@Anonymous wrote:
Over the past few years, Capital One has worked hard to improve their reputation and their customer base. Rather than focusing on subprime customers, these days their emphasis seems to be the prime crowd those with good credit.
Pros and cons for Capital One:
Advantages:
- No Foreign transaction fees – Capital One is the only bank to completely waive these fees across their entire product line and they should be commended for such a customer-friendly pricing policy.
- Caters to different credit scores – Whether you have a good or bad score, chances are that Capital One has a credit card to fit. They offer secured cards, for rebuilding credit. For good credit, there are various choices for cash back and travel rewards.
- Different reward programs – Is Capital One good for rewards? Well for those with good credit, there is diverse selection of reward programs available. Not all of them are the best, but some like the Venture card (for excellent credit) offer good rebates.
- Improved customer service – A number of forum members have reported that on the higher up prime-level cards, they get American based customer service.
Disadvantages:
- Fees for some cards – Some of their credit cards do carry a fee. For example, those which are secured and for lower credit scores, there might be a fee involved. Also, their best reward cards have an annual fee.
- Benefits might be limited – Is Capital One a good for benefits? Well, that depends on the card. Their basic ones tend to just have the standard benefits. However with the fee-based cards for great credit, there are some extra bells and whistles thrown in. But they currently don’t have anything on par with say, an AmEx Gold or Platinum.
- Credit limits might not be high – If you have bad credit, you may end up with a lower limit and trying to get increases on it in the future may not yield results. Or at least, that’s according to what forum members have shared.
- Foreign customer service on some cards – In a perfect world, all products would come with American-based customer service. But unfortunately that’s not the world we live in. For the lower level cards especially, foreign customer service reps are common (but in all fairness, that’s how it is with every credit card company).
Excellent post.
I've never quite understood the vitriol Cap One receives on these boards, especially since I've always found their products, while not best in class, works as advertised. I don't see how they're any better and worse than others, from a user's experience perspective. I mean, how often does one call customer service? Seriously.
Regarding the QS, I wouldn't label it as obsolete. While I will tag any sub 2 cpp card pointless, the QS at least offers one a rationale to accept less than 2%. Namely, redeem at anytime in whatever amounts (personally, I love this feature, since it takes me years to reach $25 redemptions) and no-ftf fee. This makes the QS a more viable option for travel than, say, the other 2% cashback cards.
Overall, while a niche product, I find the QS an excellent card. It's a card I always have with me when traveling abroad.
