favorite local restaurants and earn additional points, get VIP treatment at certain fitness studios, and enjoy

00:11:24.320 | exclusive experiences just for Built members every month. Built is turning a monthly expense into an

00:11:30.720 | opportunity to earn rewards and discover the best that your neighborhood has to offer. Your rent is

00:11:36.240 | finally working for you. Earn points on rent and around your neighborhood wherever you call home by going

00:11:41.760 | to allthehacks.com/built. That's allthehacks.com/built, B-I-L-T. Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you.

00:11:51.120 | Another difference of this card and the Venture Card is that it has a $395 annual fee. It still has no

00:11:56.720 | foreign transaction fees, but it has a ton of benefits. So let's run through those because I think those

00:12:00.960 | benefits are what really make this card stand out. So first off, on your anniversary for the card, you get

00:12:06.480 | 10,000 miles, which if you value Capital One miles like the Points Guy does at 1.85 cents,

00:12:12.160 | already that's $185 value for those miles. You also get a $300 travel credit you can use in Capital One

00:12:19.760 | Travel. It's very easy to use. You go look to book a flight and all of a sudden $300 gets taken off that

00:12:26.000 | flight and you save $300. So if you're going to spend more than $300 on travel, I've found that travel

00:12:31.760 | credit really, really easy to use. Even if you want to value those 10,000 miles just at 1 cent per mile,

00:12:38.720 | you're looking at $100 value from the miles, $300 value from the travel credit for an annual fee of

00:12:43.920 | $395. You actually come out $5 a head. So for me, this is a great premium card because you're not

00:12:51.760 | stuck trying to make 20 different types of coupons and monthly discounts work. You have one annual travel

00:12:57.200 | credit and 10,000 miles a year to cover it. That said, there are other benefits, but just getting

00:13:02.320 | enough benefits to make up for the annual fee is way easier for this card than a lot of other premium

00:13:07.280 | travel cards. You also get that credit every, I think, four years for TSA Pre and Global Entry.

00:13:13.360 | And then the other big thing is you get access to Capital One's Lounge Network. Now, unfortunately,

00:13:19.120 | this year in 2025, that access has changed a bit. So let me explain what that means.

00:13:24.080 | There are two types of access you get. You get access to Priority Pass, which is a lounge network

00:13:29.280 | of over 1,000 lounges around the world. And you get access to Capital One's own lounges. Now, right now,

00:13:35.520 | I think they have somewhere around seven lounges, Denver, Dallas, both airports in DC, Las Vegas.

00:13:42.000 | And I think LaGuardia and JFK are coming soon, or maybe they're already there. But the way the access

00:13:47.360 | works is that you used to get two guests for free or one guest for their landing lounges, which right

00:13:53.360 | now are in Washington, Reagan, and LaGuardia in New York. But starting February, 2026, that changes and

00:13:59.920 | guests are no longer free with a couple of caveats. So one, this card has no fee for authorized users.

00:14:05.600 | So you can add an authorized user and they can use this card as well. However, those authorized users

00:14:10.240 | do not get lounge access unless you pay $125 a year. And you can do that for up to four authorized users.

00:14:18.000 | So without guest privileges next year, that means that in order to have your partner get into a lounge,

00:14:24.160 | you need to add them as an authorized user. Now, if you use lounges enough, maybe that $125 fee works.

00:14:29.840 | But if you have children and you're hoping to get them into lounges, that's not really a great option

00:14:34.320 | because I believe with Capital One, children need to be over 13 to be authorized users.

00:14:39.120 | So you can either pay for that lounge access, which for children is $25 or adults is $45.

00:14:45.040 | Or if you spend $75,000 a year on the card, then you or any authorized users now inherit free guest

00:14:53.680 | access of up to two guests for Capital One lounges and then one guest for the Capital One landing

00:14:59.760 | lounges. I believe the reason those lounges are different is that the landing lounges are a little

00:15:03.760 | more elevated, a little better food, and they want to keep them a little bit smaller in terms of number

00:15:08.400 | of guests that come into those lounges. In general, anyone that's been in lounges the last few years

00:15:12.960 | knows that it seems like they're always getting more and more crowded. So I understand that Capital One

00:15:17.440 | wanted to add these restrictions, but having a premium card with no guest access unless you pay

00:15:23.040 | or spend a lot on the card does feel a little bit limiting. But unlike other cards where you might

00:15:29.440 | have to spend money to unlock a privilege like guesting into a lounge, at least this is a card

00:15:34.320 | where you're earning 2x miles on all your spending. So if you did have large tax payments where those fees

00:15:39.680 | are actually under 2%, it might actually make sense to put those tax payments on a card where you could

00:15:45.120 | earn 2x miles as opposed to a lot of other cards where you might only earn 1x miles on a tax payment.

00:15:51.040 | So it might actually be more feasible to use this card to meet that $7,500 spend

00:15:55.520 | if you spend a lot in a year. If you don't, I think it's going to be tough to use this card

00:15:59.760 | as your primary lounge card, and there's probably other cards to look at if that's important to you.

00:16:04.240 | Now keep in mind, if you do meet that $75,000 of spend to unlock guest access,

00:16:09.520 | you get that unlocked access for the year you earn it, the following year, and until the end of January

00:16:14.880 | the next year. So that's the Capital One lounges. On the priority pass side,

00:16:19.840 | it's no restaurant access, it's no guest access, even if you spend money, I don't think you unlock

00:16:24.880 | any guest access there as well. So I do love the priority pass network, but I would look at another

00:16:29.840 | card if you're looking for lounge access for a family, because this one is a little bit limiting.

00:16:34.480 | A few other benefits, you do get Hertz President Circle status, and then they do have on the Capital One

00:16:39.760 | travel portal, if you have the Venture X card, you get access to their premier lifestyle hotel collection.

00:16:45.520 | So it's elevated benefits, elevated perks at luxury hotels. I think we have more hotels in

00:16:51.760 | our luxury hotel program. If you go to hotels.allthehacks.com, you can see that and get access to

00:16:57.280 | all kinds of perks with hotels. The password for that site is the word perks. And if you're booking

00:17:03.280 | any luxury hotel, you'll almost always get a property credit, free breakfast, early check-in,

00:17:08.080 | late checkout, both subject to availability and upgrades subject to availability. So if you're

00:17:12.880 | booking a luxury hotel, definitely check that site out. But if you do have access to your Capital One

00:17:18.560 | card and you want to use that Capital One travel credit, you can use it at their premier and lifestyle

00:17:23.280 | hotel collection as well. Now, if I look at the tier list for the Venture X card, I think this one has to go in

00:17:29.120 | the S tier. It is a 2x miles on everything card, which is rare, but also it's a card where you do

00:17:35.200 | get lounge access, you do get some premium coverages and protections, all for an annual fee that isn't

00:17:40.800 | the six, seven, $800 annual fee a lot of similar cards are charging now. It's only $395 and the travel

00:17:48.480 | credit and annual 10,000 miles makes it really much easier to justify in my opinion. So I think the Venture X is

00:17:55.520 | definitely an S tier card. It is our all other purchases card in our household. We're using it

00:18:00.720 | anytime we want to earn miles on a purchase, but we don't have an elevated bonus for earning three,

00:18:06.160 | four or five miles per dollar. Next, I want to talk about the Venture X business card, and it's very,

00:18:11.680 | very similar to the Venture X card, so I won't spend too much time on it. But if you're asking why am I

00:18:17.360 | even including business cards, I want to flag that I think most people don't realize that they probably are

00:18:23.040 | closer to having a business than they thought. In the past, I've done consulting work, sold stuff on

00:18:28.240 | eBay, had a startup that maybe wasn't even profitable yet, but I was getting going. I've had a blog.

00:18:33.840 | There are a lot of different things, Etsy selling, walking dogs, babysitting that could classify as a

00:18:40.400 | business. That doesn't mean you need an LLC to open up a business credit card. You could do it as a

00:18:45.120 | sole proprietor under your own social security number without a business name. So there's a lot of people out

00:18:50.480 | there who I think don't realize they have a business or they have themselves that could very

00:18:55.840 | easily and justifiably be categorized as a business. I'll link to a couple articles if you want to go

00:19:01.040 | read more, but I've been surprised at people that didn't actually realize they had a business and were

00:19:05.520 | eligible to open a business credit card. And so that held them back from what sets apart some business

00:19:10.720 | cards, which is really, really incredible welcome offers. So the biggest thing that sets aside the

00:19:16.000 | VentureX business from the VentureX card is that welcome offer. So right now, that welcome offer is

00:19:21.280 | 150,000 points on $30,000 spend in three months. And I'll come back to why I think that welcome offer

00:19:27.920 | is so compelling, but I'll just quickly run through the benefits. Same annual fee of $395, no foreign

00:19:33.440 | transaction fees, same earnings multiples as the VentureX card. In fact, almost everything is the same,

00:19:39.600 | except on the lounge access. This card does get you two guests at priority pass lounges. So it's

00:19:46.560 | slightly better than the personal VentureX card. But I believe, and I couldn't find evidence for this on

00:19:51.600 | the website, that it doesn't offer Hertz president circle status for cardholders. Now, one unique thing

00:19:56.560 | about the VentureX business card that sets it aside from all the other cards is that it is not actually a

00:20:01.040 | credit card. It is a charge card, meaning you do need to pay that balance off in full at the end of each

00:20:05.600 | month. And you also don't have a preset spending limit, which means potentially for business owners,

00:20:10.560 | this card could be used to spend a lot more. And as you spend more and more, the limit will go up and

00:20:16.400 | up, similar to a lot of Amex charge cards. So for someone with a business who's spending a lot of money

00:20:21.440 | and doesn't want to be kind of hampered by a 10, 20, $30,000 limit, this could be a really good option.

00:20:28.400 | Now, given that this card has the highest welcome offer for Capital One Miles, I just want to dig in a

00:20:33.360 | little bit and share how I think about some of these offers, because it does require a large

00:20:38.080 | amount of spend, $30,000 in the first three months. So first off, if you look at the value of Capital One

00:20:43.600 | Miles, you can go to the points guy, they have a valuation series, they're using 1.85 cents. And part

00:20:49.520 | of the reason is that Capital One has a ton of amazing transfer partners, and I'll talk about that

00:20:53.520 | later in this episode. And because you have the flexibility to move those points to different hotels and

00:20:58.480 | airlines, there's so many different options for how you can make those points earn outsized value.

00:21:04.160 | So at 1.85 cents, earning 150,000 miles could be worth $2,775. However, most cards that have huge

00:21:14.400 | signup bonuses like that, think the Chase Sapphire Reserve Business, the Amex Business Platinum,

00:21:19.200 | you will be earning 1x on all other categories that aren't earning bonuses. So you're probably going

00:21:25.600 | to earn way less points on that spend to hit that bonus than you would with the VentureX business card.

00:21:32.560 | Here you're earning 2x miles. So while you do have to spend $30,000 in those first three months,

00:21:37.920 | you get another 60,000 miles from that spend, which is 210,000 miles total after you spend that $30,000.

00:21:45.200 | So if those miles are worth 1.85 cents, that is a total welcome offer return of $3,885,

00:21:52.800 | which is effectively about 12.95% back on that $30,000 of spend. And even if you wanted to ratchet

00:22:00.640 | that back and say, I don't want to use 1.85 cents, I just want to pretend these miles are worth 1 cent,

00:22:06.160 | that's still a $2,100 value welcome bonus, which is 7% back on your $30,000 of spend. So if you have

00:22:14.560 | $30,000 to spend in the next three months, this is a card that would get you at a minimum 7% back on that

00:22:21.440 | spend if you hit the full spend. But if you value those points, like many other people do in this

00:22:26.720 | industry, it could be close to $4,000 or even more dollars on that welcome bonus. And that also

00:22:32.800 | doesn't factor in the fact that those other two cards that often have 200,000, 250,000 point welcome

00:22:38.960 | bonuses have fees of $695, $795 with some complicated credits to be able to reduce those fees and get that

00:22:47.200 | value back. Whereas the VentureX business is a $395 fee with, in my opinion, an easy $300 travel credit

00:22:54.960 | and 10,000 miles on your account anniversary. So way easier to make that annual fee effectively

00:23:01.200 | down to zero. So big fan of the VentureX business, I'm not sure how long this elevated offer is going

00:23:06.800 | to last. But if you want to check it out, you can go to allthehacks.com/cards. It's at the top,

00:23:11.520 | because it's one of the best bonuses right now. So it's probably no surprise that I would be putting

00:23:16.000 | the VentureX business card in the S tier. It's just like the VentureX personal, except I think it has a

00:23:20.960 | better welcome offer, and you get a little better lounge access, all for the trade-off of no Hertz

00:23:26.640 | President Circle status. So definitely an S tier card. Next on the list is the Spark Miles cards.

00:23:32.720 | Now, I have a bit of a gripe with Capital One for the way they name cards. So they have a Spark Miles

00:23:37.440 | card, which is effectively a business card that also earns 2x miles. I'm not sure why they don't call it the

00:23:43.200 | VentureBusiness card. It seems like you have Venture and VentureX, and then you have VentureX

00:23:48.400 | Business and Spark Miles, which is kind of effectively the business version of the VentureCard.

00:23:53.440 | It also earns 2x miles on every purchase. It also, like the VentureCard, earns 5x miles on hotels and

00:24:00.320 | rental cars and Capital One travel. But after that, there are some changes. So first off, the welcome

00:24:04.640 | bonus on this card is 50,000 miles on $4,500 spend in the first three months. It has the same annual fee as

00:24:10.960 | the VentureCard of $95. But in your first year, it's actually waived. So there is no annual fee.

00:24:15.280 | No foreign transaction fees on the card. You do get free employee cards. You do get reimbursed

00:24:20.640 | on Global Entry and TSA PreCheck and access to that Premier and Lifestyle Hotel Collection.

00:24:25.120 | But otherwise, there aren't a lot of other benefits. Now, there is one variation of the Spark Miles card,

00:24:30.480 | and that's the Spark Miles Select. It has the same signup bonus, but no annual fee. And instead of

00:24:35.440 | earning 2x miles on every purchase, it earns 1.5x miles on every purchase.

00:24:40.560 | No TSA Pre and Global Entry credit as well. So those are the two Spark Miles cards on the

00:24:45.520 | business side. That 2x miles card, I'm going to put up in the S tier as well. If you're asking why

00:24:50.880 | the Spark Miles 2x card is in the S tier and the VentureCard is not, I think the main thing for me

00:24:57.600 | is that there are just so many consumer cards that can reward you on tons of different categories.

00:25:02.400 | Whereas on the business side, there are not a lot of business cards that get you uncapped 2x on

00:25:07.840 | everything. And a lot of business purchases don't fall into bonus categories on cards. A lot of

00:25:14.560 | business services, lots of spending in places that aren't restaurants and dining and travel.

00:25:19.920 | So that's why I put this in the S tier, because as a business owner, being able to get 2x transferable

00:25:26.640 | miles on all purchases is just really incredible and differentiated amongst a lot of other cards.

00:25:32.320 | That said, if I'm looking at the Spark Business 1.5x miles card, I'm putting that down in the B tier,

00:25:38.800 | because getting 1.5x is pretty comparable to a lot of other options. Maybe there aren't that many

00:25:45.120 | business cards, like there are personal cards that earn 1.5x or 1.5% back, but that definitely doesn't

00:25:51.440 | feel as differentiated.

00:25:53.040 | So that's Capital One's miles cards. Let's talk about Capital One's cashback cards.

00:25:57.760 | Though, technically, if you have a Capital One miles card, then if you have a cashback card, you can

00:26:04.880 | transfer the cashback you earn at a rate of one penny to one point to your rewards balance on your miles

00:26:11.760 | earning card. So I have a Capital One cashback business card, the Spark Cash Plus. And if I earned

00:26:17.680 | $100 of cashback, I can transfer that to be 10,000 miles in my personal VentureX card balance. So yes,

00:26:26.160 | these are all cashback cards if you have them on your own. If you pair them with any of the Venture or

00:26:30.640 | Spark Miles cards, you can turn them into miles, which makes them even more valuable in my opinion.

00:26:36.800 | So the first one we're going to talk about is a Capital One Saver Rewards card. This is a card that

00:26:40.800 | earns 3% back on grocery, dining, entertainment, and streaming. So this is Capital One's consumer card

00:26:48.880 | to reward you elevated amounts on your regular consumer spending. I really like this card.

00:26:54.400 | I have other cards that hit these categories, but if I were going to go all in on the Capital One

00:26:58.640 | ecosystem, which we'll talk about later, I would absolutely be getting this card and pairing it with

00:27:03.040 | a VentureX. It also earns 5% back on hotels and rental cars, and then it earns 1% back on all other

00:27:09.440 | purchases. It has no foreign transaction fees, has no annual fee. Right now, the welcome bonus is only $200

00:27:15.600 | on $500 spend in three months, but you do get a 0% intro APR for 15 months, and as of a few days ago,

00:27:24.240 | a $100 Capital One travel credit. So not the best welcome offer in terms of dollars, or if you took

00:27:30.720 | those $200 and turned them into miles, it would be 20,000 miles. But 0% intro APR is interesting,

00:27:37.280 | a free travel credit is interesting, but the elevated earnings are, I think, what sets this card apart.

00:27:41.920 | There are some variations of this. There is the for good credit version, which is the same except

00:27:47.600 | there's no welcome offer, and there's no 0% intro APR. Then there is a student version of the card with

00:27:53.520 | a lower welcome offer of only $100 on $300 spend in three months. Also doesn't have the 0% intro APR,

00:28:00.080 | but you do need to be enrolled, admitted, or planning to enroll in the next three months at an accredited

00:28:05.040 | university, community college, or other higher education institution. So those are the three

00:28:09.920 | variations. Like I said, I'm only going to review the primary personal one, and I'm going to put this in

00:28:14.960 | the A tier. This is a card I really like. While the welcome offer isn't as compelling as a lot of other

00:28:20.640 | cards out there, I do think being able to get 3% back or 3x miles if you pair it with a miles card

00:28:27.600 | on grocery, dining, entertainment, and streaming covers a ton of the categories that are both competitive

00:28:33.760 | with other cards and areas where I think a lot of people spend money. So love this card, even though I

00:28:38.960 | don't have it. There used to be a saver one version of this card that went up to 4% back on groceries.

00:28:44.960 | And I know there's been some surveys going out from Capital One about maybe an elevated kind of venture

00:28:51.040 | X version, maybe the saver X card, but it hasn't come out yet. There's no details out there. Who knows if

00:28:57.200 | it ever will. This episode is brought to you by Trust and Will. It is so easy to overcomplicate

00:29:03.600 | simple tasks, especially for me when I love doing all the research, but some things don't always need

00:29:09.280 | to be complicated and put off like creating a will or trust. So check out Trust and Will because they

00:29:15.440 | make estate planning so straightforward and simple you can do it from your couch. The platform is attorney

00:29:21.280 | designed specific to each state and most important customized by you at every step. I can tell you

00:29:27.760 | firsthand how great Trust and Will is because we use them to set up our estate plan years ago long before

00:29:33.520 | they were a sponsor because it was quick, easy, and way less intimidating than it seems. In a few guided

00:29:39.520 | steps, we had a solid plan in place to protect our family and we were able to customize it to match all our

00:29:45.360 | nuanced preferences about what happens to our savings, who's going to be the guardian for our kids, and

00:29:50.160 | much more. I can't tell you how much peace of mind we have knowing that all of this is taken care of and

00:29:55.840 | it was so easy to update it online after we had our second child. So let Trust and Will uncomplicate the

00:30:02.480 | process for you. Protect what matters most in minutes at allthehacks.com/trustandwill and get

00:30:10.000 | 20% off plus free shipping. That's 20% off and free shipping at allthehacks.com/trustandwill.

00:30:19.120 | This episode is brought to you by Element. If you've listened to this show, you know I'm always

00:30:23.760 | searching for ways to optimize my life and Element is genuinely one of the simplest, most impactful

00:30:29.040 | upgrades I've made. I drink Element almost every day and bring it with me every time I travel. Here's why:

00:30:35.200 | Staying hydrated isn't just about drinking water. Electrolyte imbalances can lead to headaches,

00:30:39.920 | fatigue, brain fog, poor sleep, and most electrolyte drinks out there are packed with sugar and other

00:30:45.520 | dodgy ingredients. But Element is different. It's zero sugar, zero artificial junk, just a perfectly

00:30:51.680 | balanced mix of electrolytes and sodium that is backed by science and tastes great. Since I started

00:30:57.600 | drinking Element, I've noticed clearer focus throughout the day, better sleep at night, and I

00:31:01.680 | am more energized for workouts and recovery. Honestly, it is hard to imagine going back. So whether you're an

00:31:07.920 | athlete or just someone like me trying to get the most out of every day, you've got to try Element,

00:31:13.200 | and they're so confident you'll love it that they offer no questions asked refunds so you can try it

00:31:17.760 | risk-free. And for All The Hacks listeners, you can get a free eight-count sample pack of Element's most

00:31:23.920 | popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at allthehacks.com/elementlmnt. Find your favorite

00:31:31.920 | Element flavor or share with a friend. That's allthehacks.com/elementlmnt.

00:31:37.200 | Okay, so the next cashback card is the Quicksilver card. Samuel L. Jackson's been talking about

00:31:42.480 | this card for years. You've probably seen ads. It is a one and a half percent cashback card on all your

00:31:47.920 | purchases. Right now, the welcome offer is $200 on $500 spend in three months, but you do also get a

00:31:53.840 | zero percent intro APR for 15 months and $100 Capital One travel credit. No annual fee, no foreign

00:31:59.120 | transaction fees, but the note says you do need excellent credit to get this card. There are some variations of

00:32:04.480 | this. So there is the Quicksilver for good credit version, which is the same card, but no welcome

00:32:11.040 | offer and no zero percent intro APR. And then there is the for student version of this card, which has

00:32:16.080 | similar requirements to the saver card for students, also no intro APR, but it does have a small welcome

00:32:21.600 | offer of $100 on $300 spend in three months. Then there is the Quicksilver One card, which you'd think

00:32:28.480 | might be different given that there was a saver and a saver one card and they had different earnings. No,

00:32:34.000 | this one's the same earnings, no welcome offer, no intro APR, but this one actually has a $39 annual fee.

00:32:40.800 | They do say they do credit line reviews, but it says this is for fair credit. Still, again,

00:32:45.280 | with Capital One and the naming, I'm always confused. Instead of calling this the for fair credit version,

00:32:51.200 | they give it a different name called Quicksilver One. So I'll treat it like a separate card, but it's not

00:32:56.400 | really that different. And then there's also a Quicksilver secured card, which actually isn't a credit card,

00:33:01.360 | that has no welcome offer, no intro APR, no annual fee, but you have to make a refundable deposit.

00:33:06.480 | So when I look at these cards, I think about the Quicksilver card. I'm putting that at the C tier.

00:33:10.720 | And by the way, this tier list goes from S at the top all the way down to D tier. Think of it as a

00:33:15.360 | grading system with S for, I don't know, star, special. I don't actually know the origin of the S.

00:33:21.440 | And putting a card out there like the Quicksilver card that earns one and a half percent on everything,

00:33:25.600 | it's just not that compelling. It's a C tier card for me. But putting it out there with a annual fee,

00:33:31.920 | the Quicksilver One card, obviously the card is not targeting someone who could be eligible for these

00:33:37.040 | other cards. But even the secured version of this card has no annual fee and the same earnings. So I

00:33:42.240 | think the Capital One Quicksilver One card is a D tier card for me. Now, moving over to the business

00:33:46.800 | side of cash back, you've got the Spark Cash cards. These are similar to the Quicksilver cards,

00:33:51.360 | except they actually go all the way up to 2%. There is no 2% cash back card on the personal side.

00:33:56.560 | So the one I'll start with is the Spark Cash card. It's the Spark 2% cash version. You get 2% back on all

00:34:03.040 | purchases. You also get 5% back on hotels and rental cars through Capital One Travel. There is a bonus

00:34:09.360 | right now of $1,000 when you spend $10,000 in the first three months. So reasonable bonus there,

00:34:16.480 | right? You're getting 10% back on that spend. I like that. The annual fee is $95, but it's waived

00:34:22.000 | for the first year. There's no foreign transaction fees and you get free employee cards. So overall,

00:34:27.360 | as a business owner, a 2% back card on everything is pretty good. I would rather have 2X Miles. But if

00:34:33.680 | you already have a personal venture or VentureX card, then all of a sudden you don't need a Spark

00:34:38.480 | Miles card or a VentureX business card to be able to earn transferable miles with a business card.

00:34:44.320 | Now, similar to the Spark Cash 2% card, there is the Spark Cash Plus card, which is also a 2% card.

00:34:51.920 | And the main difference between this card is that unlike the Spark Cash, the Spark Cash Plus is a

00:34:57.680 | charge card. And so like I mentioned, when I was talking about the VentureX business, the Spark Cash

00:35:01.840 | Plus has no preset limit. You do have to pay it in full each month, but as you spend, that limit would go

00:35:07.520 | up and up over time and match your spending, or at least that's how it's supposed to work.

00:35:12.080 | And so it would be better than the Spark Cash card if you spend a ton of money in terms of needing a

00:35:18.000 | higher limit and not having to request credit line increases or be limited by whatever your limit is.

00:35:23.360 | It also has a much higher welcome offer. So right now, you earn $2,000

00:35:27.120 | on $30,000 of spend in the first three months. And then you earn another $2,000 for every

00:35:34.720 | $500,000 you spend in the first year. Now, that second bonus equates to about 0.4%.

00:35:42.160 | So I'm not really excited about that. Obviously, if you're spending a ton of money on your business,

00:35:48.240 | and you're going to spend $4 million in the first year, this card could be more rewarding because I

00:35:52.880 | guess in that first year, it would kind of average out if you spent right at $500,000 increments to be

00:35:58.560 | a 2.4% cashback card. But I think very few people are going to be spending $500,000 or more dollars on

00:36:05.440 | this card in the first 12 months. Now, you might look at this and say, okay, well, this welcome offer

00:36:09.440 | does seem like it could be more competitive than the VentureX business card in that if you paired it with a

00:36:14.640 | miles earning card, it would effectively be 200,000 miles for the same $30,000 of spend.

00:36:21.280 | The main difference here is that this card does have an annual fee of $150. And the only real

00:36:28.160 | benefits that it has that could offset that fee are that if you spend $150,000, it gets refunded.

00:36:33.840 | And there's not a lot of benefits. So you don't get lounge access, you don't get global entry

00:36:37.840 | reimbursed, you don't get the extra elevated earnings on Capital One Travel, you do get the

00:36:41.680 | 5% back on hotels and rental cars, but not 10% or 10x on hotels and rental cars, or 5x on flights

00:36:48.960 | and vacation rentals that you would on the VentureX side. So to me, it kind of comes down to whether you

00:36:53.840 | want to pay that annual fee of $150 for the extra points, whether the benefits mean anything to you,

00:37:00.160 | how you think about the card long term. I do have this card, I did open this card when there was a really

00:37:05.360 | large welcome bonus. But as far as which card I'm keeping for a longer period of time, it's the

00:37:10.560 | VentureX business card. And you can only have one charge card with Capital One. So you can't have the

00:37:15.840 | Spark Cash Plus and the VentureX business card at the same time either. So keep that in mind if you're

00:37:20.800 | applying for one, and then you're thinking about the other, you definitely won't get approved for both.

00:37:24.960 | There are two other variations of the Spark cards. There's the Spark 1.5% cash select, and that is a

00:37:31.760 | one and a half percent back on everything card with no annual fee. The welcome bonus is $500 on $4,500

00:37:38.960 | in the first three months. And then there's the Spark 1% cash classic card, which is for fair credit,

00:37:47.280 | has no welcome offer, just earns a flat 1% back, but has no annual fee. So when I think about these on

00:37:52.800 | the tier list, I think the Spark business 2% cash plus is an A tier card. Because it's a charge card,

00:38:00.000 | you're able to get a much higher limit, and there's a much more lucrative welcome offer.

00:38:05.360 | So I like that. I think if paired with a miles earning card, that's great. There aren't a ton

00:38:10.720 | of 2% everything cards out there for businesses, but there are some. So the Spark 2% cash card that is

00:38:17.920 | very similar, but has a lower welcome offer and not a charge card, I'll put it the B tier. I think if there

00:38:23.120 | was a A minus B plus tier, those cards would be a lot closer. But if I compare them head to head,

00:38:28.960 | I'd prefer to have the higher welcome offer. And I think I'd prefer to have a charge card over a credit

00:38:33.040 | card. Then the Spark 1.5% cash card would be a C tier. And then the Spark classic card earning 1%

00:38:39.440 | would be a D tier. I think those speak for themselves. They're not earning a ton. There are better cards out

00:38:43.920 | there. I'm not interested in them. So that's the majority of the Capital One cards that aren't

00:38:49.680 | co-branded. There is one card that for whatever reason, when you go to look at cards on their

00:38:53.920 | website, it is the top card. It's the first one they show you. And it's the Platinum Master card.

00:38:59.040 | It has no annual fee and best I can tell it earns no rewards. And so I feel like it's at least worth

00:39:05.840 | mentioning this card, even though normally I wouldn't include it only because Capital One puts

00:39:10.160 | it at the top of their list. But for me, that is a D tier card that earns nothing. And I don't know

00:39:15.600 | why it's promoted so heavily, but I do know that it is a for fair credit card. So I assume it's probably

00:39:21.120 | for people who can't earn cards with more rewards. But if you look at the Capital One lineup, there are

00:39:25.920 | other cards for people with fair credit that do earn rewards. So this has got to be the worst of

00:39:31.200 | all of them. But if someone knows what I'm missing, I would love to know. Capital One also has a ton of

00:39:36.400 | co-branded cards with a lot of different retailers. And I was going to exclude all of them because none

00:39:41.440 | of them really stood out as interesting ones that would make sense to get if you weren't really,

00:39:46.240 | really tied into that retailer's ecosystem. But I do think it's worth mentioning just one of them.

00:39:51.440 | And technically, it's probably worth mentioning four of them. There is the Williams-Sonoma card,

00:39:55.200 | the Pottery Barn card, the West Elm card, and the key rewards card. And the most interesting

00:40:00.160 | thing about the fact that there are four of them is that best I can tell, they are all pretty much

00:40:04.560 | identical. I imagine the reason they're different is maybe they're opened in those individual stores,

00:40:09.760 | and maybe those stores get different bonuses based on how many cards they open. I have no idea.

00:40:13.840 | I can't tell what's different about any of them. So I'm just going to focus on the Williams-Sonoma

00:40:18.800 | one, but assume the same thing applies to Pottery Barn, West Elm, and the generic key rewards card.

00:40:23.920 | The reason I bring it up is that it is a 4% back on groceries, food delivery, and restaurants,

00:40:30.960 | which is actually not a bad rate of return. It also earns 5% back at Williams-Sonoma brands. So

00:40:37.280 | everything I mentioned, plus Mark and Graham, rejuvenation, maybe there's a couple other ones,

00:40:41.760 | like Pottery Barn Kids in there, and then 1% back on everything else. So I don't want to spend a lot of

00:40:47.520 | time on this card, but 4% cash back on groceries, restaurants, and food delivery is pretty interesting.

00:40:53.280 | With one caveat, you earn key rewards. You don't actually earn direct cash back.

00:40:58.800 | So if you're spending $20,000 a year on these categories, groceries, dining, you'd have to be

00:41:04.000 | spending $800 a year at Williams-Sonoma Pottery Barn, West Elm to be able to truly cash out that $800.

00:41:11.040 | It's actually $825 because every year on your birthday, you get $25 on top of that and free

00:41:16.800 | shipping. So if you spend money at those stores, it's not just rewarding to those stores, it's also

00:41:23.120 | rewarding to groceries, food, and restaurants, which is rare for a co-branded card. I think the Verizon

00:41:29.280 | Visa is a similar card that actually has really elevated good earnings. I think it's groceries also,

00:41:34.000 | 4%, but I could be wrong there. So for that card, I'll put it at the B tier because 4% on categories

00:41:40.000 | like that is really compelling. It can't be any higher because that cash back only works if you

00:41:46.000 | spend 4% of your spend on those categories shopping at those Williams-Sonoma stores.

00:41:51.360 | So the other co-branded cards that I left out, the REI, Kohl's, Cabela's, Bass Pro, BJ's,

00:41:57.280 | they all have little to no signup bonus. The Williams-Sonoma card does have a welcome offer of 10%

00:42:02.320 | back on the Williams-Sonoma purchases in your first 30 days. So interesting if you're about

00:42:06.960 | to spend a ton of money at any of those stores, could make sense, could even keep it around for

00:42:11.520 | grocery, food, and delivery as long as you're spending enough on a regular basis at those stores

00:42:16.320 | to make use of that cash back. On all the other cards, they all earn about 1% to 7.5% at their

00:42:22.960 | respective stores, but only 1% to 1.5% everywhere else. So they really only make sense at those stores,

00:42:30.400 | which is why I separated the Williams-Sonoma card because it could make sense for other purchases.

00:42:34.720 | But some of them, notably the Cabela's and Bass Pro cards, they only go up to 5% off at their own

00:42:41.280 | store if you spend $25,000 a year. If you don't, they're 3% off if you spend $10,000. Otherwise,

00:42:49.280 | it's just a 2% off card at those stores and 1% everywhere else. To me, that seems absolutely

00:42:54.800 | crazy, right? You could get just a 2% everything card. And then if you go above and beyond and spend

00:43:00.160 | $10,000 at the retailer, you only get an extra 1% back on the spend at that store. So $100. If you

00:43:07.840 | spend $25,000, you could get an extra 3% back. So it's starting to be a little bit more interesting,

00:43:13.200 | but really for a small niche of people who spend well over $25,000 a year at Cabela's or Bass Pro. So

00:43:20.640 | I think there are people in that camp, but there are a lot of other cards that I think are more

00:43:24.560 | rewarding, which is why I'm not talking about them here. That's a lot of cards. Let's jump in to talk

00:43:29.120 | about the Capital One ecosystem. So a few things to know about all cards in general. So I didn't talk

00:43:34.080 | a ton about travel and purchase protections for those cards for a couple reasons. Mainly that Capital One

00:43:40.560 | doesn't always specify whether they're cards or visas or MasterCards. And this is kind of interesting,

00:43:46.000 | but if you go on the website and you look at all the pictures of the cards,

00:43:49.120 | you'll notice that it's not specified. And if you look up what are the travel purchase

00:43:52.800 | protections on certain cards, they'll send you to a link which says for Visa signature cards,

00:43:58.400 | here's the travel benefits. For World Elite MasterCard, click here. But they don't actually

00:44:02.960 | say which one you're going to get in advance. And I've heard stories of people getting a MasterCard

00:44:08.160 | version and then later changing it to a Visa version. And so I don't want to talk a lot about

00:44:12.560 | the travel and purchase protections. That said, almost all the cards I mentioned do have an extended warranty

00:44:17.760 | protection and not much else. However, the Venture X card does link out to the Visa Infinite benefits.

00:44:24.960 | So I have one, you are getting a Visa Infinite card, at least that's what it says on the website. It makes

00:44:29.520 | it pretty clear, which means you do get a lot more coverage for the Venture X card. You're getting

00:44:33.920 | primary rental coverage, trip delay and cancellation, lost luggage, purchase protection, extended warranty,

00:44:39.200 | cell phone protection. So that's great. But as for the other cards, I think you really have to go look

00:44:44.240 | at the guide to benefits. And I wouldn't be opening any of these Capital One cards except a Venture X card,

00:44:49.520 | primarily for their purchase protections and travel protections, because it's just hard to know what

00:44:54.320 | you're going to get. One thing you are going to get with all your Capital One cards, at least all the

00:44:57.920 | ones I've used, is virtual card numbers, which is awesome. So if you're checking out on some website and

00:45:03.120 | you feel like it's a little sketchy, you can go create a virtual card on the website, or you can use their

00:45:07.520 | Eno browser extension. And that lets you create virtual card numbers on the fly. I've done that a ton of

00:45:13.200 | times. Or for sites where you're getting a seven day trial, and you're not sure how easy it'll be to

00:45:18.480 | cancel, you can use a virtual card and set that card to expire the next day. So that if that trial is hard to

00:45:25.280 | cancel, you could just leave it go and not worry about it hitting your card. Another cool benefit is that in 19

00:45:31.440 | different states and pretty much most major cities in America, Capital One has cafes, they have 55 of

00:45:37.840 | them. And they're like coffee shops, except that if you have a Capital One debit or credit card, you get

00:45:42.720 | 50% off all beverages. And there is semi private kind of nooks available to work out of at almost every cafe,

00:45:51.280 | and you can actually reserve them. I haven't figured out how to reserve them. But it says you can reserve

00:45:55.680 | these semi private nooks at almost every cafe. This episode is brought to you by Viore. Now,

00:46:01.520 | there is nothing better than finding a brand of clothing that's comfortable, functional and looks

00:46:05.600 | good. And that's how I feel about Viore. If you're looking at me in person, you'd know I believe it,

00:46:10.400 | because there are very few days that go by where I'm not wearing one, two or even three pieces of Viore

00:46:16.160 | clothing. They make performance apparel for men and women that's incredibly versatile. Everything is

00:46:21.680 | designed to work out in, but it doesn't look or feel like it at all. And it's so comfortable, you will

00:46:26.720 | want to wear it all the time. My personal favorite is the Sunday performance joggers, but I wear strato

00:46:32.080 | tech tees almost every day, I run and work out in their core shorts, and the meta pants and polos are what I

00:46:38.240 | wear out to a nice dinner. And for our listeners, they're offering 20% off your first purchase plus

00:46:44.080 | free shipping on us orders over $75 and free returns. So get yourself some of the most comfortable and

00:46:50.560 | versatile clothing on the planet at all the hacks.com slash Viore. That's V U O R I. Again, that's all the

00:46:58.800 | hacks.com slash Viore V U O R I to discover the versatility of Viore clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit

00:47:06.800 | the website for full terms and conditions. Thank you for being here today. You can find all the links,

00:47:12.560 | promo codes and discounts from all our partners at all the hacks.com slash deals. They're all brands I

00:47:19.040 | love and use. So please consider supporting those who support us. Next, I'm going to talk about Capital One

00:47:24.880 | offers. Now this used to be just cashback offers for your cards. But now it's actually turned into

00:47:30.560 | a miles portal, which is pretty cool if you have a miles earning card. So right now, when I look, I see

00:47:36.160 | 3556 offers, which is a ton. But unlike Chase and Amex, where these are mostly card linked offers,

00:47:43.840 | all but 30 of them are actually all online offers. So they're much more like a shopping portal with

00:47:50.080 | Rakuten than they are like the kind of card linked offers you might be used to.

00:47:54.320 | That said, when I'm looking at some of the in-store ones, they do have CVS for in-store at 15x miles.

00:48:01.120 | Now, if you click into it, you can see what that is. It says three activations. You can only use them

00:48:06.320 | one time every 30 days for up to 1000 miles. But 15x miles on purchases up to, I guess, $66,

00:48:13.120 | $67 in-store is pretty cool if you're regularly going to CVS. That brings up one thing that I'm going to

00:48:19.680 | throw out there in case anyone's tested this or tried this. I've been noticing that I have really,

00:48:24.960 | really high medical bills when I'm looking at what the actual cost insurance pays.

00:48:29.360 | And I'm wondering if when I'm picking up a prescription, when I'm going for treatment with a

00:48:35.120 | doctor, or even if I'm having a surgery like my daughter had, could I actually just start paying

00:48:40.240 | for all that out of pocket and then submitting for reimbursement? I'm not sure how that process

00:48:45.040 | works because I know there's pre-negotiated rates, but it would be really cool if I could use my credit

00:48:50.080 | card to pay for a thousand dollar prescription and then submit it for reimbursement with my insurance

00:48:55.360 | company instead of just having them pay for it because then I'd get the points and miles.

00:48:59.360 | So that kind of crossed my mind when I saw 15x miles at CVS because I thought, wow,

00:49:04.480 | I have a couple of prescriptions that I pick up regularly. That could be pretty lucrative.

00:49:07.440 | So if anyone has any experience there, shoot me an email, podcast@allthehacks.com.

00:49:11.440 | I'm really interested in exploring whether I can turn all the medical expenses that insurance normally

00:49:17.440 | covers directly into things I can put on my credit card and then get reimbursed for later.

00:49:22.880 | Obviously, I don't want to do it if I'm not going to get reimbursed, but if I could, that seems pretty

00:49:27.200 | interesting. On most of these offers, there are variable amount ranges from 0.01x miles all the way

00:49:32.960 | up to 87x miles. There are a handful that are just fixed amounts from anywhere from 1,000 to 25,000 miles.

00:49:39.840 | There are so many here that it's a little bit hard to grapple, but I would say worth going in here one

00:49:45.440 | or more times just to see what kind of is in there. Most of the major travel sites are on here for

00:49:50.560 | earning miles like Expedia, Virbo, Marriott, IHG, Hilton, but you really need to be comparing Capital

00:49:56.720 | One offers with Rakuten for a lot of these. So for me, I'll probably use this and go to in-store

00:50:02.800 | to see what's there. But for the most part, I'll probably be comparing Capital One offers

00:50:07.520 | on a site like SaveWise or Cashback Monitor and thinking about it that way.

00:50:12.160 | Then separately, there's Capital One Shopping, which interestingly enough has nothing to do with

00:50:16.640 | being a Capital One cardholder. It is a Rakuten competitor.

00:50:20.240 | You can go on and find offers for lots of different sites that you can earn cash back as long as you

00:50:26.400 | use their browser extension and enable it. So I'm not going to spend much time talking about it here

00:50:30.560 | because it has nothing to do with being a Capital One cardholder, but it does exist and it's part of

00:50:34.880 | Capital One. So I thought I'd at least mention that other than being able to log in with your Capital One

00:50:39.600 | login, there's no real link to your account, your card, your miles or anything like that. It's just a public

00:50:44.960 | shopping portal. That said, keeping that extension on when you're on certain sites is super interesting

00:50:50.880 | because they send these targeted emails. So you might be browsing a hotel at Hilton and then get

00:50:56.400 | an email two days later that says, "Hey, you never made that Hilton checkout. Do you want 30% back on

00:51:01.200 | Hilton?" And some of them can be pretty, pretty extreme. A few other things on Capital One. They

00:51:05.120 | do have referral programs. And so depending on your card, you can usually earn 20 to 25,000 miles for

00:51:11.280 | referring someone. But there is a cap each year of I think it's either 100,000 miles or $1,000. But also

00:51:17.920 | keep in mind that those referrals are taxable. If you refer enough people, you will probably get a 1099 and

00:51:23.040 | you will owe taxes on the paid out amount. I don't remember how they value miles in that case. Probably a

00:51:28.640 | penny a mile, but I'm not sure. But just something to keep in mind. And then last, there is a program called Capital One

00:51:33.920 | Dining, where all US issued Capital One branded cards have access. Debit cards and co-branded cards

00:51:40.640 | are not eligible, but they just have a few restaurants. And by a few, I mean quite a few

00:51:45.280 | in San Francisco that are really good. State Bird Provisions, Mr. Jews, Atelier Crenn, where you get

00:51:50.560 | exclusive reservations and they say a free treat from the restaurant. So I haven't booked a reservation

00:51:55.280 | here. It's on my list of something to test out. But just something if you have a Capital One card and

00:51:59.440 | you haven't played around with Capital One Dining, definitely something worth looking into.

00:52:03.360 | Next, I want to talk about Capital One miles and how to get the most out of them.

00:52:06.720 | So there are a few options for redemptions that I don't ever use, but I'll run through quickly.

00:52:13.120 | You could just take a straight statement credit towards cash at half a cent a point. They have

00:52:18.160 | a gift card marketplace where you can get gift cards for 0.8 cents a point. And then sometimes they

00:52:24.080 | go on sale. So right now, there's a sale on Apple, DoorDash, Uber, Wayfair. And that makes your points

00:52:29.840 | worth 1.07 cents. You can use it to book travel in Capital One Travel or for some cards reimburse

00:52:37.440 | yourself as a statement credit. That's at one cent a point. Now, earlier, I mentioned that the points

00:52:42.160 | guy values Capital One points at 1.85 cents. So obviously, none of these options are ways to redeem

00:52:48.400 | points at that level. The primary way you would want to get outsized value is from the Capital One

00:52:53.680 | Transfer Partners. But there's one little thing that I'll mention. If you like baseball, Capital One has

00:52:59.040 | some interesting cardholder exclusives where they have specific great seats at a handful of stadiums

00:53:05.760 | where when they release seats, you can get amazing seats for 5,000 miles, which is somewhere between

00:53:10.960 | 50 and $100, but really, really great seats. I'm not a big baseball fan, so I've never done this.

00:53:16.240 | I'll link to an article from The Frequent Miler about how to take advantage of this because they also will

00:53:21.520 | sell you baseball seats at almost any game for a terrible use of miles. So you want to make sure you're

00:53:25.680 | getting a really great deal here, but that is one way to get outsized value. But the primary way to

00:53:29.920 | get outsized value from your Capital One miles is by transferring them to airlines and hotels.

00:53:34.720 | So I'm going to pull up my transfer partner spreadsheet. There right now are 16 airlines

00:53:39.520 | and three hotels that you can transfer to, and you need a miles card to do those transfers. So a

00:53:44.960 | Venture, a Venture X, a Spark Miles are all options. Now, at 16 airlines where I'll focus first,

00:53:51.120 | that's quite a few. And it's really competitive to Amex, for example. If you compare Capital One to Amex,

00:53:57.760 | you've got all the same partners with a couple exceptions. You're missing out on Delta and ANA,

00:54:03.280 | neither of which I regularly, if ever use. But you get EVA Air, which I love because they have their own

00:54:09.600 | kind of inventory special to their members for business class availability. Turkish, which has a few

00:54:15.440 | sweet spots, and Tap Air Portugal, which I'm not aware of any great uses. So pretty comparable in

00:54:21.040 | terms of Capital One points to Amex points on the airline side. And amongst those, a handful of my

00:54:26.880 | favorites. So Aeroplan in Star Alliance, Avianca in Star Alliance, Avios in One World and Asia Miles in One

00:54:35.040 | World, Flying Blue on the SkyTeam side. I mentioned EVA Air. It's not as good of a transfer ratio as you'd get

00:54:42.240 | from Citi, but might be worth the availability. And then a bunch of others that can be good for

00:54:48.160 | various uses. Qantas, Singapore, Turkish, Virgin Red, Emirates, Etihad. Those are the notable ones.

00:54:53.440 | I just did an episode with Greg from The Frequent Miler, where we talked about all these transfer

00:54:57.600 | partners. So if you're interested, go back and listen to that. Notably, there are not any major US airlines

00:55:03.600 | where there's a lot of opportunity for outsized value, other than possibly JetBlue, where you get a

00:55:08.640 | five to three ratio, which is not nearly as compelling as the ratio you get from Chase,

00:55:13.600 | Amex, or Citi. But at the end of the day, using US carriers is not necessary to get outsized value.

00:55:19.440 | I've done so many bookings from Air Canada Aeroplan to book flights on United, or Avios to book plans

00:55:24.720 | on American, or using Flying Blue to book flights on Delta. So there are ways to fly US-based airlines

00:55:31.600 | and get outsized value. You just don't book through those programs. And we've talked about

00:55:34.960 | that a ton on other episodes that I can link to in the show notes. On the hotel side, there are only

00:55:39.600 | three options. You get Choice Privileges, Accor, and Wyndham. And I'll be honest, not that compelling.

00:55:46.080 | The main one here that's kind of stand out is that Wyndham has an ability to earn outsized value

00:55:51.360 | through booking Vacasa vacation rentals. And so I'll put a link in the show notes if you want to

00:55:55.520 | go deeper on that. On the Accor side, Accor points are kind of fixed in value. So there's not a lot of

00:56:01.520 | opportunity for upside here. And on Choice, you're probably better off cashing out your Capital One

00:56:06.640 | miles for one cent and buying Choice points than transferring just one to one, to be honest,

00:56:12.720 | because they're often on sale for half a cent. I don't mind Choice as a partner, maybe if you have

00:56:17.840 | City or Wells Fargo, where you get two Choice points for every one point you transfer. But with Capital One,

00:56:24.720 | it's one to one. So not really an exciting partner for me. So I would stick to the airline partners.

00:56:30.720 | And as for transfer bonuses, Capital One has some. So in 2023 and 2024, there were six. There have been

00:56:36.880 | four year to date in 2025. Typical things you'd see 20% bonus to Flying Blue, 30% bonus to Virgin,

00:56:43.920 | 30-40% to Etihad, maybe 20% to Avios, but we didn't see that every year. It's almost always in the 15%

00:56:51.760 | to 30% range. And it seems like there's one every other month. So while it happens, it doesn't happen

00:56:57.760 | that often, not as much as some other programs. But it doesn't happen enough that I would wait for it.

00:57:03.040 | But it happens frequently enough that maybe you'll get lucky and a trip you're planning happens right

00:57:07.040 | as a bonus hits and you can get a little bit of upside there. Where I think Capital One Miles really,

00:57:11.840 | really shine is that you can combine them across your cards, but you can also combine them between

00:57:18.240 | people. So you can share them to anyone, whether that's your spouse that lives at your same address

00:57:23.600 | or your friend that lives in another state. There's no limits or expirations like City. So I think it's

00:57:28.800 | really, really awesome for the ability to move points between people, pull points for trips

00:57:35.360 | with families, especially if you have a large extended family and you want to all book out of

00:57:39.680 | your account to make it a little easier, or maybe you have status with an airline you're transferring to.

00:57:44.560 | That is one amazing feature of Capital One is the ability to move miles by anyone. Unfortunately,

00:57:49.600 | you have to do it by the phone, but you can do it. And that's awesome. Also, keep in mind,

00:57:53.600 | I mentioned if you have a cash back card, you can move your cash back over to your miles balance,

00:57:57.920 | but it's not reversible. You can't move your miles back to cash back once you've earned them or once

00:58:02.880 | you've transferred them. As for getting Capital One cards, they are stricter with approvals than a lot

00:58:08.000 | of other issuers. I always say if you're looking at getting two cards, get the Capital One card first.

00:58:12.480 | They're really sensitive to recent inquiries. They also tend to only approve you for one card every six

00:58:17.760 | months. And you can only get a welcome offer for a card every 48 months for personal cards.

00:58:23.120 | And if you read around online, people say you can only have two personal cards with Capital One.

00:58:28.000 | And they say it's not always true. It sometimes excludes co-brands. Some say there's a new limit of

00:58:32.960 | five. Some people say, no, it's still two. But you can't open tons and tons of Capital One cards,

00:58:38.720 | especially with one every six months. It's difficult. Also, you can only have one charge card,

00:58:42.720 | as I mentioned earlier. So Spark Cash Plus or VentureX Business. Now you can have a lot more

00:58:47.200 | business cards. I know a few people who have five or six business cards for all their different

00:58:51.360 | businesses, and that is okay. Sometimes you can move credit from one card to an existing card.

00:58:56.800 | Seems like sometimes you can't. And you can't do a credit line increase within a few months of making

00:59:04.640 | any of those credit moves. So keep that in mind. If you're looking to move credit, you might want to

00:59:08.640 | request a credit line increase before you do that. They do have a reconsideration line if you're not

00:59:12.720 | approved immediately and you have questions. And they do allow product changes, but not in any kind

00:59:17.920 | of systematized way. You might not be eligible for something that someone else is. So for me,

00:59:23.120 | if I wanted to product change my VentureX, they said I could move it to a Venture, a VentureOne or a

00:59:27.360 | Quicksilver. But you might ask the same question or try to do that online and find that you don't get the

00:59:32.640 | same options. I looked at the options for my Spark Cash Plus and I didn't see any right now.

00:59:37.360 | That could change if I call. So there is the ability to product change, but there is not as

00:59:42.000 | straightforward of an ability to do it as some other issuers have in terms of what you can do.

00:59:47.040 | That said, they are more generous with limits than some other issuers. I know for me, I was able to get

00:59:51.840 | a $30,000 limit on my VentureX card when I opened it. And I know with some issuers, especially Citi,

00:59:57.920 | when I opened new cards, they were opening much lower limits than that. I love that you can do a

01:00:02.480 | lot of this online. You can upgrade your cards, move your credit lines, request credit line increases.

01:00:06.720 | You've got the virtual cards. Everything online is really great. And your personal and your business

01:00:10.720 | cards are on the same logins, which I can't say about Citi. And with Chase, it's a little bit strange

01:00:15.120 | with how that works. Amex, it's pretty straightforward. So that's basically all of the things you need to

01:00:21.120 | know about Capital One. Let's summarize. So Capital One, what's exciting? Some really good signup

01:00:26.640 | bonuses. Despite not having as many cards as an Amex or a Chase, being able to get 75,000 points on

01:00:33.200 | the Venture and the VentureX, being able to get 150 or $1,000 to $2,000 on some of the business cards,

01:00:39.520 | love having the option to get a bunch of good signup bonuses. For points diversification,

01:00:44.160 | you get a couple of things that you won't get with other programs like Evia Air and Windham. But it also

01:00:50.720 | has the mainstays that I'm often using for flights. Flying Blue, Aeroplan, Avios. Those are probably my

01:00:57.040 | most frequented uses. Like I said, it's missing a lot of the domestic US airlines, no United, American,

01:01:02.960 | or Alaska. And obviously, if they added Hyatt, it would be amazing. And they have not. And I don't

01:01:08.160 | foresee that ever happening. Other big thing to love about Capital One is lower annual fees. So for their

01:01:13.440 | premium cards, you're not looking at these $700 to almost $1,000 annual fees with tons of credits.

01:01:20.160 | That's not a game they've started playing. And I love that it works really well for multiple players,

01:01:24.320 | because you can transfer points between anyone with no expiration like you get with Citi.

01:01:28.720 | But the real reason I love Capital One is that they have uncapped 2x transferable miles cards.

01:01:34.000 | And they'd have it on the business side and the personal side, which is really, really rare.

01:01:38.480 | Even if you're just looking compared to cash back and focusing on the business side,

01:01:42.960 | it's hard to even find 2% cash back for business. Yes, there's the Chase Inc. Premier,

01:01:48.160 | but you can't get points. And it comes with an almost $200 fee. On the Bank of America side,

01:01:53.200 | you can get close to that, but only if you have $100,000 in a business account,

01:01:57.680 | which I have worked to set up, and it is a huge pain. Amex has the Blue Business Plus,

01:02:02.000 | but it has a cap of $50,000 of spend a year. And then there is this Wells Fargo Signify business

01:02:07.440 | cash card, which is a 2% card that may be able to transfer points over to the autograph or the

01:02:12.560 | autograph journey. But Wells Fargo is among the least interesting points currency out there.

01:02:17.840 | So I love that. I also love getting high limits on these cards compared to what you might get

01:02:23.040 | with a 2x card, like the City Double Cash or the Wells Fargo Active Cash, which also, by the way,

01:02:28.240 | requires you to have another card to tie it to. But coming back to my point that this uncapped 2x

01:02:33.760 | points card is interesting, I actually ran the numbers and it is the best single card. If you look

01:02:39.120 | at the Bureau of Labor Statistics data, I applied the average spending patterns for households with,

01:02:45.280 | I think it was a household annual income of $100,000 plus, to every single card. And the

01:02:51.920 | closest runner-ups to earning 2x miles on everything were the Amex Gold, where you get 4x on dining and

01:02:58.480 | grocery and 1x on everything else, and the City Premier, where you get 3x on dining, grocery, gas,

01:03:04.080 | air travel, and hotels, and 1x on everything else. But the average for the average family with the data

01:03:09.840 | I used was earning 1.74 on the Amex Gold and 1.65 on the City Premier. So if you want one single card,

01:03:17.280 | and you don't want to play games, and you just want to maximize your miles and points earning with one

01:03:22.080 | card, being able to do that with Capital One on the Venture, the Venture X, the Venture X Business,

01:03:27.920 | the Spark Miles, there's multiple cards that can do it. Really incredible for getting one card. Now, what's

01:03:34.000 | crazy is that that one card actually does better than the best two card combo from Amex or Chase.

01:03:40.080 | So if you look at the best two card combo from Amex, the average earning is 1.96x. So you're just shy of

01:03:45.360 | earning 2x on everything. And if you look at it on Chase, it's 1.91x. Now, if you want to look at two

01:03:51.280 | card combos from Capital One, you'd be looking at the Venture or the Venture X paired with the Saver

01:03:57.680 | card, and you'd have a $95 annual fee. And I calculated an average earning of 2.26x on everything.

01:04:06.160 | Now, if you compare that to Wells Fargo or Citi, they're slightly better at 2.32x and 2.33x on all

01:04:12.960 | your spending. So I could make a case that the best two card combo probably is the Citi Strata Premier

01:04:18.160 | and the Citi Double Cash. However, I much prefer Capital One as a platform from a technology standpoint.

01:04:24.560 | I much prefer Capital One from a limits on cards standpoint. And even more, that doesn't factor in

01:04:30.640 | how much you'd earn if you booked some of your travel in the Capital One travel portal. Because

01:04:36.160 | part of the reason that those other brands win is that they have 3x on travel or flights or hotels.

01:04:42.240 | If you were booking flights in Capital One travel for 10x or hotels in Capital One travel for 5x with

01:04:47.200 | the Venture X, you would blow that out of the water. So even as a two card combo, I think Capital One stands

01:04:52.640 | up to all the best out there. As a one card combo, it is the best. And the main thing that is less exciting

01:04:59.440 | is that it's harder to get approved, harder to have a lot of cards there. They don't have as many cards

01:05:04.080 | and welcome bonuses as a Chase or Amex, and they don't have any really major unique transfer partner

01:05:09.440 | differentiation like you might get AA from Citi, Hyatt from Chase, or United from Chase. However,

01:05:16.240 | while I would much rather have Chase or Bilt points than Capital One points, I would much rather have

01:05:22.000 | 2x Capital One points over 1 to 1.5x Chase or Bilt or Citi or Amex or any other points. So the fact that you

01:05:28.800 | can earn 2x points with the Venture, the Venture X, the Spark Miles cards, I think that makes them the

01:05:35.760 | best catch-all cards out there. And I'm extremely happy that we have one on the personal and one on

01:05:40.160 | the business in our wallets right now. And if you can take advantage of that huge signup bonus on the

01:05:44.720 | Venture X business before it changes, it's an awesome way to boost your Capital One balance,

01:05:49.280 | 150,000 points plus the 60,000 points from the spend, getting over 10% back on that spend in terms

01:05:55.440 | of how I value points. If you're going to sign up for anything, reminder that all the links to all

01:06:00.560 | the cards are in the show notes or at allthehacks.com/cards. I really hope this episode was helpful for you.

01:06:06.960 | Feedback is very welcome, podcast@allthehacks.com. I think next I'll be going deep on Bank of America

01:06:13.920 | or maybe Bilt now that they have three cards launching once they've announced that. But on the Bank of

01:06:18.400 | America side, we've gone from having zero to four Bank of America cards in our house and this new

01:06:22.720 | premium Alaska card is interesting and details are just starting to emerge. So stay tuned for those.

01:06:28.480 | That is it for this week. Again, comments, feedback, questions, other episode ideas,

01:06:33.280 | podcast at all the hacks.com is where to send it. I will see you next week.

I Ranked Every Capital One Credit Card (Best Cards in 2025)

Chapters