topic Re: BOA Travel vs. Cap One QuickSilver in Credit Cards

BOA Travel vs. Cap One QuickSilver

pastnow123 — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 09:38:04 GMT

Both offer 1.5 point per $. I personally lean toward BOA as they have better customer services. Do I miss anything? Anyone have different opinion and why?

Re: BOA Travel vs. Cap One QuickSilver

DaveSignal — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 10:54:35 GMT

I have the Travel Rewards, but the Quicksilver is very similar. Both earn at a similar rate, have no foreign transaction fees, and can be obtained with Visa Signature benefits. The BoA will only get the best redemption rate when points are applied against previous travel expenses. This is not an issue for me, but I think the QS would be 1 point = 1 cent regardless of the expenses on the card.

The BoA earns a bonus with a BoA banking account, but I neither have nor would want a banking account with this big bank. One more useful advantage to BoA is that Capital One is kind of unpredictable as to granting CLIs and might not do it, even if a long positive history is proven.

Either way, I think they are both great cards.... some of the best general-use no-AF cards around right now.

ETA: I don't think that the QS comes with EMV. One of the major advantages to the Travel Rewards is that it is easier to use when traveling since it can be inserted into a chip reader. This is the main reason that caused me to apply for the Travel Rewards in the first place.

Re: BOA Travel vs. Cap One QuickSilver

lg8302ch — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 13:15:32 GMT

I have both the BofA travel rewards VS and the QS VS...both starting limits 5K and increased to 10K ...the few times I had to call in Cap1 I got nice service...so no complaints from me on that. Both cards 1,5 points or 1,5% cash back. BofA APR 9,99% - Cap1 APR 12,9%, Cap1 is 1,5% cash back on everything...BofA on travel charges. ....for me tons of travel charges so no issues there. Cap1 triple pull at app, SP for CLIs - BofA is normally HP on EX, HP on TU for CLIs....Cap1 has own card design option and BofA same boring design for years...I am using both cards in central Europe and while BofA is chip & sign and Cap1 old fashioned swipe I have never had any issues. Still use ticket vending machines with ATM pin with both cards. The same for grocery self check out lines. If I had to select 1 only I would lean towards BofA but other than for sentimental reasons (first lender that was willing to give me credit) I would have no reason not to choose Cap1. ...and both cards no AF and no FTF. BofA has online shopping mall - Cap1 stopped that a while ago...what did I forget? ...not an easy decision..lol

To make it worse...have you looked at the Merrill+ yet?

Re: BOA Travel vs. Cap One QuickSilver

ficobgtx — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 14:27:40 GMT

I have both as well. BOA has been good to me. I'll add BankAmeriDeals as another benefit. Have to sign up online, but easy way to get things like 10% or $10 from select vendors (I see one in mine now for $10 for shopping at whole foods on > $50 purchase). I have surprisingly used this quite a bit.

Also, good customer service. I had an $1100 dispute last year. Just clicked the link online to dispute, and they immediately took off the charge and I didn't have to do anything more. I was impressed.

Although it is redeem for travel, you can redeem for any amount for a travel purchase in the past 12 months, and you can redeem against items multiple times. Much better than cap one venture in that respect.

Re: BOA Travel vs. Cap One QuickSilver

Anonymous — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 18:09:33 GMT

@DaveSignal wrote:

ETA: I don't think that the QS comes with EMV. One of the major advantages to the Travel Rewards is that it is easier to use when traveling since it can be inserted into a chip reader. This is the main reason that caused me to apply for the Travel Rewards in the first place.

I've been sort of discounting this as a feature, under the perhaps naive assumption that by sometime next year chip&sig (and MAYBE even pin!) will become the default here. And it's not as if Cap One doesn't know how, its UK card have been chip&pin for years. But until then, yes, slight advantage to BoA.

Re: BOA Travel vs. Cap One QuickSilver

nyancat — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 19:17:51 GMT

I have both. Capital One has far better customer service, and better rewards since they can be credited in any amount toward anything.

However, Bank of America has EMV, Capital One doesn't. So I'd go Bank of America, I'm afraid.

Re: BOA Travel vs. Cap One QuickSilver

Anonymous — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 19:35:59 GMT

@nyancat wrote:
I have both. Capital One has far better customer service, and better rewards since they can be credited in any amount toward anything.

However, Bank of America has EMV, Capital One doesn't. So I'd go Bank of America, I'm afraid.

WHen do you use EMV that is outweighs the advantages you list for Cap One! (And, as I say above, pretty sure soon all will have some form of EMV)

Re: BOA Travel vs. Cap One QuickSilver

DaveSignal — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 19:50:31 GMT

Swipe cards are not accepted at the shop directly accross the street from my apartment. At other places, I also find it slightly easier to explain to a cashier that I will sign the first receipt than I do handing my card over and explaining that it is a swipe card.

When Capital One starts putting EMV in their QS cards, that might be a tipping point for me to get one. As of now, Travel Rewards already has it. Why doesn't Barclays have it already? Barclays is a British bank. They are all over the place in UK and all of their UK cards are chip/PIN. I would hope that they do it before Capital One. For some reason, the US divisions of all of these banks are quite reluctant to implement chip/PIN correctly.

Re: BOA Travel vs. Cap One QuickSilver

Anonymous — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 20:02:49 GMT

I know it makes sense for you as your are abroad, my comment was to nycat.

BTW, which store doesn't take swipe? The only time that happened to me was carfonewarehouse, and I think they were just being difficult. When i had to pay cash, they increased the price by 10 pounds. My first surcharge for cash! Since then, I always carry real chip&pin in the UK, but this (three years ago) was my only example of a store (as compared to ticket kiosk) that needed EMV.

Re: BOA Travel vs. Cap One QuickSilver

DaveSignal — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 20:33:57 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

BTW, which store doesn't take swipe? The only time that happened to me was carfonewarehouse, and I think they were just being difficult. When i had to pay cash, they increased the price by 10 pounds. My first surcharge for cash! Since then, I always carry real chip&pin in the UK, but this (three years ago) was my only example of a store (as compared to ticket kiosk) that needed EMV.

They don't even have a swipe reader.

Re: BOA Travel vs. Cap One QuickSilver

Leadberry — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 23:00:44 GMT

@pastnow123 wrote:
Both offer 1.5 point per $. I personally lean toward BOA as they have better customer services. Do I miss anything? Anyone have different opinion and why?

From my experience, Capital One has had far better customer service than BOA. Also, I don't know if the Travel Rewards card is different, but with the Cash Rewards there was a $25 minimum for redemption...Capital One has no minimum. Lastly, as others have said, with QS the rewards don't need to be applied toward travel purchases.

Re: BOA Travel vs. Cap One QuickSilver

DaveSignal — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 23:11:17 GMT

I have only applied my Travel Rewards points to travel redemptions, since I have so many travel purchases. But I can apply all or some of my points toward any purchases that I want. I have never found a situation where I couldn't redeem all of the points that I wanted to for statement credit against my travel purchases.

But if I didn't travel and I lived in the US, then I'm pretty sure that I would have a QS instead.

Re: BOA Travel vs. Cap One QuickSilver

Trivolve — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 08:38:36 GMT

travel rewards 10% bonus points makes the total redemption rate 1.65%. but you need a checking account for that, easy just open an echecking account, no monthly fees and no minimum. but as everyone mentioned it must be applied as statement credit against travel purchases

Re: BOA Travel vs. Cap One QuickSilver

nyancat — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 10:55:27 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@nyancat wrote:
I have both. Capital One has far better customer service, and better rewards since they can be credited in any amount toward anything.

However, Bank of America has EMV, Capital One doesn't. So I'd go Bank of America, I'm afraid.
WHen do you use EMV that is outweighs the advantages you list for Cap One! (And, as I say above, pretty sure soon all will have some form of EMV)

The UK and Canada mainly, but also - everywhere for security. Even if your card is skimmed in the US, at least if it's an EMV card a cloned card made from it can't easily be used outside the US. Which isn't much yet, but it's some improvement at least.

Re: BOA Travel vs. Cap One QuickSilver

Leadberry — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 21:36:07 GMT

@Trivolve wrote:
travel rewards 10% bonus points makes the total redemption rate 1.65%. but you need a checking account for that, easy just open an echecking account, no monthly fees and no minimum. but as everyone mentioned it must be applied as statement credit against travel purchases

The eBanking checking account is no longer available. All of their checking accounts now have minimums and/or maintenance fees.