The offer mentioned below for the for the Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card and the Bilt Mastercard is no longer available.
Capital One Miles are easy to earn, easy to use and — with the no-annual-fee Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card — easy on the budget.
The Capital One VentureOne card earns 5X miles on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel and a straight 1.25X miles on all other purchases. You can transfer those miles to 17 airline and hotel loyalty programs or simply redeem them for one cent each toward eligible travel purchases.
Best of all, the card is currently offering a welcome bonus of 40,000 bonus miles once you spend $1,000 on purchases within three months from account opening. That's worth at least $400 in travel rewards.
Below, CNBC Select details why the VentureOne card's welcome offer is an exceptional deal compared to similar travel cards.
It's a high bonus for a no-annual-fee consumer card
Paying an annual fee for a credit card is not for everyone. For those who value simplicity and don't want to crunch the numbers every year to decide whether or not the benefits outweigh a card's annual fee, it could make sense to stick to no-annual-fee credit cards. The tradeoff is that they usually have lower welcome bonuses and fewer benefits.
The Capital One VentureOne's 40,000-mile welcome bonus is worth twice as much as the intro bonuses currently offered by these no-annual-fee cards:
- Capital One Quicksilver Cash Rewards Credit Card: Earn a one-time $200 cash bonus after you spend $500 on purchases within three months from account opening.
- Chase Freedom Flex®: Earn a $200 Bonus after you spend $500 on purchases in your first 3 months from account opening
- Chase Freedom Unlimited®: Earn an additional 1.5% cash back on everything you buy (on up to $20,000 spent in the first year) - worth up to $300 cash back!
- Citi Custom Cash® Card: Earn $200 cash back after spending $1,500 on purchases in the first six months of account opening. (See rates and fees.)
Meanwhile, some no-annual-fee cards like the Citi Simplicity® Card don't offer any sort of sign-up bonus (see rates and fees).
The spending requirement is reasonable
To earn the Capital One VentureOne card's 40,000-mile welcome bonus, you'll need to spend $1,000 on purchases within the first three months. That's like earning 40% back and averages out to roughly $333 a month, which is a fraction of what the average American spends each month, according to the location intelligence firmEsri.
When you consider the high prices of eggs, gas and other everyday essentials, it shouldn't be too difficult to hit the spending requirement without spending more than you normally would.
Many of the best credit card sign-up bonuses require you to spend three or four times as much in the same time frame.
You'll earn transferable miles
When you have the ability to transfer rewards to various airline and hotel partners, the potential value you can get from your miles dramatically increases.
For example, if you want to book flights to Hawaii, you could redeem 40,000 miles for $400 worth of airfare booked directly through the airline or the Capital One travel portal. Alternatively, you can book a round-trip flight to Hawaii (on United Airlines) for only 15,000 miles through Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles. Capital One Miles transfer to Turkish Airlines at a 1:1 ratio, which means 40,000 miles could help you book two roundtrip tickets to Hawaii and still have miles left over for other expenses.
Aside from the Bilt Rewards Mastercard, normally, the option to transfer travel rewards is only available with travel credit cards that have an annual fee of $95 or more. So to have this ability with a card that has no annual fee is unique. See rates and fees
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Bottom line
The Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card is currently offering a welcome bonus of 40,000 miles after spending $1,000 on purchases within the first three months of account opening.
That's a large bonus for a card that has no annual fee and it's worth at least $400 in travel. However, you can potentially get more value than that if you take advantage of the card's ability to transfer miles to Capital One's travel partners.
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Editorial Note: Opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the Select editorial staff’s alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any third party.
