Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card Review

If you’re an occasional traveler, the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card provides a great opportunity to earn a solid rewards rate on every purchase without being tied to one specific airline or hotel loyalty program.

Along with flexible reward redemption options, the card offers a simple earning rate of 2 Miles per dollar on every purchase, every day; 5 Miles per dollar on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel.

While the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card does charge a $95 annual fee, benefits such as a Global Entry/TSA PreCheck credit and lounge access can help make up for that amount each year.

That said, if you want to squeeze even more value from your credit card rewards, as well as have access to more robust travel and shopping protections, the Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card may be a better fit.

• Sign-up bonus

  Enjoy a one-time bonus of 75,000 miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within 3 months from account opening, equal to $750 in travel. The sign-up bonus will be applied to your rewards balance within two billing cycles of qualifying for it.

  Note, if you currently have or had a Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card, you may not be eligible for this bonus.

• Rewards redemption options

  You have a lot of flexibility when it comes to redeeming your Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card miles. Along with using miles to book travel through Capital One Travel, miles can be used to cover past travel. Miles can also be redeemed for cash, checks, statement credits, gift cards, PayPal purchases, Amazon.com purchases or event tickets through Capital One Entertainment.

• Travel transfer partners

  The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card is one of four Capital One credit cards that allows you to transfer the miles you earn to a number of travel loyalty programs.

  Transfers are done at a 1:1 rate with the following partners:

  • Aeromexico Club Premier
  • Aeroplan®
  • Asia Miles
  • Avianca LifeMiles
  • British Airways Executive Club
  • Choice Privileges®
  • Emirates Skywards
  • Etihad Guest
  • Finnair Plus
  • Flying Blue
  • Qantas Frequent Flyer
  • Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
  • TAP Miles&Go
  • Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles
  • Virgin Red

  Meanwhile, transfers to the following partners will require 2 Venture miles for 1 airline miles:

  • Accor Live Limitless (ALL)

  Finally, there’s a 2:1.5 transfer rate with this partner:

  • EVA Air Infinity MileageLands

  Although Capital One has no domestic airline partners, you can book domestic award flights using some of the loyalty programs above, depending on which airline alliance they’re in.

• TSA PreCheck/Global Entry credit

  Every four years, receive a $100 statement credit to cover your Global Entry application or $85 to cover your TSA PreCheck application.

Lounge access

• The card offers two free visits per year to Capital One Lounges or to more than 100 Plaza Premium Lounges, which are mostly available internationally. Capital One has one lounge in the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, and two more opening in 2023 at Dulles International Airport and Denver International Airport.

• Rewards rate

  The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card offers 2 Miles per dollar on every purchase, every day; 5 Miles per dollar on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel. However, there are a number of credit cards that offer higher rewards rates in popular spending categories, like dining, gas and groceries.

• Annual fee

  The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card charges an annual fee of $95.

  If you prefer a Capital One card with a $0 annual fee — and you don’t mind earning a lower rewards rate on general purchases, you may want to look at the Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card.

  See Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card rates and fees.

  See Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card rates and fees.

• Less robust benefits

  This card doesn’t offer some of the valuable benefits you may expect to see from a travel rewards card, like trip delay insurance, trip interruption insurance and lost/delayed baggage insurance.

Compare it to the Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card

If you want to get more value from your rewards to help offset the cost of future travel, the Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card may be a better option. That’s because points are worth 25% more when you redeem them for travel through Chase’s travel portal. Additionally, each account anniversary, cardholders earn bonus points equal to 10% of their total purchases make the previous year.

Cardholders Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That's $750 when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards®. Plus, earn Enjoy benefits such as 5x on travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards®, 3x on dining, and 2x on all other travel purchases, and $50 annual Ultimate Rewards Hotel Credit, plus more..

In addition to redeeming points for travel, cash and gift cards, Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card cardholders can transfer points at a rate of 1:1 to 11 airline and three hotel loyalty programs.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card also offers several travel and purchase benefits that the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card doesn’t have, including trip cancellation/interruption insurance, baggage delay insurance, trip delay reimbursement, travel and purchase protection.

When deciding whether to apply for the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card, it ultimately comes down to what’s most important to you in a credit card.

If you want a card that makes it easy to earn and redeem rewards — and you don’t mind not having access to a lot of travel insurance perks — then the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card may be right for you.

But if you want to get more value for the points you earn for travel and have access to more benefits, the Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card may be a better fit.