topic Re: Thoughts on Capital One Venture SUB in Credit Cards

Thoughts on Capital One Venture SUB

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Oct 2020 16:13:36 GMT

I am considering applying for the Capital One Venture card with the 100,000 point sub.

I should have no issue meeting the 3K or 20K spend. That would net me 140,000 miles with 20K spend. Factoring in the $95 annual fee, that works out to 6.525% if I redeem the miles for 1 cent each. That seems like a pretty good return to me.

Are there any other subs I should be looking at that is not AMEX or Chase?

What are your opinions on the Venture SUB?

Re: Thoughts on Capital One Venture SUB

TSlop — Fri, 09 Oct 2020 16:55:59 GMT

My opinion: I don't like it. But that's solely based on the fact that I typically don't spend $20k per year across my credit cards. To me, it seems odd that you can get the 50k points at $3k spend and have to spend 6 times more to get the other 50k. I feel that they could have done the other 50k at $6k spend over 6 months, or round up to $10k or $12k for the entire year, or possibily given you 100k points for hitting $20k (for a total of 150k points). It reminds me of the Chase WoH card, where you spend $3k for 25k points then another $3k for another 25k points, for a total of 50k points after 6 months. They kept it at the same rate.

However, in saying that, this year is a bit different for me. Our daycare closed in March during the pandemic and just opened back up this week with a new provider. This provider accepts credit cards with no extra fee, so I'll now be adding in $12k a year to my credit card spend and generating $20 a month in cashback just from daycare. I'd definitely be able to hit the $20k now if I was interested in that card.

Re: Thoughts on Capital One Venture SUB

sxa001 — Fri, 09 Oct 2020 17:20:17 GMT

I am not aware of anything non AMEX or Chase that is as good as this offer. If you can meet the SUB through normal spend and use the miles to book travel through CapitalOne's portel you are looking at value of over $1000 (I have seen valuations from 1 cent to 1.4 cents each).

Personally though, outside of the SUB the card is meh if you decide to keep it, basically a 2% card. But if you aren't in with AMEX and Chase it isn't terrible.

Re: Thoughts on Capital One Venture SUB

wasCB14 — Fri, 09 Oct 2020 17:28:22 GMT

@TSlop wrote:
My opinion: I don't like it. But that's solely based on the fact that I typically don't spend $20k per year across my credit cards. To me, it seems odd that you can get the 50k points at $3k spend and have to spend 6 times more to get the other 50k. I feel that they could have done the other 50k at $6k spend over 6 months, or round up to $10k or $12k for the entire year, or possibily given you 100k points for hitting $20k (for a total of 150k points). It reminds me of the Chase WoH card, where you spend $3k for 25k points then another $3k for another 25k points, for a total of 50k points after 6 months. They kept it at the same rate.

However, in saying that, this year is a bit different for me. Our daycare closed in March during the pandemic and just opened back up this week with a new provider. This provider accepts credit cards with no extra fee, so I'll now be adding in $12k a year to my credit card spend and generating $20 a month in cashback just from daycare. I'd definitely be able to hit the $20k now if I was interested in that card.

The 50k/$3k or 100k/$20k structure is one that Chase has used on the Avios-based airlines...British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Iberia.

(Ideal for American Airlines and other oneworld partner flights.)

Re: Thoughts on Capital One Venture SUB

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Oct 2020 17:30:28 GMT

Capital One Miles are worth about 1.3 to 1.4 cents with transfer partners.

So 140K miles is worth $1820 to $1960. Less the annual fee, and you are looking at 8.6 to 9.3% return on spend.

In reality, you earn 56K miles or $728/$784 on first $3K (min 21% after full fee deduction) and 84K miles or $1092+ on last $17K (about 6.4%).

Clearly, hitting the first 50K/$3K bonus is worthwhile. After that....

Is 6.4% better than you can do on elsewhere on non-category spend? Yes - my non-category spend tops out less than 4%. (Frankly, 6.4% not much better than my category spend, if at all.)

But 6.4% sucks if you could have used any of that $17K on meeting other SUBs.

If you have enough non-category spend to meet the bonus, go for it. However, you really should be working on other SUBs instead.

Re: Thoughts on Capital One Venture SUB

Shooting-For-800 — Sat, 10 Oct 2020 13:20:08 GMT

I have not had any issues with Venture at all.

Luckily for me, my storage unit is classified as travel. lol.

Re: Thoughts on Capital One Venture SUB

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Oct 2020 14:17:25 GMT

@Shooting-For-800 wrote:
I have not had any issues with Venture at all.
Luckily for me, my storage unit is classified as travel. lol.

But, after the sub, unless you are transferring miles to partners, it makes no sense to pay an af for a 2% card