2024.10 Update: The new welcome offer is $250. Now Capital One renamed this SavorOne credit card ($0 annual fee) to Savor, and discontinued the former Savor credit card ($95 annual fee), which is very confusing.
2021.5 Update: Capital One improved the earning structure, you can now earn:
- 3% cashback on dining, grocery, entertainment, and streaming.
Previously it was only 2% on grocery and no bonus points for entertainment and streaming. This is a nice improvement, and don’t forget Capital One improved its Miles system a lot in 2021.
2021.4 Update: The link for $250 offer is broken. The current offer is $200.
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Benefits
- $250 offer: earn $250 cash bonus after you spend $500 in the first 3 months. This is the best offer on this card.
- 3% cashback on purchases at dining, grocery store, entertainment, and streaming; earn 1% cashback on all other purchases.
- 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!
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.
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.
Summary
The signup bonus is decent for a no annual fee card. Apart from that, the major point of this card is 3% cashback on dining and grocery. Note that the cashback value can be improved if you have the Venture card. You can also consider Capital One Savor (4% cashback on dining and entertainment but with $95 annual fee) if you dine out a lot. Note that Capital One will pull all three major credit bureaus (Experian, TransUnion, Equifax) for one credit card application, and it is very difficult to get approved if you have a lot of recent hard pulls.
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