Capital One might not be the first issuer you think of when it comes to premium rewards, but over the last few years, they've made major moves, and if you were going to carry just one card to earn points and miles, they might just have my top pick. From flexible points and elevated travel perks to unique benefits that most people overlook, Capital One has quietly become one of the most rewarding programs out there.

In today's deep dive, I'll walk through their full card lineup, highlight the hidden perks, explain how their point system works, and break down everything you need to know to decide if Capital One should have a spot in your wallet. I'm Chris Hutchins. If you enjoy this episode, please share it with a friend or leave a comment or review, and if you want to keep upgrading your life, money, and travel, click follow or subscribe.

All right, so far we've done these issuer deep dives for credit cards on Citi and Amex, and today I want to continue with Capital One because there is so much to get excited about, both on the personal and business side. Now, I only got my first Capital One card a few years ago when the Venture X card launched, and since then we've added a few more cards in our household and built up a pretty good stash of Capital One miles, but despite that short tenure, for this episode today, I've done dozens of hours of research, read hundreds of pages about Capital One on their site and other sites, so we've got a lot to cover and we're going to go deep.

First, I want to run through the entire Capital One card lineup, giving every card a rating as we go, and then I want to talk about some of the cool benefits and perks you get from just being a Capital One customer. Everything from free drinks, co-working spaces, exclusive reservations, to a few things I didn't even know about until I started doing this research.

Then I want to cover the entire Capital One miles ecosystem, how it works, how it's a great program for families, especially larger ones, and then I'm going to cover all the rules and other quirks of applying for cards, earning welcome bonuses, getting approved, and more. Finally, I'll share a bit of a comparison of Capital One cards, their miles, and how that compares with other major issuers and the different card combos you can have.

There is a lot to cover and whether you're new to Capital One, have never had one of their cards, or have been a customer for decades, I'm confident you're going to learn something today that could help you level up your points and miles game. Also, keep in mind there's timestamps in the show notes if you want to skip around or find links to anything we discuss, and if you're interested in any of these cards, we have links to all of them on the website at allthehacks.com/cards.

Using those links is a huge way to support the show and all the work we do, so thank you so much in advance for using them for the next time you're looking at a card. Okay, if you look at the Capital One website, you can see that there's over 30 different cards, but we're going to break them down into three major buckets.

We're going to first focus on miles cards, then we're going to talk about cashback, and then we'll talk about some of the co-brand cards they have that at least make sense to cover in this episode. Keep in mind that all this information is only as good as of August 13th, 2025 when I'm recording it, but things in this space don't change that fast, so it will probably be pretty relevant whenever you're listening to this, especially things about the ecosystem.

So let's start with miles cards, and the first one I want to start with is the Capital One Venture card. This card earns 2x miles on every purchase, and that's a pretty rare thing. There aren't a lot of cards, if any, other than Capital One, where you can earn 2x transferable miles on all purchases without needing to have another card in that ecosystem.

There is the Blue Business Plus business card at Amex, which will give you that, but only on up to $50,000 of spend a year. Almost every other card that earns 2% back or 2x points earns it because it's paired with another card that has transferable points. So right out the gate, the Venture card is a really unique card and something that I think adds a ton of value to anyone who just wants a card that's super straightforward and simple that earns 2x miles on every purchase.

Right now, it also has a great welcome bonus of 75,000 miles, and that's after spending $4,000 in the first three months, and it comes with a $95 annual fee and no foreign transaction fees. It has a few benefits, not as many as the next card we'll talk about, but you do get status with Hertz, you do get a credit for TSA Pre or Global Entry, and then you do get access to Capital One Lounges, but you have to pay for it.

So let's look at this card on the tier list, which is something I'll do for all cards, and I'm going to put this card at the A tier. Now, right out the gate, you've got a card that earns 2x transferable points on all purchases. That's awesome. The benefits are a little lacking.

There's not a lot of other things, but you do get to transfer those points to over 15 different transfer partners of airlines and hotels, which is amazing. By the way, if you're not following along on YouTube, you can find a link to the tier list in the show notes and take a look at that picture as we're talking about this.

So venture card, great. There's a couple variations of it, so I'm going to run through those also. There's the Venture One card, which is very similar in its name, in its look, except instead of earning 2x miles on everything, it earns 1.25x miles on everything. So way lower earning rate, not that competitive.

The signup bonus is also a lot smaller, 20,000 points on $500 spend in three months, but it does come with a 0% intro APR for 15 months and recently has been added a $100 Capital One travel credit. Now, that's a pretty good signup bonus and offer and 0% intro APR for a card with no annual fee and no foreign transaction fees, but it's 1.25 miles on everything, not 2x like you would see with a venture card.

It does also have that elevated 5x miles on hotels and rental cars when you book through Capital One travel, but given that 1.25 miles is just not as competitive as most cards out there, I'm going to put it down at B tier. Now, it's not a terrible earning rate.

There are tons of people I meet who are using cards that earn just 1x miles or points for their everything else purchases and with no annual fee, no foreign transaction fees. It's not a terrible card, but it's certainly not elevating itself to the S tier or the A tier.

Now, there's another card called the Venture One card for good credit and Capital One does this thing sometimes where there's a version of a card and then there's a version for good credit and a version for students and even in some cases a version for fair credit. And you got to keep in mind that the cards actually look very similar.

So you definitely want to make sure you're clicking the right one when you're looking around, but the features and the benefits change a little bit. So the Venture One rewards card for good credit is very similar to the Venture One card, except there's no signup bonus, there's no 0% intro APR, and there's no Capital One travel credit offer.

So still that $0 annual fee, zero foreign transaction fee. For the purpose of the tier list in this episode, I'm not going to rank all of the for good credit for students versions of the cards. I'm just going to stick to the main cards as we go through. So next, let's talk about my first card with Capital One, which is the Venture X card.

Now, this card was a big splash. Tons of marketing went into it. When they originally launched it, it had a welcome offer of 100,000 miles, which I know a lot of people were excited about. Right now, the welcome offer is 75,000 miles after spending $4,000 in three months from account opening.

So same welcome offer you would get with the Venture card. The main difference between the Venture card and the Venture X card is all around the benefits you get. So you're still getting 2x miles on every purchase. But if you're spending in the Capital One travel portal, now you're going to get 10x miles on hotels and rental cars, and 5x miles on airfare and vacation rentals.

It's probably worth pausing for a second to talk a little bit about travel portals. In general, the reason that I don't love travel portals is that when you book a flight, or you book a hotel room, often the airline or the hotel group is not going to allow you to directly manage those reservations with them.

And they're going to kick you back and say, hey, if you need to change your flight, go to Capital One travel. Hey, if you need to cancel your hotel, go to Capital One travel. So on one hand, that's a little bit frustrating. On the other hand, if you can earn 10x miles on a rental car, or 5x miles on a flight, that can be really compelling.

And so I would just keep in mind what type of trip you're taking, how likely it is that it's going to need to be changed. On the hotel front, often you're not going to earn any points or elite status with the hotel chain if you're booking a hotel through a travel portal.

And so in that case, if I were booking something with Hyatt, where I'm trying to build up status, I probably wouldn't book it in a travel portal. That said, if I was booking a boutique hotel that wasn't any part of a travel program, and I also found the best rate in a travel portal, I'm not going to pay more for it, I would totally have no issue booking for 10x miles in the Capital One travel portal, which can make this a great card for travel, as long as you're willing to understand those differences.

If you need to change a flight in the Capital One travel portal, it's not like you can't do it, you can go in and change it. And in some cases, airlines will let you take over that reservation and manage it through their site. But I can just say that sometimes there are some issues.

If you go search around for why not to use a travel portal, you'll find some articles about that. I'll try to find one and link it in the show notes. It's not a don't do it. I've done it plenty of times. It's just to understand what you're getting into.

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Another difference of this card and the Venture Card is that it has a $395 annual fee. It still has no foreign transaction fees, but it has a ton of benefits. So let's run through those because I think those benefits are what really make this card stand out. So first off, on your anniversary for the card, you get 10,000 miles, which if you value Capital One miles like the Points Guy does at 1.85 cents, already that's $185 value for those miles.

You also get a $300 travel credit you can use in Capital One Travel. It's very easy to use. You go look to book a flight and all of a sudden $300 gets taken off that flight and you save $300. So if you're going to spend more than $300 on travel, I've found that travel credit really, really easy to use.

Even if you want to value those 10,000 miles just at 1 cent per mile, you're looking at $100 value from the miles, $300 value from the travel credit for an annual fee of $395. You actually come out $5 a head. So for me, this is a great premium card because you're not stuck trying to make 20 different types of coupons and monthly discounts work.

You have one annual travel credit and 10,000 miles a year to cover it. That said, there are other benefits, but just getting enough benefits to make up for the annual fee is way easier for this card than a lot of other premium travel cards. You also get that credit every, I think, four years for TSA Pre and Global Entry.

And then the other big thing is you get access to Capital One's Lounge Network. Now, unfortunately, this year in 2025, that access has changed a bit. So let me explain what that means. There are two types of access you get. You get access to Priority Pass, which is a lounge network of over 1,000 lounges around the world.

And you get access to Capital One's own lounges. Now, right now, I think they have somewhere around seven lounges, Denver, Dallas, both airports in DC, Las Vegas. And I think LaGuardia and JFK are coming soon, or maybe they're already there. But the way the access works is that you used to get two guests for free or one guest for their landing lounges, which right now are in Washington, Reagan, and LaGuardia in New York.

But starting February, 2026, that changes and guests are no longer free with a couple of caveats. So one, this card has no fee for authorized users. So you can add an authorized user and they can use this card as well. However, those authorized users do not get lounge access unless you pay $125 a year.

And you can do that for up to four authorized users. So without guest privileges next year, that means that in order to have your partner get into a lounge, you need to add them as an authorized user. Now, if you use lounges enough, maybe that $125 fee works. But if you have children and you're hoping to get them into lounges, that's not really a great option because I believe with Capital One, children need to be over 13 to be authorized users.

So you can either pay for that lounge access, which for children is $25 or adults is $45. Or if you spend $75,000 a year on the card, then you or any authorized users now inherit free guest access of up to two guests for Capital One lounges and then one guest for the Capital One landing lounges.

I believe the reason those lounges are different is that the landing lounges are a little more elevated, a little better food, and they want to keep them a little bit smaller in terms of number of guests that come into those lounges. In general, anyone that's been in lounges the last few years knows that it seems like they're always getting more and more crowded.

So I understand that Capital One wanted to add these restrictions, but having a premium card with no guest access unless you pay or spend a lot on the card does feel a little bit limiting. But unlike other cards where you might have to spend money to unlock a privilege like guesting into a lounge, at least this is a card where you're earning 2x miles on all your spending.

So if you did have large tax payments where those fees are actually under 2%, it might actually make sense to put those tax payments on a card where you could earn 2x miles as opposed to a lot of other cards where you might only earn 1x miles on a tax payment.

So it might actually be more feasible to use this card to meet that $7,500 spend if you spend a lot in a year. If you don't, I think it's going to be tough to use this card as your primary lounge card, and there's probably other cards to look at if that's important to you.

Now keep in mind, if you do meet that $75,000 of spend to unlock guest access, you get that unlocked access for the year you earn it, the following year, and until the end of January the next year. So that's the Capital One lounges. On the priority pass side, it's no restaurant access, it's no guest access, even if you spend money, I don't think you unlock any guest access there as well.

So I do love the priority pass network, but I would look at another card if you're looking for lounge access for a family, because this one is a little bit limiting. A few other benefits, you do get Hertz President Circle status, and then they do have on the Capital One travel portal, if you have the Venture X card, you get access to their premier lifestyle hotel collection.

So it's elevated benefits, elevated perks at luxury hotels. I think we have more hotels in our luxury hotel program. If you go to hotels.allthehacks.com, you can see that and get access to all kinds of perks with hotels. The password for that site is the word perks. And if you're booking any luxury hotel, you'll almost always get a property credit, free breakfast, early check-in, late checkout, both subject to availability and upgrades subject to availability.

So if you're booking a luxury hotel, definitely check that site out. But if you do have access to your Capital One card and you want to use that Capital One travel credit, you can use it at their premier and lifestyle 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 the S tier.

It is a 2x miles on everything card, which is rare, but also it's a card where you do get lounge access, you do get some premium coverages and protections, all for an annual fee that isn't the six, seven, $800 annual fee a lot of similar cards are charging now.

It's only $395 and the travel credit and annual 10,000 miles makes it really much easier to justify in my opinion. So I think the Venture X is definitely an S tier card. It is our all other purchases card in our household. We're using it anytime we want to earn miles on a purchase, but we don't have an elevated bonus for earning three, four or five miles per dollar.

Next, I want to talk about the Venture X business card, and it's very, 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 even including business cards, I want to flag that I think most people don't realize that they probably are closer to having a business than they thought.

In the past, I've done consulting work, sold stuff on eBay, had a startup that maybe wasn't even profitable yet, but I was getting going. I've had a blog. There are a lot of different things, Etsy selling, walking dogs, babysitting that could classify as a business. That doesn't mean you need an LLC to open up a business credit card.

You could do it as a sole proprietor under your own social security number without a business name. So there's a lot of people out there who I think don't realize they have a business or they have themselves that could very easily and justifiably be categorized as a business. I'll link to a couple articles if you want to go read more, but I've been surprised at people that didn't actually realize they had a business and were eligible to open a business credit card.

And so that held them back from what sets apart some business cards, which is really, really incredible welcome offers. So the biggest thing that sets aside the VentureX business from the VentureX card is that welcome offer. So right now, that welcome offer is 150,000 points on $30,000 spend in three months.

And I'll come back to why I think that welcome offer is so compelling, but I'll just quickly run through the benefits. Same annual fee of $395, no foreign transaction fees, same earnings multiples as the VentureX card. In fact, almost everything is the same, except on the lounge access. This card does get you two guests at priority pass lounges.

So it's slightly better than the personal VentureX card. But I believe, and I couldn't find evidence for this on the website, that it doesn't offer Hertz president circle status for cardholders. Now, one unique thing about the VentureX business card that sets it aside from all the other cards is that it is not actually a credit card.

It is a charge card, meaning you do need to pay that balance off in full at the end of each month. And you also don't have a preset spending limit, which means potentially for business owners, this card could be used to spend a lot more. And as you spend more and more, the limit will go up and up, similar to a lot of Amex charge cards.

So for someone with a business who's spending a lot of money and doesn't want to be kind of hampered by a 10, 20, $30,000 limit, this could be a really good option. Now, given that this card has the highest welcome offer for Capital One Miles, I just want to dig in a little bit and share how I think about some of these offers, because it does require a large amount of spend, $30,000 in the first three months.

So first off, if you look at the value of Capital One Miles, you can go to the points guy, they have a valuation series, they're using 1.85 cents. And part of the reason is that Capital One has a ton of amazing transfer partners, and I'll talk about that later in this episode.

And because you have the flexibility to move those points to different hotels and airlines, there's so many different options for how you can make those points earn outsized value. So at 1.85 cents, earning 150,000 miles could be worth $2,775. However, most cards that have huge signup bonuses like that, think the Chase Sapphire Reserve Business, the Amex Business Platinum, you will be earning 1x on all other categories that aren't earning bonuses.

So you're probably going to earn way less points on that spend to hit that bonus than you would with the VentureX business card. Here you're earning 2x miles. So while you do have to spend $30,000 in those first three months, you get another 60,000 miles from that spend, which is 210,000 miles total after you spend that $30,000.

So if those miles are worth 1.85 cents, that is a total welcome offer return of $3,885, which is effectively about 12.95% back on that $30,000 of spend. And even if you wanted to ratchet that back and say, I don't want to use 1.85 cents, I just want to pretend these miles are worth 1 cent, that's still a $2,100 value welcome bonus, which is 7% back on your $30,000 of spend.

So if you have $30,000 to spend in the next three months, this is a card that would get you at a minimum 7% back on that spend if you hit the full spend. But if you value those points, like many other people do in this industry, it could be close to $4,000 or even more dollars on that welcome bonus.

And that also doesn't factor in the fact that those other two cards that often have 200,000, 250,000 point welcome bonuses have fees of $695, $795 with some complicated credits to be able to reduce those fees and get that value back. Whereas the VentureX business is a $395 fee with, in my opinion, an easy $300 travel credit and 10,000 miles on your account anniversary.

So way easier to make that annual fee effectively down to zero. So big fan of the VentureX business, I'm not sure how long this elevated offer is going to last. But if you want to check it out, you can go to allthehacks.com/cards. It's at the top, because it's one of the best bonuses right now.

So it's probably no surprise that I would be putting the VentureX business card in the S tier. It's just like the VentureX personal, except I think it has a better welcome offer, and you get a little better lounge access, all for the trade-off of no Hertz President Circle status.

So definitely an S tier card. Next on the list is the Spark Miles cards. Now, I have a bit of a gripe with Capital One for the way they name cards. So they have a Spark Miles card, which is effectively a business card that also earns 2x miles. I'm not sure why they don't call it the VentureBusiness card.

It seems like you have Venture and VentureX, and then you have VentureX Business and Spark Miles, which is kind of effectively the business version of the VentureCard. It also earns 2x miles on every purchase. It also, like the VentureCard, earns 5x miles on hotels and rental cars and Capital One travel.

But after that, there are some changes. So first off, the welcome bonus on this card is 50,000 miles on $4,500 spend in the first three months. It has the same annual fee as the VentureCard of $95. But in your first year, it's actually waived. So there is no annual fee.

No foreign transaction fees on the card. You do get free employee cards. You do get reimbursed on Global Entry and TSA PreCheck and access to that Premier and Lifestyle Hotel Collection. But otherwise, there aren't a lot of other benefits. Now, there is one variation of the Spark Miles card, and that's the Spark Miles Select.

It has the same signup bonus, but no annual fee. And instead of earning 2x miles on every purchase, it earns 1.5x miles on every purchase. No TSA Pre and Global Entry credit as well. So those are the two Spark Miles cards on the business side. That 2x miles card, I'm going to put up in the S tier as well.

If you're asking why the Spark Miles 2x card is in the S tier and the VentureCard is not, I think the main thing for me is that there are just so many consumer cards that can reward you on tons of different categories. Whereas on the business side, there are not a lot of business cards that get you uncapped 2x on everything.

And a lot of business purchases don't fall into bonus categories on cards. A lot of business services, lots of spending in places that aren't restaurants and dining and travel. So that's why I put this in the S tier, because as a business owner, being able to get 2x transferable miles on all purchases is just really incredible and differentiated amongst a lot of other cards.

That said, if I'm looking at the Spark Business 1.5x miles card, I'm putting that down in the B tier, because getting 1.5x is pretty comparable to a lot of other options. Maybe there aren't that many business cards, like there are personal cards that earn 1.5x or 1.5% back, but that definitely doesn't feel as differentiated.

So that's Capital One's miles cards. Let's talk about Capital One's cashback cards. Though, technically, if you have a Capital One miles card, then if you have a cashback card, you can transfer the cashback you earn at a rate of one penny to one point to your rewards balance on your miles earning card.

So I have a Capital One cashback business card, the Spark Cash Plus. And if I earned $100 of cashback, I can transfer that to be 10,000 miles in my personal VentureX card balance. So yes, these are all cashback cards if you have them on your own. If you pair them with any of the Venture or Spark Miles cards, you can turn them into miles, which makes them even more valuable in my opinion.

So the first one we're going to talk about is a Capital One Saver Rewards card. This is a card that earns 3% back on grocery, dining, entertainment, and streaming. So this is Capital One's consumer card to reward you elevated amounts on your regular consumer spending. I really like this card.

I have other cards that hit these categories, but if I were going to go all in on the Capital One ecosystem, which we'll talk about later, I would absolutely be getting this card and pairing it with a VentureX. It also earns 5% back on hotels and rental cars, and then it earns 1% back on all other purchases.

It has no foreign transaction fees, has no annual fee. Right now, the welcome bonus is only $200 on $500 spend in three months, but you do get a 0% intro APR for 15 months, and as of a few days ago, a $100 Capital One travel credit. So not the best welcome offer in terms of dollars, or if you took those $200 and turned them into miles, it would be 20,000 miles.

But 0% intro APR is interesting, a free travel credit is interesting, but the elevated earnings are, I think, what sets this card apart. There are some variations of this. There is the for good credit version, which is the same except there's no welcome offer, and there's no 0% intro APR.

Then there is a student version of the card with a lower welcome offer of only $100 on $300 spend in three months. Also doesn't have the 0% intro APR, but you do need to be enrolled, admitted, or planning to enroll in the next three months at an accredited university, community college, or other higher education institution.

So those are the three variations. Like I said, I'm only going to review the primary personal one, and I'm going to put this in the A tier. This is a card I really like. While the welcome offer isn't as compelling as a lot of other cards out there, I do think being able to get 3% back or 3x miles if you pair it with a miles card on grocery, dining, entertainment, and streaming covers a ton of the categories that are both competitive with other cards and areas where I think a lot of people spend money.

So love this card, even though I don't have it. There used to be a saver one version of this card that went up to 4% back on groceries. And I know there's been some surveys going out from Capital One about maybe an elevated kind of venture X version, maybe the saver X card, but it hasn't come out yet.

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Find your favorite Element flavor or share with a friend. That's allthehacks.com/elementlmnt. Okay, so the next cashback card is the Quicksilver card. Samuel L. Jackson's been talking about this card for years. You've probably seen ads. It is a one and a half percent cashback card on all your purchases. Right now, the welcome offer is $200 on $500 spend in three months, but you do also get a zero percent intro APR for 15 months and $100 Capital One travel credit.

No annual fee, no foreign transaction fees, but the note says you do need excellent credit to get this card. There are some variations of this. So there is the Quicksilver for good credit version, which is the same card, but no welcome offer and no zero percent intro APR. And then there is the for student version of this card, which has similar requirements to the saver card for students, also no intro APR, but it does have a small welcome offer of $100 on $300 spend in three months.

Then there is the Quicksilver One card, which you'd think might be different given that there was a saver and a saver one card and they had different earnings. No, this one's the same earnings, no welcome offer, no intro APR, but this one actually has a $39 annual fee. They do say they do credit line reviews, but it says this is for fair credit.

Still, again, with Capital One and the naming, I'm always confused. Instead of calling this the for fair credit version, they give it a different name called Quicksilver One. So I'll treat it like a separate card, but it's not really that different. And then there's also a Quicksilver secured card, which actually isn't a credit card, that has no welcome offer, no intro APR, no annual fee, but you have to make a refundable deposit.

So when I look at these cards, I think about the Quicksilver card. I'm putting that at the C tier. 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 grading system with S for, I don't know, star, special.

I don't actually know the origin of the S. And putting a card out there like the Quicksilver card that earns one and a half percent on everything, it's just not that compelling. It's a C tier card for me. But putting it out there with a annual fee, the Quicksilver One card, obviously the card is not targeting someone who could be eligible for these other cards.

But even the secured version of this card has no annual fee and the same earnings. So I think the Capital One Quicksilver One card is a D tier card for me. Now, moving over to the business side of cash back, you've got the Spark Cash cards. These are similar to the Quicksilver cards, except they actually go all the way up to 2%.

There is no 2% cash back card on the personal side. 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 purchases. You also get 5% back on hotels and rental cars through Capital One Travel. There is a bonus right now of $1,000 when you spend $10,000 in the first three months.

So reasonable bonus there, right? You're getting 10% back on that spend. I like that. The annual fee is $95, but it's waived for the first year. There's no foreign transaction fees and you get free employee cards. So overall, as a business owner, a 2% back card on everything is pretty good.

I would rather have 2X Miles. But if you already have a personal venture or VentureX card, then all of a sudden you don't need a Spark Miles card or a VentureX business card to be able to earn transferable miles with a business card. Now, similar to the Spark Cash 2% card, there is the Spark Cash Plus card, which is also a 2% card.

And the main difference between this card is that unlike the Spark Cash, the Spark Cash Plus is a charge card. And so like I mentioned, when I was talking about the VentureX business, the Spark Cash Plus has no preset limit. You do have to pay it in full each month, but as you spend, that limit would go up and up over time and match your spending, or at least that's how it's supposed to work.

And so it would be better than the Spark Cash card if you spend a ton of money in terms of needing a higher limit and not having to request credit line increases or be limited by whatever your limit is. It also has a much higher welcome offer. So right now, you earn $2,000 on $30,000 of spend in the first three months.

And then you earn another $2,000 for every $500,000 you spend in the first year. Now, that second bonus equates to about 0.4%. So I'm not really excited about that. Obviously, if you're spending a ton of money on your business, and you're going to spend $4 million in the first year, this card could be more rewarding because I guess in that first year, it would kind of average out if you spent right at $500,000 increments to be a 2.4% cashback card.

But I think very few people are going to be spending $500,000 or more dollars on this card in the first 12 months. Now, you might look at this and say, okay, well, this welcome offer does seem like it could be more competitive than the VentureX business card in that if you paired it with a miles earning card, it would effectively be 200,000 miles for the same $30,000 of spend.

The main difference here is that this card does have an annual fee of $150. And the only real benefits that it has that could offset that fee are that if you spend $150,000, it gets refunded. And there's not a lot of benefits. So you don't get lounge access, you don't get global entry reimbursed, you don't get the extra elevated earnings on Capital One Travel, you do get the 5% back on hotels and rental cars, but not 10% or 10x on hotels and rental cars, or 5x on flights and vacation rentals that you would on the VentureX side.

So to me, it kind of comes down to whether you want to pay that annual fee of $150 for the extra points, whether the benefits mean anything to you, how you think about the card long term. I do have this card, I did open this card when there was a really large welcome bonus.

But as far as which card I'm keeping for a longer period of time, it's the VentureX business card. And you can only have one charge card with Capital One. So you can't have the Spark Cash Plus and the VentureX business card at the same time either. So keep that in mind if you're applying for one, and then you're thinking about the other, you definitely won't get approved for both.

There are two other variations of the Spark cards. There's the Spark 1.5% cash select, and that is a one and a half percent back on everything card with no annual fee. The welcome bonus is $500 on $4,500 in the first three months. And then there's the Spark 1% cash classic card, which is for fair credit, has no welcome offer, just earns a flat 1% back, but has no annual fee.

So when I think about these on the tier list, I think the Spark business 2% cash plus is an A tier card. Because it's a charge card, you're able to get a much higher limit, and there's a much more lucrative welcome offer. So I like that. I think if paired with a miles earning card, that's great.

There aren't a ton of 2% everything cards out there for businesses, but there are some. So the Spark 2% cash card that is very similar, but has a lower welcome offer and not a charge card, I'll put it the B tier. I think if there was a A minus B plus tier, those cards would be a lot closer.

But if I compare them head to head, I'd prefer to have the higher welcome offer. And I think I'd prefer to have a charge card over a credit card. Then the Spark 1.5% cash card would be a C tier. And then the Spark classic card earning 1% would be a D tier.

I think those speak for themselves. They're not earning a ton. There are better cards out there. I'm not interested in them. So that's the majority of the Capital One cards that aren't co-branded. There is one card that for whatever reason, when you go to look at cards on their website, it is the top card.

It's the first one they show you. And it's the Platinum Master card. It has no annual fee and best I can tell it earns no rewards. And so I feel like it's at least worth mentioning this card, even though normally I wouldn't include it only because Capital One puts it at the top of their list.

But for me, that is a D tier card that earns nothing. And I don't know why it's promoted so heavily, but I do know that it is a for fair credit card. So I assume it's probably for people who can't earn cards with more rewards. But if you look at the Capital One lineup, there are other cards for people with fair credit that do earn rewards.

So this has got to be the worst of all of them. But if someone knows what I'm missing, I would love to know. Capital One also has a ton of co-branded cards with a lot of different retailers. And I was going to exclude all of them because none of them really stood out as interesting ones that would make sense to get if you weren't really, really tied into that retailer's ecosystem.

But I do think it's worth mentioning just one of them. And technically, it's probably worth mentioning four of them. There is the Williams-Sonoma card, the Pottery Barn card, the West Elm card, and the key rewards card. And the most interesting thing about the fact that there are four of them is that best I can tell, they are all pretty much identical.

I imagine the reason they're different is maybe they're opened in those individual stores, and maybe those stores get different bonuses based on how many cards they open. I have no idea. I can't tell what's different about any of them. So I'm just going to focus on the Williams-Sonoma one, but assume the same thing applies to Pottery Barn, West Elm, and the generic key rewards card.

The reason I bring it up is that it is a 4% back on groceries, food delivery, and restaurants, which is actually not a bad rate of return. It also earns 5% back at Williams-Sonoma brands. So everything I mentioned, plus Mark and Graham, rejuvenation, maybe there's a couple other ones, like Pottery Barn Kids in there, and then 1% back on everything else.

So I don't want to spend a lot of time on this card, but 4% cash back on groceries, restaurants, and food delivery is pretty interesting. With one caveat, you earn key rewards. You don't actually earn direct cash back. So if you're spending $20,000 a year on these categories, groceries, dining, you'd have to be spending $800 a year at Williams-Sonoma Pottery Barn, West Elm to be able to truly cash out that $800.

It's actually $825 because every year on your birthday, you get $25 on top of that and free shipping. So if you spend money at those stores, it's not just rewarding to those stores, it's also rewarding to groceries, food, and restaurants, which is rare for a co-branded card. I think the Verizon Visa is a similar card that actually has really elevated good earnings.

I think it's groceries also, 4%, but I could be wrong there. So for that card, I'll put it at the B tier because 4% on categories like that is really compelling. It can't be any higher because that cash back only works if you spend 4% of your spend on those categories shopping at those Williams-Sonoma stores.

So the other co-branded cards that I left out, the REI, Kohl's, Cabela's, Bass Pro, BJ's, they all have little to no signup bonus. The Williams-Sonoma card does have a welcome offer of 10% back on the Williams-Sonoma purchases in your first 30 days. So interesting if you're about to spend a ton of money at any of those stores, could make sense, could even keep it around for grocery, food, and delivery as long as you're spending enough on a regular basis at those stores to make use of that cash back.

On all the other cards, they all earn about 1% to 7.5% at their respective stores, but only 1% to 1.5% everywhere else. So they really only make sense at those stores, which is why I separated the Williams-Sonoma card because it could make sense for other purchases. But some of them, notably the Cabela's and Bass Pro cards, they only go up to 5% off at their own store if you spend $25,000 a year.

If you don't, they're 3% off if you spend $10,000. Otherwise, it's just a 2% off card at those stores and 1% everywhere else. To me, that seems absolutely crazy, right? You could get just a 2% everything card. And then if you go above and beyond and spend $10,000 at the retailer, you only get an extra 1% back on the spend at that store.

So $100. If you spend $25,000, you could get an extra 3% back. So it's starting to be a little bit more interesting, but really for a small niche of people who spend well over $25,000 a year at Cabela's or Bass Pro. So I think there are people in that camp, but there are a lot of other cards that I think are more rewarding, which is why I'm not talking about them here.

That's a lot of cards. Let's jump in to talk about the Capital One ecosystem. So a few things to know about all cards in general. So I didn't talk a ton about travel and purchase protections for those cards for a couple reasons. Mainly that Capital One doesn't always specify whether they're cards or visas or MasterCards.

And this is kind of interesting, but if you go on the website and you look at all the pictures of the cards, you'll notice that it's not specified. And if you look up what are the travel purchase protections on certain cards, they'll send you to a link which says for Visa signature cards, here's the travel benefits.

For World Elite MasterCard, click here. But they don't actually say which one you're going to get in advance. And I've heard stories of people getting a MasterCard version and then later changing it to a Visa version. And so I don't want to talk a lot about the travel and purchase protections.

That said, almost all the cards I mentioned do have an extended warranty protection and not much else. However, the Venture X card does link out to the Visa Infinite benefits. So I have one, you are getting a Visa Infinite card, at least that's what it says on the website.

It makes it pretty clear, which means you do get a lot more coverage for the Venture X card. You're getting primary rental coverage, trip delay and cancellation, lost luggage, purchase protection, extended warranty, cell phone protection. So that's great. But as for the other cards, I think you really have to go look at the guide to benefits.

And I wouldn't be opening any of these Capital One cards except a Venture X card, primarily for their purchase protections and travel protections, because it's just hard to know what you're going to get. One thing you are going to get with all your Capital One cards, at least all the ones I've used, is virtual card numbers, which is awesome.

So if you're checking out on some website and you feel like it's a little sketchy, you can go create a virtual card on the website, or you can use their Eno browser extension. And that lets you create virtual card numbers on the fly. I've done that a ton of times.

Or for sites where you're getting a seven day trial, and you're not sure how easy it'll be to cancel, you can use a virtual card and set that card to expire the next day. So that if that trial is hard to cancel, you could just leave it go and not worry about it hitting your card.

Another cool benefit is that in 19 different states and pretty much most major cities in America, Capital One has cafes, they have 55 of them. And they're like coffee shops, except that if you have a Capital One debit or credit card, you get 50% off all beverages. And there is semi private kind of nooks available to work out of at almost every cafe, and you can actually reserve them.

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Next, I'm going to talk about Capital One offers. Now this used to be just cashback offers for your cards. But now it's actually turned into a miles portal, which is pretty cool if you have a miles earning card. So right now, when I look, I see 3556 offers, which is a ton.

But unlike Chase and Amex, where these are mostly card linked offers, all but 30 of them are actually all online offers. So they're much more like a shopping portal with Rakuten than they are like the kind of card linked offers you might be used to. That said, when I'm looking at some of the in-store ones, they do have CVS for in-store at 15x miles.

Now, if you click into it, you can see what that is. It says three activations. You can only use them one time every 30 days for up to 1000 miles. But 15x miles on purchases up to, I guess, $66, $67 in-store is pretty cool if you're regularly going to CVS.

That brings up one thing that I'm going to throw out there in case anyone's tested this or tried this. I've been noticing that I have really, really high medical bills when I'm looking at what the actual cost insurance pays. And I'm wondering if when I'm picking up a prescription, when I'm going for treatment with a doctor, or even if I'm having a surgery like my daughter had, could I actually just start paying for all that out of pocket and then submitting for reimbursement?

I'm not sure how that process works because I know there's pre-negotiated rates, but it would be really cool if I could use my credit card to pay for a thousand dollar prescription and then submit it for reimbursement with my insurance company instead of just having them pay for it because then I'd get the points and miles.

So that kind of crossed my mind when I saw 15x miles at CVS because I thought, wow, I have a couple of prescriptions that I pick up regularly. That could be pretty lucrative. So if anyone has any experience there, shoot me an email, podcast@allthehacks.com. I'm really interested in exploring whether I can turn all the medical expenses that insurance normally covers directly into things I can put on my credit card and then get reimbursed for later.

Obviously, I don't want to do it if I'm not going to get reimbursed, but if I could, that seems pretty interesting. On most of these offers, there are variable amount ranges from 0.01x miles all the way up to 87x miles. There are a handful that are just fixed amounts from anywhere from 1,000 to 25,000 miles.

There are so many here that it's a little bit hard to grapple, but I would say worth going in here one or more times just to see what kind of is in there. Most of the major travel sites are on here for earning miles like Expedia, Virbo, Marriott, IHG, Hilton, but you really need to be comparing Capital One offers with Rakuten for a lot of these.

So for me, I'll probably use this and go to in-store to see what's there. But for the most part, I'll probably be comparing Capital One offers on a site like SaveWise or Cashback Monitor and thinking about it that way. Then separately, there's Capital One Shopping, which interestingly enough has nothing to do with being a Capital One cardholder.

It is a Rakuten competitor. You can go on and find offers for lots of different sites that you can earn cash back as long as you use their browser extension and enable it. So I'm not going to spend much time talking about it here because it has nothing to do with being a Capital One cardholder, but it does exist and it's part of Capital One.

So I thought I'd at least mention that other than being able to log in with your Capital One login, there's no real link to your account, your card, your miles or anything like that. It's just a public shopping portal. That said, keeping that extension on when you're on certain sites is super interesting because they send these targeted emails.

So you might be browsing a hotel at Hilton and then get an email two days later that says, "Hey, you never made that Hilton checkout. Do you want 30% back on Hilton?" And some of them can be pretty, pretty extreme. A few other things on Capital One. They do have referral programs.

And so depending on your card, you can usually earn 20 to 25,000 miles for referring someone. But there is a cap each year of I think it's either 100,000 miles or $1,000. But also keep in mind that those referrals are taxable. If you refer enough people, you will probably get a 1099 and you will owe taxes on the paid out amount.

I don't remember how they value miles in that case. Probably a 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 Dining, where all US issued Capital One branded cards have access. Debit cards and co-branded cards are not eligible, but they just have a few restaurants.

And by a few, I mean quite a few in San Francisco that are really good. State Bird Provisions, Mr. Jews, Atelier Crenn, where you get exclusive reservations and they say a free treat from the restaurant. So I haven't booked a reservation here. It's on my list of something to test out.

But just something if you have a Capital One card and you haven't played around with Capital One Dining, definitely something worth looking into. Next, I want to talk about Capital One miles and how to get the most out of them. So there are a few options for redemptions that I don't ever use, but I'll run through quickly.

You could just take a straight statement credit towards cash at half a cent a point. They have a gift card marketplace where you can get gift cards for 0.8 cents a point. And then sometimes they go on sale. So right now, there's a sale on Apple, DoorDash, Uber, Wayfair.

And that makes your points worth 1.07 cents. You can use it to book travel in Capital One Travel or for some cards reimburse yourself as a statement credit. That's at one cent a point. Now, earlier, I mentioned that the points guy values Capital One points at 1.85 cents. So obviously, none of these options are ways to redeem points at that level.

The primary way you would want to get outsized value is from the Capital One Transfer Partners. But there's one little thing that I'll mention. If you like baseball, Capital One has some interesting cardholder exclusives where they have specific great seats at a handful of stadiums where when they release seats, you can get amazing seats for 5,000 miles, which is somewhere between 50 and $100, but really, really great seats.

I'm not a big baseball fan, so I've never done this. I'll link to an article from The Frequent Miler about how to take advantage of this because they also will sell you baseball seats at almost any game for a terrible use of miles. So you want to make sure you're getting a really great deal here, but that is one way to get outsized value.

But the primary way to get outsized value from your Capital One miles is by transferring them to airlines and hotels. So I'm going to pull up my transfer partner spreadsheet. There right now are 16 airlines and three hotels that you can transfer to, and you need a miles card to do those transfers.

So a Venture, a Venture X, a Spark Miles are all options. Now, at 16 airlines where I'll focus first, that's quite a few. And it's really competitive to Amex, for example. If you compare Capital One to Amex, you've got all the same partners with a couple exceptions. You're missing out on Delta and ANA, neither of which I regularly, if ever use.

But you get EVA Air, which I love because they have their own kind of inventory special to their members for business class availability. Turkish, which has a few sweet spots, and Tap Air Portugal, which I'm not aware of any great uses. So pretty comparable in terms of Capital One points to Amex points on the airline side.

And amongst those, a handful of my favorites. So Aeroplan in Star Alliance, Avianca in Star Alliance, Avios in One World and Asia Miles in One World, Flying Blue on the SkyTeam side. I mentioned EVA Air. It's not as good of a transfer ratio as you'd get from Citi, but might be worth the availability.

And then a bunch of others that can be good for various uses. Qantas, Singapore, Turkish, Virgin Red, Emirates, Etihad. Those are the notable ones. I just did an episode with Greg from The Frequent Miler, where we talked about all these transfer partners. So if you're interested, go back and listen to that.

Notably, there are not any major US airlines where there's a lot of opportunity for outsized value, other than possibly JetBlue, where you get a five to three ratio, which is not nearly as compelling as the ratio you get from Chase, Amex, or Citi. But at the end of the day, using US carriers is not necessary to get outsized value.

I've done so many bookings from Air Canada Aeroplan to book flights on United, or Avios to book plans on American, or using Flying Blue to book flights on Delta. So there are ways to fly US-based airlines and get outsized value. You just don't book through those programs. And we've talked about that a ton on other episodes that I can link to in the show notes.

On the hotel side, there are only three options. You get Choice Privileges, Accor, and Wyndham. And I'll be honest, not that compelling. The main one here that's kind of stand out is that Wyndham has an ability to earn outsized value through booking Vacasa vacation rentals. And so I'll put a link in the show notes if you want to go deeper on that.

On the Accor side, Accor points are kind of fixed in value. So there's not a lot of opportunity for upside here. And on Choice, you're probably better off cashing out your Capital One miles for one cent and buying Choice points than transferring just one to one, to be honest, because they're often on sale for half a cent.

I don't mind Choice as a partner, maybe if you have City or Wells Fargo, where you get two Choice points for every one point you transfer. But with Capital One, it's one to one. So not really an exciting partner for me. So I would stick to the airline partners.

And as for transfer bonuses, Capital One has some. So in 2023 and 2024, there were six. There have been four year to date in 2025. Typical things you'd see 20% bonus to Flying Blue, 30% bonus to Virgin, 30-40% to Etihad, maybe 20% to Avios, but we didn't see that every year.

It's almost always in the 15% to 30% range. And it seems like there's one every other month. So while it happens, it doesn't happen that often, not as much as some other programs. But it doesn't happen enough that I would wait for it. But it happens frequently enough that maybe you'll get lucky and a trip you're planning happens right as a bonus hits and you can get a little bit of upside there.

Where I think Capital One Miles really, really shine is that you can combine them across your cards, but you can also combine them between people. So you can share them to anyone, whether that's your spouse that lives at your same address or your friend that lives in another state.

There's no limits or expirations like City. So I think it's really, really awesome for the ability to move points between people, pull points for trips with families, especially if you have a large extended family and you want to all book out of your account to make it a little easier, or maybe you have status with an airline you're transferring to.

That is one amazing feature of Capital One is the ability to move miles by anyone. Unfortunately, you have to do it by the phone, but you can do it. And that's awesome. Also, keep in mind, I mentioned if you have a cash back card, you can move your cash back over to your miles balance, but it's not reversible.

You can't move your miles back to cash back once you've earned them or once you've transferred them. As for getting Capital One cards, they are stricter with approvals than a lot of other issuers. I always say if you're looking at getting two cards, get the Capital One card first.

They're really sensitive to recent inquiries. They also tend to only approve you for one card every six months. And you can only get a welcome offer for a card every 48 months for personal cards. And if you read around online, people say you can only have two personal cards with Capital One.

And they say it's not always true. It sometimes excludes co-brands. Some say there's a new limit of five. Some people say, no, it's still two. But you can't open tons and tons of Capital One cards, especially with one every six months. It's difficult. Also, you can only have one charge card, as I mentioned earlier.

So Spark Cash Plus or VentureX Business. Now you can have a lot more business cards. I know a few people who have five or six business cards for all their different businesses, and that is okay. Sometimes you can move credit from one card to an existing card. Seems like sometimes you can't.

And you can't do a credit line increase within a few months of making any of those credit moves. So keep that in mind. If you're looking to move credit, you might want to request a credit line increase before you do that. They do have a reconsideration line if you're not approved immediately and you have questions.

And they do allow product changes, but not in any kind of systematized way. You might not be eligible for something that someone else is. So for me, if I wanted to product change my VentureX, they said I could move it to a Venture, a VentureOne or a Quicksilver. But you might ask the same question or try to do that online and find that you don't get the same options.

I looked at the options for my Spark Cash Plus and I didn't see any right now. That could change if I call. So there is the ability to product change, but there is not as straightforward of an ability to do it as some other issuers have in terms of what you can do.

That said, they are more generous with limits than some other issuers. I know for me, I was able to get a $30,000 limit on my VentureX card when I opened it. And I know with some issuers, especially Citi, when I opened new cards, they were opening much lower limits than that.

I love that you can do a lot of this online. You can upgrade your cards, move your credit lines, request credit line increases. You've got the virtual cards. Everything online is really great. And your personal and your business cards are on the same logins, which I can't say about Citi.

And with Chase, it's a little bit strange with how that works. Amex, it's pretty straightforward. So that's basically all of the things you need to know about Capital One. Let's summarize. So Capital One, what's exciting? Some really good signup bonuses. Despite not having as many cards as an Amex or a Chase, being able to get 75,000 points on the Venture and the VentureX, being able to get 150 or $1,000 to $2,000 on some of the business cards, love having the option to get a bunch of good signup bonuses.

For points diversification, you get a couple of things that you won't get with other programs like Evia Air and Windham. But it also has the mainstays that I'm often using for flights. Flying Blue, Aeroplan, Avios. Those are probably my most frequented uses. Like I said, it's missing a lot of the domestic US airlines, no United, American, or Alaska.

And obviously, if they added Hyatt, it would be amazing. And they have not. And I don't foresee that ever happening. Other big thing to love about Capital One is lower annual fees. So for their premium cards, you're not looking at these $700 to almost $1,000 annual fees with tons of credits.

That's not a game they've started playing. And I love that it works really well for multiple players, because you can transfer points between anyone with no expiration like you get with Citi. But the real reason I love Capital One is that they have uncapped 2x transferable miles cards. And they'd have it on the business side and the personal side, which is really, really rare.

Even if you're just looking compared to cash back and focusing on the business side, it's hard to even find 2% cash back for business. Yes, there's the Chase Inc. Premier, but you can't get points. And it comes with an almost $200 fee. On the Bank of America side, you can get close to that, but only if you have $100,000 in a business account, which I have worked to set up, and it is a huge pain.

Amex has the Blue Business Plus, but it has a cap of $50,000 of spend a year. And then there is this Wells Fargo Signify business cash card, which is a 2% card that may be able to transfer points over to the autograph or the autograph journey. But Wells Fargo is among the least interesting points currency out there.

So I love that. I also love getting high limits on these cards compared to what you might get with a 2x card, like the City Double Cash or the Wells Fargo Active Cash, which also, by the way, requires you to have another card to tie it to. But coming back to my point that this uncapped 2x points card is interesting, I actually ran the numbers and it is the best single card.

If you look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics data, I applied the average spending patterns for households with, I think it was a household annual income of $100,000 plus, to every single card. And the closest runner-ups to earning 2x miles on everything were the Amex Gold, where you get 4x on dining and grocery and 1x on everything else, and the City Premier, where you get 3x on dining, grocery, gas, air travel, and hotels, and 1x on everything else.

But the average for the average family with the data I used was earning 1.74 on the Amex Gold and 1.65 on the City Premier. So if you want one single card, and you don't want to play games, and you just want to maximize your miles and points earning with one card, being able to do that with Capital One on the Venture, the Venture X, the Venture X Business, the Spark Miles, there's multiple cards that can do it.

Really incredible for getting one card. Now, what's crazy is that that one card actually does better than the best two card combo from Amex or Chase. So if you look at the best two card combo from Amex, the average earning is 1.96x. So you're just shy of earning 2x on everything.

And if you look at it on Chase, it's 1.91x. Now, if you want to look at two card combos from Capital One, you'd be looking at the Venture or the Venture X paired with the Saver card, and you'd have a $95 annual fee. And I calculated an average earning of 2.26x on everything.

Now, if you compare that to Wells Fargo or Citi, they're slightly better at 2.32x and 2.33x on all your spending. So I could make a case that the best two card combo probably is the Citi Strata Premier and the Citi Double Cash. However, I much prefer Capital One as a platform from a technology standpoint.

I much prefer Capital One from a limits on cards standpoint. And even more, that doesn't factor in how much you'd earn if you booked some of your travel in the Capital One travel portal. Because part of the reason that those other brands win is that they have 3x on travel or flights or hotels.

If you were booking flights in Capital One travel for 10x or hotels in Capital One travel for 5x with the Venture X, you would blow that out of the water. So even as a two card combo, I think Capital One stands up to all the best out there. As a one card combo, it is the best.

And the main thing that is less exciting is that it's harder to get approved, harder to have a lot of cards there. They don't have as many cards and welcome bonuses as a Chase or Amex, and they don't have any really major unique transfer partner differentiation like you might get AA from Citi, Hyatt from Chase, or United from Chase.

However, while I would much rather have Chase or Bilt points than Capital One points, I would much rather have 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 can earn 2x points with the Venture, the Venture X, the Spark Miles cards, I think that makes them the best catch-all cards out there.

And I'm extremely happy that we have one on the personal and one on the business in our wallets right now. And if you can take advantage of that huge signup bonus on the Venture X business before it changes, it's an awesome way to boost your Capital One balance, 150,000 points plus the 60,000 points from the spend, getting over 10% back on that spend in terms of how I value points.

If you're going to sign up for anything, reminder that all the links to all the cards are in the show notes or at allthehacks.com/cards. I really hope this episode was helpful for you. Feedback is very welcome, podcast@allthehacks.com. I think next I'll be going deep on Bank of America or maybe Bilt now that they have three cards launching once they've announced that.

But on the Bank of America side, we've gone from having zero to four Bank of America cards in our house and this new premium Alaska card is interesting and details are just starting to emerge. So stay tuned for those. That is it for this week. Again, comments, feedback, questions, other episode ideas, podcast at all the hacks.com is where to send it.

I will see you next week.