Posted by: John S Kiernan

EDITOR’S RATING 4.5 / 5 PROS

• $200 initial bonus
• Miles equivalent of 1.25% cash back on all purchases
• Miles are redeemable for any travel-related expense on your bill
• 0% new-purchase financing
• No annual fee

CONS

• 0% promotion does not apply to balance transfers
• Potential for a very high regular APR

The Verdict: What do you get when you tack the word “One” onto the name of Capital One’s flagship travel rewards card? One of the best offers for light-spending travelers with above-average credit, it seems. The Capital One® VentureOne® Rewards Credit Card is a slightly toned-down version of the long-popular Capital One® Venture® Rewards Credit Card that opens up the savings party to a whole new segment of applicants wallowing in wanderlust.

VentureOne offers $200 in travel for spending $1,000 during the first three months ­— making it more attainable, if less valuable than the Venture card. VentureOne gives you the miles equivalent of 1.25% and it also throws in a couple of features that its sibling lacks: 0% financing on new purchases for 12 months (13.74% - 23.74% (V) thereafter) and no annual fee.

All in all, VentureOne is a solid option for those who don’t charge enough to plastic to warrant paying an annual fee yet desire the flexibility to use credit-card rewards to subsidize any travel purchase they might make. To learn more about why this particular venture figures to be such a big earner, continue reading below.

The Highlights

• $200 Initial Bonus: If you charge $1,000 to your VentureOne Card during the first three months that you have it, you will receive 20,000 bonus miles that you can redeem for $200 in travel-related expenses that you incur using your card. In other words, you won’t use your miles to book your travel accommodations but rather to pay for applicable charges when your credit-card bill comes due. Your bonus miles will post to your account within two billing cycles of meeting the spending threshold.

• 1.25 Miles Per $1 Spent On All Purchases: Many rewards credit cards offer earning rates that differ depending on how your purchases are categorized or how much you spend, but Capital One plays no such games with VentureOne cardholders. It gives you a stable yield of 1.25 miles per $1 spent on all purchases, which effectively translates to 1.25% cash back. That’s above-average for the credit-card market as a whole.

• Liberal Definition Of “Travel-Related Expenses”: Some might assume Capital One’s definition of “travel-related expenses” to be rather limited. If you’re among them, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to learn that the following types of purchases all qualify:

Hotel reservations Airfare Train tickets Taxi/bus/limo fare

Cruise reservations Travel-agent fees Timeshare payments

• 0% New-Purchase Financing: VentureOne gives you 0% on new purchases for 12 months. That can go a long way in saving you some money if you have a big-ticket expense coming up. Just make sure to use a credit-card calculator to plan your payments.

• No Annual Fee: Perhaps the biggest differentiator between the two Venture cards is how they treat membership fees. VentureOne doesn’t have any, whereas Venture waives its annual fee only for the first year. That means you’d have to spend at least $7,867 in a normal year for the extra three-quarters of a point per $1 spent that Venture provides to pay off.

The Lowlights

• Potential For A Very High APR: VentureOne advertises a broad range of possibilities for its regular APR, perhaps indicating that a wide range of consumers can garner approval. Depending on your overall creditworthiness, balances that you carry from month to month beyond the initial 0% term will accrue interest at a rate that could be 13.74% - 23.74% (V). The low end of the range, likely reserved for people with pristine credit, is below the market average for “excellent-credit” credit cards, while the middle rate is below the average for good credit and the high end is above the average for fair credit, according to WalletHub Landscape Reports. 

• No 0% Financing For Balance Transfers: Contributing to the shaky ground on which VentureOne sits as a financing vehicle is the fact that its 0% promotion does not extend to balance transfers. Considering the rate at which we’re adding debt to our tab, this figures to be a major downside for many interested applicants.

Other Things To Consider

• Less Value With Non-Travel Redemption: You don’t have to redeem your miles for travel-related expenses, but you would be wise to do so. Capital One miles go furthest when redeemed for travel or gift cards, while opting for cash back or merchandise would mean sacrificing up to half of your value, according to WalletHub research.

• No Foreign-Transaction Fee: Like all of Capital One’s credit cards, VentureOne does not inflate the cost of the purchases you make while traveling abroad or shopping with an internationally based merchant by charging foreign-transaction fees. That’s certainly a good thing considering the card’s travel orientation, and it will enable you to save up to 7.14% on currency conversion, thanks to Visa’s favorable exchange rates. 

• No Balance-Transfer Fee: Although a balance transfer is somewhat less appealing without a 0% introductory interest rate in the mix, VentureOne’s lack of a transfer fee could help you save some money if you have an expensive balance and get approved for a relatively low regular APR. Using a balance-transfer calculator will help you determine whether such a transaction will be worthwhile.

Compared To The Competition

	SponsoredCapital One® VentureOne® Rewards Credit Card	SponsoredCapital One® Venture® Rewards Credit Card	SponsoredCiti® Double Cash Card – 18 month BT offer
Annual Fee	$0	$0 for 1st yr, $95 after	$0
Rewards Bonus	20,000 miles	50,000 miles	N/A
Rewards Rate	1.25 miles / $1	2 miles / $1	2% Cash Back
Purchase Intro APR	0% for 12 months	Not Offered	Not Offered
Transfer Intro APR	Not Offered	Not Offered	0% for 18 monthsTransfer Fee: 3% (min $5)
Regular APR	13.74% - 23.74% (V)	17.49% - 24.74% (V)	15.49% - 25.49% (V)
Editors’ Rating	4.5 / 5	5.0 / 5	5.0 / 5
Details, Rates & Fees	Learn More	Learn More	Learn More
Winners	Capital One® Venture® Rewards Credit Card	Citi® Double Cash Card – 18 month BT offer

from Wallet HubWallet Hub


via Finance Xpress