A Massive New Offer on the Venture Rewards Card
Tl;dr: Despite the Venture Rewards card’s flaws, this bonus offer makes it well worth considering, especially as a bridge to the Venture X.
Exciting news! For a limited time, the Capital One Venture card has a (greatly) improved welcome offer: in addition to the usual 75,000-point bonus after spending $4,000 in the first three months from account opening, Capital One is adding a $250 credit to use on Capital One Travel. That means opening this credit card, paying the $95 fee, and meeting the spending requirement would earn you over $1,000 in free travel. So, should you rush over to sign up?
What’s great about this offer
The normal 75,000-point welcome offer is already excellent, representing a minimum of $750 toward travel if you use the points to erase travel purchases. You could also get even more value out of those points by taking advantage of Capital One’s various transfer partners. But using the points to erase purchases guarantees $750 in value, using the points in that way is easy, and it lets you spend those points on whatever travel plans you’d like.
The new $250 kicker is slightly more restrictive–you’ll have to use it to book travel through Capital One Travel, the bank’s travel portal. You’ll also have to book that travel within one year of opening the account. But Capital One Travel’s rates closely mirror that of other online booking sites (and are sometimes even better), so that’s $250 toward a hotel, rental car, flight, or some combination of the three.
You can get a lot of travel in for $1,000.
This $1,000+ in value is the card’s best-ever public offer, and on par with the best offer ever (100k points when applying via certain airport kiosks). It is also one of the best offers of any card on the market at this moment in time. The Hilton Aspire is offering 175k points, close to its all-time high, but that card will set you back $550 per year. The IHG Premier is offering 5 free nights, arguably its best ever, although I’m not a fan of that offer. So if you’re in the market for a new card with a huge bonus and a manageable annual fee, the Venture Rewards is probably your best bet in terms of maximizing the bonus relative to the baseline.
This bonus also makes the card stand out in the crowded and underwhelming $100-fee travel card segment. The big 75k bonus on the Chase Sapphire Preferred has come and gone, while the bonus on the Wells Fargo Autograph Journey remains at 60k. The Citi Strata Premier is still available with a 75k bonus, though–not as good as this Venture Rewards offer, but elevated by Citi Premier standards.
The other great thing about this bonus is that it presents a possible pathway to the best credit card on the market and the Venture Rewards’ older and fancier sibling, the Capital One Venture X. The Venture X is undoubtedly the better card, but if you’re not in urgent need of that card’s airport lounge access and other premium features, you could take the $250 travel credit and 75k bonus on the Venture Rewards and eventually upgrade and receive another 75k on the Venture X. In the meantime, the Venture Rewards’ 2x points on all spending and 5x on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel is pretty solid.
What are the drawbacks
First of all, this is a pure bonus card. It carries an annual fee, it doesn’t offer any credits that can offset that fee, and it doesn’t offer any perks that are particularly worth paying for. So the card isn’t terribly valuable in its own right, but rather only as a way to rack up a ton of points quickly.
Second, as I said earlier, the Venture Rewards sits in fairly lackluster corner of the credit card market, and it’s one of the worst cards in that corner. The Citi Strata Premier and Chase Sapphire Preferred, for example, both offer better opportunities to earn back the annual fee with credits. The Venture Rewards offers only a $50 toward niche and fairly expensive “Lifestyle Collection” hotel bookings through Capital One Travel. Additionally, although the Venture Rewards has the best earn rate on base spending, its competitors’ 3-5x bonus categories offer higher earning upside.
And finally, the card’s 2x points on base spend is great, but matched by a no-fee card (the Citi Double Cash) and a no-net-fee card (the Venture X), leaving the Venture Rewards with little to justify the annual fee on an ongoing basis.
Conclusion
Despite the card’s drawbacks, this is an outstanding offer. If you have a solid wallet setup already and are in the market for an excellent bonus card, you could do a lot worse than the Venture Rewards. If I didn’t already have the Venture X, I would strongly consider taking advantage of this offer.