Question about the Cap One Venture Rewards card.

[opiy26]

I was thinking of making this a goal card. From what I have read it seems to be one of the better or best travel rewards cards out there now. What my plan is to do is make it my primary purchasing card. I don't know exactly but I think in a year I would run around $30,000 through it. Can I expect any kind of reasonable rewards returns with that? Will it take many year just to get up a good enough rewards savings to get a plane ticket? It is a Signature card so there are some good perks with it and being Visa it is accepted almost everywhere.

I just want to know if I do try to get this card later on will it be worth it or just stick with Amex BCP. I only want one card so I maximize my rewards on it.

Does anyone else have it and how do you feel about it. How is the service and if you don't mind saying what kind of rewards are you getting on the Venture?

Thank You!

[Anonymous]

My Fiance has this card... And I am so jealous! She gets two points on every purchase anywhere. The rewards are awesome! She can book travel anywhere, and deduct the purchase from her points. 

In my opion it's the very best travel card out there!

[avv7c0]

My wife and I share this card, and it's everything we wanted and read it would be. We've had it a year and put about $80,000 through it so far, using it for everything we possibly can. Currently we have 192,354 "miles" accrued, which equals $1,924 in travel reimbursement. We are planning to take a cruise with it this summer. What I like about the card is its redemption policy. Unlike my Delta SkyMiles AMEX, I can use my miles for any travel purchase, not limited to plane tickets. This includes bag fees, hotels, car rental, gas for rental car, taxi fares, etc, as long as these purchases are not in your home town. The redemption rate is the same for any travel reimbursement so you can spend it as you see fit. I often use Priceline and Hotwire to book hotels, and this is seen by the card as a travel expense. Thus I can find a great deal and stretch my miles even further.

Redemption is fairly simple and can all be done through your online account. Not all the expenses I listed above will be flagged as travel by the computer, but an easy phone call to customer service will allow you to use those more unusual travel credits without a problem.

The only downside so far has been the interest rate. We do not carry an interest-accruing balance from month to month, but if we did, the rate would be 19.99%, and that's with an 800+ score. Thus this card is excellent for travel rewards, but terrible if you ever need to carry a higher balance. My starting CL was $7500 on this card, but as a Signature card, we are free to go up over that as needed, and have on several occasions.

Final note, while cumbersome, there are many opprtunities to earn upwards of 12 bonus points for each dollar spent when ordering online from a wide variety of stores by clicking the special links in your online account. Had we been more proactive at this practice we could have thousands of extra dollars in travel. I plan to do this more this year.

You can find better cash rewards cards, but if you're like me and want to use the rewards for travel anyway, hands down, this is the card.

[Anonymous]

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avv7c0 wrote:
We've had it a year and put about $80,000 through it so far, using it for everything we possibly can. Currently we have 192,354 "miles" accrued, which equals $1,924 in travel reimbursement.

...
You can find better cash rewards cards, but if you're like me and want to use the rewards for travel anyway, hands down, this is the card.

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I guess my question is wouldn't a flat 2% cash back card be a better option? You're getting (basically) 2% back anyway, but if you're restricted on how to use the points... I fell out of love with the Chase Marriott card for this same reason, yeah you get a rediculous amount of hotel points... But it translated to about 1% cash back (after the initial bonus of course), and you could only use them at a Marriott... Might work if you travel to Marriotts a lot and multiply the points, etc...

Amy I missing something? 2% back is great, don't get me wrong of course...

[avv7c0]

Yes, it would be. But for my wife and I, we decided on the travel card for a couple of reasons. One was the lack of foreign transaction fees, the second was because we felt we would be less likely to travel as much if the money was coming solely from our bank account. We felt we'd be more inclined to pay more toward the mortgage, etc being as that would be the responsible thing. Psychologically, we wanted to be "forced" to take a vacation from the rat race.

So it works for us. Plus, unlike branded travel rewards cards, we can use this on any travel rewards. With a single brand, it makes it much harder to justify. As I mentioned before, there is a huge untapped resource for bonus miles as well that would rocket this card past other straight cash back cards. 12 bonus miles is 14 miles total per dollar, or 14% back. Find me a cash rewards card with that kind of incentive...

[Anonymous]

If you're running $2500/month or 30K a year through your card, I think you should also look at the Navy Federal Flagship Visa Signature. 

you get 1 point per $1, but at 15K and 30K spending threshold you can use your points for a 2% return on travel.  

It's  a visa signature benefit. 

Lower annual fee $49

Likely much higher CL, and APR is 9.99%.

I just "upgraded" my cashRewards to this card, with a 20K CL.  I should be able to put most/all my purchases on it and every year get $600 airline credit for spending $30K/year (2%).  

It also has no foreign transaction fee.  Yes, there are probably better cards out there, but I really like NFCU, the customer service etc. 

[searchingfor67]

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@Anonymous wrote:

If you're running $2500/month or 30K a year through your card, I think you should also look at the Navy Federal Flagship Visa Signature. 

you get 1 point per $1, but at 15K and 30K spending threshold you can use your points for a 2% return on travel.  

It's  a visa signature benefit. 

Lower annual fee $49

Likely much higher CL, and APR is 9.99%.

I just "upgraded" my cashRewards to this card, with a 20K CL.  I should be able to put most/all my purchases on it and every year get $600 airline credit for spending $30K/year (2%).  

It also has no foreign transaction fee.  Yes, there are probably better cards out there, but I really like NFCU, the customer service etc. 

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How long did you have your cashRewards card before upgrading?

[Anonymous]

about a month.  in fact, I have not even used my cashrewards card, lol, and they still did the product change.  took about 10 seconds on the phone. 

[Anonymous]

I have been banking with NFCU though for about a year prior.  Was always preapproved for the cashrewards, finally decided to hit the button. 

[Open123]

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@opiy26 wrote:

I just want to know if I do try to get this card later on will it be worth it or just stick with Amex BCP. I only want one card so I maximize my rewards on it.

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If you'd like to have only ONE card, and your choices are between the BCP and Venture, the latter is much better if you're more interested in rewards travel reimbursement.

The 2% on all purchases is better than 6% on supermarkets if you're spending exceeds 30k/year, unless the majority of your 30k spend happens to be in a supermarket. The value of the Venture card is it's simplicity which allows you to simply apply the points as a statement credit for any travel.  There's nothing to figure out, no conversion ratios, no ffs or hotel rewards to deal with, and no red tape.

If you're determined to use only ONE card, I'd certainly agree this is a good one to have.  No forex, 2%, and easy redemption.