Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card Review | Bankrate (2024)

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Itzel Garcia Ruiz

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The Capital One Venture earns an unlimited 2X miles on all purchases, making it a great fit if you’re an occasional traveler who can’t take full advantage of a high rewards rate on travel purchases.

You can redeem miles for any recent travel purchase (such as vacation rentals, flights with any airline, hotels, rental cars, cruises, and more) and you’ll receive a statement credit in the amount of your redemption. This is a standout feature that you won’t find with co-branded travel cards that may restrict you to specific airlines or hotelbrands. You’ll have extra time to accumulate the miles you need after your purchase and you won’t need to redeem for the full amount.

But despite its value as a great everyday spending card, the Venture card lacks the extra travel perks available on some competing cards. If you’re a frequent traveler, you may find a card with better travel benefits more valuable.

• Rewards

  • Earn 5X miles per dollar on hotels, vacation rentals and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel
  • Earn 2X miles per dollar on all other purchases

  Expert Appraisal: Good
  See our expert analysis

• Welcome offer

  • Earn 75,000 bonus miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within the first three months from account opening

  Expert Appraisal: Good
  See our expert analysis

• Rates and fees

  • APR: 19.99 percent to 29.99 percent (variable)
  • Annual fee: $95
  • Balance transfer fee: $0 at the transfer APR, 4 percent of the amount of each transferred balance that posts to your account at a promotional APR that Capital One may offer to you
  • Cash advance fee: The greater of $5 or 5 percent of each cash advance
  • Foreign transaction fee: $0
  • (See Rates & Fees)

  Expert Appraisal: Typical
  See our expert analysis

• Other cardholder perks

  • MasterRental Insurance*
  • Up to $120 Global Entry or TSA PreCheck credit
  • $50 Lifestyle Collection credit
  • Lost or Damaged Luggage*
  • Capital One Eno assistant
  • Trip Cancellation/Interruption Coverage*

  Expert Appraisal: Good
  See our expert analysis

The Capital One Venture Rewards card offers an outstanding balance of flexibility and rewards value as a general travel card.It’s an ideal pick if you’re an occasional traveler who isn’t dedicated to one airline and you want to use rewards from your everyday spending to fund your next trip.

Rewards rate: Solid, flat-rate miles for every purchase

The Capital One Venture earns flat-rate rewards, meaning it earns unlimited Capital One miles at the same rate for all purchases. It also earns a boosted rewards rate for hotels, vacation rentals and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel.

Most other travel credit cards earn rewards primarily from travel-related spending, like airfare and hotel purchases. But the Venture card’s flat-rate approach and the Capital One Travelportal make it easy to earn and redeem travel miles without sacrificing top-tier rewards value.

Other cards may offer higher rewards rates in specific categories, but if you frequently make purchases outside of staple rewards categories like groceries, dining, gas or streaming subscriptions, then a flat-rate card like the Capital One Venture can help you get a nice sum of rewards compared to other cards.

Redemptions: Miles are flexible and valuable for bookings or transfers

Capital One offers more redemption options than many competitors, including a comprehensive list of 1:1 transfer partners and the option to use miles to cover outside travel purchases. Your miles don’t expire for the life of your account, and there are no blackout dates, so you’d be better off saving them for a rainy day rather than cashing them in for a half-sized check. You can also combine miles with other Capital One cards or transfer them to a friend or family member, offering even more flexibility.

Based on Bankrate's latest credit card point valuations, Capital One miles could be worth around 1.7 cents each on average when you transfer to a top airline or hotel travel partner, making it a potentially more lucrative option. However, if the transfer partner list or travel portal doesn’t meet your needs, you can shop externally and cover the cost with miles you redeem as a statement credit. You can apply any amount of miles to recent travel purchases, giving you time to accumulate more rewards to cover the purchase and flexibility if you can’t cover the entire purchase. Miles redeemed this way are worth 1 cent a piece each, however.

The Capital One Venture Rewards credit card offers a nice blend of value and convenience for cardholders, but it has some shortcomings compared to otherrewards cards.

Welcome offer: Steep spending requirement

New cardholders can earn a one-time bonus of 75,000 miles after spending $4,000 on purchases within three months of account opening. This bonus is worth up to $750 in travel redemptions when you book travel through the Capital One Travel portal. However, according to Bankrate's point valuations which value Capital One miles at about 1.7 cents each, the bonus could be worth around $1,275 with the right transfer partners.

This new offer is a drop from the card's previous limited-time offer, which tacked a $250 credit to the 75,000-mile bonus you'd earn with a $4,000 spend in your first three months. However, there's no telling if or when Capital One will offer such a high bonus again, so now may still be a good time to apply if you have travel plans.

Yearly perks: Lacks annual bonus miles

The Venture Rewards card carries consistent purchase value with its flat-rate rewards but fails to deliver on yearly perks and credits that bring additional value.

For instance, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card has an up to $50 annual hotel stay credit through the Chase Travel portal and a 10 percent anniversary point bonus. With this benefit, Chase rewards you on each account anniversary with 10 percent of the points you redeemed in the previous year. Other travel cards like the Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card also have annual benefits that can help offset their respective annual fees.

These cards could be better options for you if you are looking for a reliable way to offset the fees that usually accompany traveling. However, you’ll want to review those cards’ details before deciding what works best for you.

Given its small list of perks, it’s clear this card’s key value comes from its travel rewards program. If you’re more of a “show me the money” type, the only ongoing Venture card features with clear monetary value are the $50 Lifestyle Collection hotel stay experience credit and the up to $120 application fee credit you’ll receive every four years for TSA PreCheck or Global Entry.

That means you’ll have to rely primarily on rewards spending each year to make up for the $ annual fee. Here’s a look at what you’d have to spend in a given category each year to offset the annual fee:

• 2X miles flat-rate spending: at least $4,752 per year if you get a 1-cent-per-mile redemption value ($2,794 if transferring miles, assuming an average mile value of 1.7 cents per mile)
• 5X miles on hotels, vacation rentals and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel: at least $1,900 per year ($1,117 if transferring miles, assuming an average mile value of 1.7 cents per mile)

Some competing cards in the Venture’s class provide more benefit value to offset annual fees. But depending on your spending habits, the annual fee may not be a concern, especially if you plan to transfer miles for an average of 1.7 cents per mile (Bankrate’s current valuation). And the 75,000-mile sign-up bonus (earned after spending $4,000 during the first three months) is enough to help offset the annual fee for several years, even if you only receive 1 cent per mile in redemption value.

Here’s a look at the first-year and ongoing value you should expect based on a 1-cent-per-mile redemption value:

*Based on our formula used to calculate each card’s average rewards rates and average ongoing rewards value, using Bureau of Labor Statistics spending data and an assumed $15,900 yearly spend over three years ($1,325 per month).

Frequent Bankrate contributor Jacqueline DeMarco loves the Capital One Venture card for its streamlined rewards experience and has been collecting miles with it for the past seven years.

“I don’t enjoy figuring out which spending categories will generate the most credit card rewards. With the Capital One Venture, I was attracted to the simplicity of earning unlimited 2X miles on all purchases. For this reason, I use my Capital One Venture for most major purchases over $100, whether it’s to upgrade a phone, buy clothes or do some holiday shopping. If I charge $1,500 in a month, I know that I’ll earn 3,000 Capital One miles. It’s an uncomplicated calculation.”

“In the end, even with a $95 annual fee, my Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card is a bargain. This card gives me options, including flat-rate rewards, flexible flights and numerous protections.”

— Jacqueline DeMarco
Personal finance writer

See Rates & Fees

The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card is convenient if you prefer simple flat-rate rewards or don’t spend enough on travel to justify a bonus category card or a high annual fee premium travel card.

But the rewards and benefits aren’t as great as the specialized features of a card like the Chase Sapphire Preferred, and if you spend more than $300 on Capital One travel bookings each year, it may be worth upgrading to the Venture X due to its extra benefits and rewards potential, which can make it easy to offset the higher annual fee.

*For Capital One products listed on this page, some of the benefits may be provided by Visa® or Mastercard® and may vary by product. See the respective Guide to Benefits for details, as terms and exclusions apply.

We rate credit cards using a proprietary card scoring system that ranks each card’s estimated average rewards rate, estimated annual earnings, welcome bonus value, APR, fees, perks and more against those of other cards in its primary category.

Each card feature is assigned a weighting based on how important it is to people looking for a card in a given category. These features are then scored based on how they rank relative to the features on other cards in the category. Based on these calculations, each card receives an overall rating of 1-5 stars (with 5 being the highest possible score and 1 being the lowest).

We analyzed over 150 of the most popular rewards and cash back cards to determine where each stacked up based on their value, cost, benefits and more. Here are some of the key factors that influenced this card’s overall score and how the score influenced our review:

Community Reviews

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