2025.8 Update: The new offer is $200+$100.
2021.7 Update: The $250 offer is expired. The current offer is $200.
2021.2 Update: The new offer is $250. HT: DoC.
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Benefits
- $200+$100 offer: earn $200 cash bonus after spending $500 in first 3 months. Plus, enjoy a $100 credit to use towards flights, stays and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel during your first cardholder year.
- Earn unlimited 5% cash back on hotels, vacation rentals and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel; earn unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase, every day.
- If you have a Capital One Miles earning card (such as Capital One Venture), then you can transfer your cashback to Miles and improve its potential value.
- No foreign transaction fee.
- No annual fee.
Disadvantages
- Capital One will pull all three major credit bureaus (Experian, TransUnion, Equifax) for one credit card application!
Recommended Application Time
- We recommend you apply for this card after you have a credit history of at least two years and you are very comfortable with the credit card game.
- [1/6 rule] You can only apply for 1 Capital One credit card for every 6 months, including both personal and business credit cards. You will get automatic denial if you violate this rule, but there will be no hard pull.
Introduction to Capital One (C1) Miles
- You can earn C1 Miles with two kinds of cards: Miles earning cards, or cashback earninng cards. Miles earning cards mainly include: Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card, Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card, Capital One Spark Miles for Business. Cashback earning cards mainly include: Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card, Capital One SavorOne Cash Rewards Credit Card, Capital One Quicksilver Cash Rewards Credit Card, Capital One Spark Cash Plus etc.
- You can move your C1 Miles from one Miles earning card to another Miles earning card at any time, and you can also move your cashback from a cashback earning card to a Miles earning card at any time. However, you can not move your Miles from a Miles earning card to a cashback earning card, therefore cashback is more flexible than Miles in C1’s system.
- C1 Miles never expire. You will lose the C1 Miles on one card if you close the account, but you can prevent losing your C1 Miles by moving the points to another C1 card beforehand.
- If you have a Miles earning card, C1 Miles can be transferred to some airline miles and hotel points. Some good 1:1 transfer options are: Air Canada (AC) (Star Alliance), Avianca (AV) (Star Alliance), Asia Miles (CX) (Oneworld), British Airways (BA), and Wyndham hotel points, etc. If you use C1 Miles in this way, the value is about 1.6 cents/point.
- You can redeem your C1 Miles towards travel expense at a fixed ratio 1.0 cent/point. You can also redeem your C1 Miles towards some merchants gift cards at a fixed raiot 1.0 cent/point.
- You can redeem your C1 Miles towards statement credit at a fixed ratio 0.5 cents/point.
- In summary, we estimate that C1 Miles are worth about 1.6 cents/point.
Summary
The sign-up bonus is decent for a no annual fee card. It is also good that this card has no Foreign Transaction Fee (FTF) AND no annual fee. However, a similar card BoA Travel Rewards Credit Card is better in most aspects. There is also a card PayPal Cashback Mastercard, which earns 2% cashback on everything with no annual fee and no FTF (though it does not have any sign-up bonus). You should also be careful that Capital One will pull all three major credit bureaus (Experian, TransUnion, Equifax) for one credit card application (see Characteristics of Major Banks for more details).
Historical Offers Chart
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