The CNN Underscored Money editorial team has developed a star rating so you can see the best card for specific categories. While we believe this card excels in this category, its overall star rating may differ.
CNNU Money editors awarded this card 4.6 stars as the best Travel card for flexible/easy rewards.
Pros:
- Simple earning structure: 2 miles per dollar on every purchase
- Easy to redeem miles for any travel purchase at 1 cent per mile
- Expert users can maximize redemptions by transferring miles to 18 airline and hotel partners
- Up to $100 Global Entry or TSA PreCheck? credit
- No foreign transaction fees
Cons:
- Limited bonus categories
- No introductory rate on balance transfers or purchases
- Transfer partner list doesn’t include any of the “Big 3” U.S. airlines
- No cell phone insurance
Current welcome bonus: Enjoy $250 to use on Capital One Travel in your first cardholder year, plus earn 75,000 bonus miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within the first 3 months from account opening - that’s equal to $1,000 in travel..
Best for: Savvy travelers who appreciate simplicity in earning and redeeming travel rewards.
Digging into the Capital One Venture card
Keeping up with all the nuanced features, earning rates and redemption options on your credit cards can be exhausting. The Capital One Venture card is ideal for those who appreciate a good vacation, but don’t have the time or drive to treat points and miles as a full-time hobby.
While some credit cards like the Chase Freedom Flex? * The information for the Chase Freedom Flex? has been collected independently by CNN Underscored. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer. allow you to earn more on certain purchases thanks to rotating bonus categories, keeping up with what’s what may feel like a job unto itself. (If you can feel that prior sentence in your bones, Capital One’s no-nonsense approach is apt to fit your style.)
That said, the Capital One Venture card manages to accomplish something that few cards can. Not only does it appeal to those who appreciate simplicity — earning 2 miles per dollar on every purchase, and allowing each mile to be redeemed for any travel purchase at a value of 1 cent per mile — but it caters to enthusiasts as well.
Advantages of the Capital One Venture card
The Capital One Venture card punches well above its weight. With just a $95 annual fee, this credit card offers above-average earning, an easy-to-understand redemption policy and a growing network of transfer partners for those who enjoy the art of getting crafty with miles in order to eke every ounce of value from each one.
This credit card is renowned for its simplicity. You earn 2 miles per dollar on every purchase, with no limits or thresholds. It’s an excellent credit card for everyday spend, and pairs well with cards like the Freedom Flex* (which offers rotating bonus categories) or The Platinum Card? from American Express (terms apply, see rates and fees) (which offers extensive travel benefits and an industry-leading Earn 80,000 points).
The Capital One Venture card currently offers 75,000 miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within three months of account opening, plus a one-time $250 Capital One Travel credit in your first card holder year. Since the Capital One Venture card earns 2 miles per dollar on all purchases. That’s a total of 83,000 miles, worth $830* if you utilize those miles on travel purchases, but potentially even more with the right transfer partner strategy.
Each mile you earn with the Capital One Venture card can be redeemed for recent travel for any travel booking you make with the card at a value of 1 cent per mile. You can even redeem your miles for just a portion of the purchase and pay for the remainder with the rest of your credit card statement.
There’s no limit to how many miles you can earn with Capital One Venture card, and your miles won’t expire for as long as you keep the card open.
Understanding the benefits of transfer partners
If you prefer redeeming your miles by transferring them to airline and hotel partners, the Capital One Venture card has that feature, too. Better still, you don’t have to choose one way or the other. You can transfer other miles to a partner like British Airways or Wyndham Hotels.
The issuer added several new partners in the last year, so in total, Capital One now supports mileage transfers to 18 travel partners — 15 airline programs and 3 hotel alliances:
Aeromexico Club Premier
| Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
| Qantas Frequent Flyer
|
Air Canada Aeroplan
| Emirates Skywards
| Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
|
Air France-KLM Flying Blue
| Etihad Airways Guest
| TAP Air Portugal Miles&Go
|
Avianca LifeMiles
| EVA Air Infinity MileageLands
| Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles
|
British Airways Avios
| Finnair Plus
| Virgin Red
|
Accor Live Limitless
| Choice Privileges
| Wyndham Rewards
|
Almost all Capital One partners transfer at a ratio of 1-to-1, meaning that for every 1,000 Capital One miles you transfer, you’ll get 1,000 points or miles in the related airline or hotel program. The only exceptions are EVA Air, which transfers at a 2-to-1.5 ratio (meaning that for every 1,000 miles you transfer, you only get 750 EVA Air miles), and Accor Live Limitless, which utilizes a 2-to-1 ratio (so for every 1,000 miles you transfer, you’re only getting 500 Accor points on the other end).
Also, keep in mind that while some partners recognize transfers instantly, others take between 1 and 5 business days to process, regardless of the transfer ratio.
Why would you transfer miles instead of redeeming them for your own travel purchases? Because sometimes airlines and hotels sell travel for different rates depending on whether you’re paying in cash or miles. Particularly on high-demand dates and over the holidays, you can often find extraordinary deals when paying for a pricey hotel or airline ticket via transferred miles.
While many airlines and hotel chains have shifted to dynamic pricing systems for mileage awards, there are still deals to be had. And even better, many airlines allow you to use transferred miles to book travel on partners in their own program. It’s one additional logistical layer to consider, but there are plenty of hidden gems to be found if you’re willing to put in the research and effort.
High-end perks on a low-cost card
The Capital One Venture card packs a host of other benefits that are typically reserved for cards with higher annual fees. This credit card has no foreign transaction fees and even includes a Global Entry or TSA PreCheck credit valued at up to $100.
TSA PreCheck is a program that gets you through domestic airport security faster, while Global Entry expedites your re-entry into the US after you’ve traveled abroad. (If you plan to use this fee credit, we’d suggest signing up for Global Entry, as it automatically includes TSA PreCheck as well.)
The Capital One Venture card also offers solid travel protections, including travel accident insurance, a car rental collision damage waiver, a 24-hour hotline for travel assistance services and $0 fraud liability (meaning if your card is lost or stolen, you won’t be responsible for unauthorized charges).
For a card that bills itself as a travel card, it’s important to note that there’s no lounge access included with the Capital One Venture card. You won’t get a Priority Pass Select membership, and you won’t get discounted access to any other global lounge networks. Granted, we don’t expect such luxuries from a card with such a low annual fee, but for those perks, you’ll want to look at the premium Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card instead.
Disadvantages of the Capital One Venture card
Lots of other credit cards offer what are known as “bonus categories,” meaning you’ll earn more rewards — either cash back or points and miles — for some types of purchases. For instance, another card might offer 3% cash back on dining, 2% on groceries and 1% on all other purchases. Or you might find cards with rotating categories, where every few months the bonus categories change or can be selected from a menu of categories by the cardholder.
With the Capital One Venture card there are only two bonus categories — and they aren’t your common everyday categories. With this card, you’ll earn 5 miles per dollar on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel, 5 miles per dollar spent on Capital One Entertainment purchases through 12/31/25 and an unlimited 2 miles per dollar spent on other purchases, but only when you book them through Capital One Travel. Unfortunately, you likely won’t get elite credit or have your elite benefits honored when booking a hotel through a travel portal instead of directly with the hotel.
And other than that, you’re earning a locked 2 miles per dollar on every purchase — no more, no less — and that’s the downside of simplicity. So if you routinely make a large number of purchases in a particular category, you may find another credit card that offers a bonus for those purchases is a better choice for you.
Or if you don’t mind carrying multiple credit cards and regularly switching to the best one depending on what you’re buying, you can potentially out-earn the Capital One Venture card overall by maximizing different bonus categories on various cards (though the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card could still be a good “catch-all” card for purchases that don’t fall into any other card’s bonus categories).
Also, while earning 2 miles per dollar on every purchase is a great everyday earning rate, keep in mind that cards like the Citi Double Cash? Card * The information for the Citi Double Cash? Card has been collected independently by CNN Underscored. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer. earn 2% cash back on all purchases — 1% when you make a purchase, and another 1% when you pay it off — and come with no annual fee at all.
So if you’re only going to redeem your Capital One miles for travel purchases and don’t need the other travel benefits of the Capital One Venture card, you’re probably better off with a cash back option. But if you’re going to utilize the Capital One transfer partners — even just once in a while — then the Capital One Venture card is worth the cost.
One other downside of the Capital One Venture card is its lack of cell phone insurance, which is a useful benefit included on some other cards in this category. For example, the no-annual-fee Freedom Flex* offers cell phone protection and earns cash back that can be converted to travel rewards when combined with other premium Chase credit cards.
Finally, a word on the Capital One transfer partners. While we appreciate that the list keeps growing, Capital One’s roster of airline partners are mostly international. You won’t find Delta, Southwest, United or American Airlines here. You can get creative by leveraging partners, but we’d love to see a few US-based carriers added to the list in the future.
Other credit cards similar to the Capital One Venture
The Capital One Venture card stands largely alone in the niche it’s created. It’s a low-fee card with a great welcome bonus, a simple 2x-on-everything earning structure, a host of transfer partners for savvy travelers (or those who graduate to one) and a few perks — like a Global Entry/TSA PreCheck credit — that are often reserved for cards with loftier annual fees.
If you’re looking for transferable travel points, the Ink Business Preferred? Credit Card is the granddaddy of the genre. It has the same $95 annual fee as the Capital One Venture card, but it doesn’t earn nearly as many rewards as the Capital One Venture card on your everyday non-category purchases.
But Chase Ultimate Rewards? points transfer to all of its airline and hotel partners at a 1-to-1 ratio, and the Chase transfer partner lineup may be more enticing to some people, with United Airlines, Southwest and Hyatt hotels included on the list. So your choice between the Capital One Venture card and the Ink Business Preferred? Credit Card might come down to which airlines and hotels you’re more likely to utilize.
To reel in a longer list of luxury travel perks (like airline lounge access and travel credits), you’ll need to look to cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve?, The Platinum Card? from American Express or Capital One’s own Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card, all of which have significantly higher annual fees. Those credit cards only make sense for people who travel many times a year and can take advantage of the high-end travel benefits on a regular basis.
Should you get the Capital One Venture card?
Credit card decisions are highly personal, and the right one for you may not be the right one for someone else. It’s largely based on your expectations, tolerance for complexity and spending habits.
But Capital One deserves credit for continuing to add transfer partners to its roster, and the 75,000 miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within three months of account opening, plus a one-time $250 Capital One Travel credit in your first card holder year welcome bonus is a great way to start things off. So if you’re normally a casual traveler who values simplicity in earning and wants to dip your toe into the world of points and miles, the Capital One Venture card ticks all the boxes.
1For 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.
*Bonus value for the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card is an estimated value calculated by CNN underscored and not the card issuer.
To view rates and fees for The Platinum Card? from American Express, please visit this page.
All information about Chase Freedom Flex? and Citi Double Cash? Card has been collected independently by CNN Underscored.
