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The Capital One Venture Rewards card is a pretty simple, yet rewarding, card. It earns 5X miles at Uber Eats and 2X miles for every other purchase, and allows you to transfer those miles to a variety of travel partners.
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We give the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card 5 out of 5 Stars because it can provide an equivalent of at least 2% back on all purchases, which is competitive with other reward cards, with solid mile transfer opportunities.
The Venture Rewards card is a general-use travel card, designed for travelers who don’t spend with one particular airline or hotel more than others. New cardholders will get a metal version of the Venture Rewards, with a stainless steel veneer.
Capital One recently added the ability to transfer miles to a variety of airline and hotel loyalty programs, making this card quite a bit more valuable.
If you’re a frequent flyer, you may find the available TSA PreCheck/Global Entry statement credit useful for reducing time spent in security and customs lines. The credit is available every four years.
The Venture Rewards has a $95 annual fee. And you’ll pay no fee on foreign transactions.
There’s another card in Capital One’s Venture line, with different card terms and rewards. It might be a better option for you, depending on what you’re looking for in a travel credit card. Both of these cards are designed for excellent credit.
Card | Annual Fee | Purchase APR | Rewards |
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Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card (This review) | $95 | 17.24% - 24.49% (Variable) |
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Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card (Review) | $0 | 0% for 12 months, then 15.49% - 25.49% (Variable) |
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The Venture Rewards card can provide the equivalent of 2% cash back for every purchase (aside from Uber Eats, which could earn 5%). This assumes you’re redeeming for travel expenses at one cent per mile; if you get a better deal through a mile transfer you’ll get higher cash back equivalents.
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Introductory Bonus |
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You can earn an unlimited number of miles, and they’ll never expire as long as your account is open and in good standing (not in default).
You’ll have three basic redemption options to choose from after earning your miles. You can redeem them for:
We recommend always redeeming for mile transfers or travel expenses because you’ll get at least 1 cent per mile. We’ll explain how to redeem for travel expenses first, and then we’ll go over mile transfers.
You can redeem miles for either past or upcoming travel expenses. Miles don’t expire, so you can hold on to them until you can redeem in this way.
The Purchase Eraser system will let you find eligible travel expenses from the past 90 days, and you can use miles to pay them off. Partial redemptions are available, to pay for part of the cost of a purchase.
The types of eligible travel expenses are:
Airfare | Hotels | Buses | Taxis | Car Rentals |
Rail Lines | Limo Services | Cruise Lines | Travel Agents | Time Shares |
Miles can also be used to pay for travel reservations as you make them. You’ll need to book travel either through Capital One’s website or by calling customer support to redeem miles in this way.
You can transfer your Capital One miles to several different airline and hotel loyalty programs, where you might find a better value than 1 cent per mile.
Most of the transfer rates are 2:1.5 (2 Capital One miles for 1.5 partner miles), although some partners have a lesser rate.
Partner | Transfer Rate |
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Aeromexico Club Premier | 2:1.5 |
Air Canada Aeroplan |
2:1.5 |
Air France KLM Flying Blue |
2:1.5 |
Alitalia MilleMiglia |
2:1.5 |
Asia Miles | ? |
Avianca LifeMiles |
2:1.5 |
Emirates Skywards |
2:1 |
Etihad Guest |
2:1.5 |
EVA Infinity MileageLands |
2:1.5 |
Finnair Plus |
2:1.5 |
JetBlue TrueBlue |
2:1.5 |
Qantas Frequent Flyer |
2:1.5 |
Singapore KrisFlyer |
2:1 |
ALL Accor Live Limitless | 2:1 |
The Venture Rewards card comes with benefits from two different sources:
Visa Signature cards come with an upgraded set of benefits and protections compared to the more basic Visa Platinum. (The Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card (Review) is a similar offer, but it’s available at either the Visa Platinum or Visa Signature level, depending on your credit limit — $5,000 and above provides a Visa Signature.)
Purchase APR | Balance Transfer APR | Cash Advance APR |
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17.24% - 24.49% (Variable) | 17.24% - 24.49% (Variable) | 24.49% (Variable) |
Annual Fee | Foreign Transaction Fee |
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$95 | None |
Balance Transfer Fee | Cash Advance Fee |
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$0 | 3% of the amount of the cash advance, but not less than $10 |
Penalty APR | Late Fee | Returned Payment Fee |
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None | Up to $40 | None |
The terms and fees of the Venture Rewards card are pretty straightforward. If you carry a balance from month to month you’ll accrue interest at the rates shown above. We always recommend paying off your balance in full each billing period, to avoid interest and improve your credit utilization.
There are no foreign transaction fees, and this card is also a Visa. So it will be accepted just about everywhere that credit cards are accepted, and you won’t have to pay extra when outside the country. This is normal for travel cards, though other cards typically charge fees of up to 3%.
The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card is a pretty simple card, but it has good earnings potential.
2X miles everywhere you spend isn’t a bad deal, and the intro bonus is pretty great too.
This card’s value has increased now that you can transfer Capital One miles to a variety of airlines and hotels, giving you an opportunity to earn more than 1 cent per mile.
There are extra benefits that can potentially come in quite useful, especially the shopping and travel discounts you’ll find. Try to book hotel rooms through the Luxury Hotel Collection to get the most out of this card.
The Venture Rewards is a general-use travel rewards card, good for a variety of spending. But there are many travel card options out there. Take a look at some other travel cards, with rewards for different types of purchases and other kinds of benefits.
You can apply now for the Capital One Venture Rewards Card by following the link below.
Most applicants will get an instant decision, but not all. In some cases Capital One may request more information.
You should have good credit when applying for the Capital One Venture Rewards card for the best shot at approval.
In order to qualify for good credit, your scores would have to fall within the ranges of 670–739 for FICO and 700–749 for VantageScore.
Keep in mind credit card issuers look at other factors in addition to your credit scores when determining your creditworthiness. They’ll consider income and source of income, among other criteria, which could lead to you being approved even if your scores are lower than what’s recommended.
However, that also means even if you have good or higher scores, you could still be denied.
There are three main things you can do with your miles. You can redeem them for travel expenses, transfer them to Capital One’s travel partners, or redeem for statement credits, merchandise, or gift cards.
Mile transfers are your best bet, as they could net you a value higher than 1 cent per mile. In this case, the value of your miles will vary depending on how you redeem them.
If you like what the Venture Card has to offer but you don’t want to pay the annual fee, you might find the Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card (Review) more attractive.
You’ll get a similar rewards program to the Venture card, but with 1.25X miles instead of 2X for all non-category purchases. The redemption methods are the same, as are the benefits (except there’s no Global Entry/TSA PreCheck credit). So if the annual fee seemed a bit much for you, you could always go with this version.
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Introductory Bonus Offer |
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The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (Review) is another general-use travel card, popular for its point-transfer options to airline and hotel frequent traveler programs.
Rather than providing 2X miles for most purchases, like the Venture Rewards, the Sapphire Preferred offers 5X Ultimate Rewards points per dollar on Lyft rides, and 2X for travel purchases and dining.
The Chase Ultimate Rewards points you earn here will be worth 1 cent each normally, but they can be redeemed for more than that. A 25% point bonus for redeeming for travel through Ultimate Rewards means they’ll be worth 1.25 cents each, for an equivalent of 2.5% cash back on travel.
Points can also be transferred to a variety of airline and hotel loyalty programs at a 1:1 rate, including Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Marriott, and Hyatt.
Many people use the Sapphire Preferred to earn points and transfer them to their favorite airline or hotel. It’s a great option as a general-use card for point transfers, with a better transfer program than Capital One.
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The American Express® Gold Card (Review) has several bonus reward categories, unlike the Venture Rewards. This card has a $250 annual fee, which can be offset by using the benefits effectively each year.
Instead of simply offering 2X miles for every purchase, the Amex Gold card provides more points for eligible flight purchases, and has a few other valuable bonus categories as well. This card isn’t as flexible as the Venture Rewards, but it will be more rewarding for certain purchases.
To offset the $250 annual fee of this card, you can begin by using the $120 dining credit and $100 airline fee credit in full each year (through 2021). That leaves only $30 left to offset, which you could do with a single use of The Hotel Collection’s $100 credit.
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Membership Rewards points can be redeemed for travel expenses at up to 1 cent each, meaning you’d earn an equivalent of 4%, 3%, or 1% cash back with this card, depending on the rate at which you earn points.
Or, points can be transferred to a wide variety of airline and hotel loyalty programs where they might be worth more. You may get as much as 2 cents per point or more through transfers, which would give you a cash back equivalent of 8% when spending in the 4X categories, and 6% in the 3X categories.
American Express is a Credit Card Insider advertiser.
The Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card (Review) is different from the other cards here, because it’s co-branded with Hilton (see other Hilton cards here).
This credit card offers an abundance of Hilton Honors points, although they won’t be worth quite as much as the points you get in competing programs. So it pretty much evens out.
At 30X points per dollar for Hilton purchases, you’ll be earning a cash back equivalent of about 12%–30%, assuming a point value of 0.4–1 cent each (12X points from the card and 18X points from Hilton Honors Gold status).
The Surpass gives cardholders complimentary Hilton Honors Gold status, which comes with several nice perks. There’s an 80% bonus on Base Points earned, rate discounts, and your second guest stays free. Diamond status can be reached by spending $40,000 with the card per year, which has even better benefits.
If you’re looking for a more narrow-focused travel card, and enjoy staying at Hilton properties, this could be a good choice.
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Members will also earn 18X points per dollar at Hilton from their Hilton Honors Gold membership. That brings the total to 30X points per dollar at Hilton, which works out to a cash back equivalent of about 12%–30%.
American Express is a Credit Card Insider advertiser.
Did you like this review? Feel free to share it with a friend! If you use the Capital One Venture Rewards Card, leave a comment below for other readers, we’d love to hear from you!
Interested in another travel card? Take a look at some of our favorites. Best Travel Rewards Credit CardsFor rates and fees of the Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card, please click here.
Brendan has been writing about personal finance for over eight years, and is now taking on the challenge of bringing high quality credit education to the masses. He makes sure that Credit Card Insider is covering the most important credit topics transparently and precisely, and that we have up-to-date reviews of credit cards so you can find cards that are right for you.
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