Editor’s note: This post has been updated with new information and offers.
The world of points, miles and credit cards can be complex — full of potentially confusing terms and unfamiliar abbreviations. That’s what makes a card like the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card (see rates and fees) such a precious commodity, with its simplicity in redeeming miles and a number of valuable airline and hotel transfer partners.
While it’s frequently compared to the more premium Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card (see rates and fees), the Venture has plenty to offer on its own. With the many ways to use your rewards, booking free travel can be as complicated or effortless as you make it.
Here are seven reasons why the Capital One Venture is one of the best rewards credit cards to have in your wallet.
Official application link: Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card with a sign-up bonus of 75,000 bonus miles after you spend $4,000 within the first three months of account opening.
Valuable welcome offer
The Capital One Venture card offers a sign-up bonus of 75,000 miles after you spend $4,000 on the card within the first three months of account opening. This is a notable jump from the standard offering.
If you plan to transfer your miles to Capital One’s hotel or airline partners, this sign-up bonus is worth around $1,388, according to our monthly valuations (not provided by issuers), since we peg Capital One miles at 1.85 cents each. Of course, it’s possible to get even more value from them depending on which transfer partners you leverage and which awards you book.
However, if you use your miles at a fixed value for travel purchases, you’ll still get $750 worth of flights, hotels or car rentals.
Great for everyday spending
Many other credit cards offer bonus points on common purchase categories such as groceries, gas or restaurants. But what about purchases that don’t fall under one of these categories, such as online shopping, gym memberships or kitchen appliances?
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The Capital One Venture earns an uncapped 2 miles per dollar on every purchase — a 3.7% return on every dollar per TPG valuations.
You’ll also earn 5 miles per dollar on hotels and car rentals booked through the Capital One travel portal. But for everyday spending, the Venture is ideal since there are no categories to keep track of and no bonuses to worry about missing out on.
Easy to redeem miles for travel purchases
The Capital One Venture allows you to redeem your miles at a fixed value toward travel charges. This means you can effectively cover eligible travel purchases made in the last 90 days by redeeming your miles at a rate of 1 cent each.
There’s no minimum redemption amount, either (unless you don’t have enough miles to cover the entire purchase, in which case the minimum is 2,500 miles). Let’s say you book a one-way, domestic award flight and pay the $5.60 in taxes with your card. You can use 560 miles — as each mile is worth 1 cent — to cover this small purchase.
Capital One makes it easy to redeem your miles this way, and you have two options. You can either book directly through the Capital One travel portal by selecting miles as your payment option, or you can simply purchase travel with your credit card – an airline ticket or a hotel reservation, for instance – then log into your account afterward and select the option to cash them in as a statement credit against the charge.
Great airline and hotel transfer partners
You can squeeze more value out of your Capital One miles by transferring them to any of the following 15 airline or three hotel partners. All of your Capital One miles will transfer at a simple 1:1 rate, with the exception of two partners (as noted below):
- Accor Live Limitless (2:1)
- Aeromexico Club Premier
- Air Canada Aeroplan
- Air France-KLM Flying Blue
- Avianca LifeMiles
- British Airways Avios
- Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
- Choice Privileges
- Emirates Skywards
- Etihad Guest
- EVA Infinity MileageLands (2:1.5)
- Finnair Plus
- Qantas Frequent Flyer
- Singapore KrisFlyer
- TAP Air Portugal Miles&Go
- Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles
- Wyndham Rewards
- Virgin Red
Capital One offers one of the most diverse transferable points programs around. You have airlines covering all three major alliances and several non-alliance airlines, such as Etihad and Emirates. Some of these options (such as Finnair) are unique to Capital One, too.
Related: To transfer or not to transfer: What to do with Capital One miles
Convert cash back from other Capital One cards into Venture miles
You can convert cash-back rewards from Capital One into miles if you also have a Capital One miles-earning card
For example, you can turn the cash back you earn with the Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card into miles if you’ve also got the Capital One Venture or the no-annual-fee Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card (see rates and fees). That means you can take advantage of the Savor’s bonus earning categories, including dining and groceries, to rack up lots of extra rewards you can convert into Capital One Venture miles and then transfer to the program’s airline and hotel partners.
The information for the Capital One Savor Cash Rewards card has been collected independently by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.
Valuable ongoing perks
Although the Capital One Venture card isn’t actively competing with benefits provided by ultra-premium cards such as the Chase Sapphire Reserve or The Platinum Card® from American Express, it does offer some modest perks:
*These benefits are only available to accounts approved for the Visa Signature card. Terms apply.
Capital One has also officially opened its first-ever airport lounge at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) Terminal D. Folks with the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card get unlimited access for themselves and up to two guests, but Venture Rewards cardholders aren’t entirely left out.
Reasonable annual fee
The Capital One Venture card only charges a $95 annual fee, which is a low cost for such a potentially valuable card. It’s easy to offset the annual fee’s price between the easy-to-use earning structure, a simple redemption process, a diverse set of transfer partners and other perks.
Related: The 8 best credit cards with annual fees under $100
However, be sure to crunch the numbers and make sure that the higher-priced Venture X card doesn’t make more sense for your situation. With an array of added perks — like up to $300 in annual statement credits for Capital One Travel purchases and 10,000 bonus miles when you renew your card — you may easily cover the additional annual fee on the premium Venture product.
Read more: Credit card showdown: Capital One Venture vs. Capital One Venture X
Bottom line
The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card is a great hybrid credit card that’s a strong candidate for an all-in-one card.
Not only do you accumulate 2 miles per dollar on every purchase, but you also can keep things simple and flexible by redeeming your miles for the travel purchases you put on the card. If you decide to study award charts and look for sweet spots instead, you’ll have lots of airline and hotel programs to choose from in the Capital One transfer partner lineup.
That’s what makes the Venture so special — it lets cardholders earn miles fast and then use them in myriad ways for outsized value. All that and more is why the card deserves a place in your wallet, especially with its elevated 75,000-mile offer.
Official application link: Capital One Venture Rewards Card
For Capital One products listed on this page, some of the above benefits are provided by Visa® or Mastercard® and may vary by product. See the respective Guide to Benefits for details, as terms and exclusions apply.
Additional reporting by Ryan Wilcox, Stella Shon and Joseph Hostetler.
