Update 2/2/3: Capital One announced that the Spark Travel Elite has been rebranded as the “Venture X Business.” There’s no change to the welcome offer, bonus categories or the irritating requirement to apply through a relationship manager (there is a landing page, though). We reached out to C1 to find out when we might get a public application link, but they didn’t have any news to share.
The one significant change that comes with this rebranding is that now, Capital One Spark cardholders will eligible for approval. Previously, as the Spark Travel Elite, other Spark cardholders were excluded. Update: C1 now says that Spark Cash Plus cardholders will not be eligible for the Spark Travel Elite. Cardholders of all other Spark cards are good to go.
The comments thread has DP’s from multiple folks who were able to successfully apply for the card. It seems like the best way to get a hold of relationship manager is to message one via LinkedIn. They seem pretty responsive and the two that I reached out to got back to me within 24 hours. Still, can we have a public link so we can apply like normal people?
Recently, it may have seemed like Capital One has been sitting on the sidelines. After the splash it made with the launch of the Venture X card last year, it’s been quietly improving transfer partners and opening sensational airport lounges, while Amex has been stealing the points thunder with its non-stop points parade.
Well, someone better hold Cap’s beer, because Amex isn’t the only issuer that can throw down a 250,000 point welcome offer.
This week, Capital One launched a brand new business credit card: the Spark Travel Elite Venture X Business. While the benefits and spending perks of this new card are almost identical to the Venture X, the starting welcome offer is in the stratosphere…250,000 Capital One Miles.
But there’s a catch: there’s no public link for this card. The only way to apply for it is through a Capital One Relationship Manager (which sounds like couples therapy but isn’t)…and the minimum spend for the entire welcome offer is $50,000.
The Deal
- New cardholders can earn up to 250,000 miles after being approved for the
Spark Travel EliteVenture X Business Card. The bonus has a tiered structure:- Earn 50,000 miles after spending $10,000 within the first 3 months of card membership.
- Earn an additional 200,000 miles after spending $50,000 within the first six months of card membership.
- You must apply via a Capital One Relationship Manager
Key Card Details
- Annual Fee: $395
- Earning rates: 2X everywhere. 10X hotels and rental cars/5x on flights when booked through the Capital One travel portal.
- $300 annual credit for travel that’s booked through Capital One Travel.
- Unlimited access to Capital One airport lounges and Plaza Premium Lounges. Also comes with Priority Pass Select membership.
- 10,000 mile annual anniversary bonus.
- Primary Rental Car Insurance
- TSA PreCheck or Global Entry credit
- Offers the ability to pay vendors that don’t accept credit cards via C1’s new partnership with Melio.
Quick Thoughts
The new Spark Travel Elite Venture X Business is effectively the small business version of the Venture X card and is almost identical in terms of benefits and earnings, making it a compelling keeper card. While you have to pay a $395 annual fee, in my opinion the anniversary bonus and $300 travel credit more than offset the annual fee, and you also get access to the excellent lounge benefits and 2x everywhere earning. My assumption would be that the generous authorized user (AU) benefits of the Venture X will apply here as well (where AU’s get the same lounge benefits and primary rental car insurance with no additional annual fee).
The spend will be a non-starter for some. I don’t really think that it’s worth getting the card unless you can do the whole $50K, and that’s a big number. However, for those who can, remember that this bonus is on top of the normal 2x earnings on the card, effectively meaning that you’ll get 7x on the first $50K in spend, for a total of 350,000 C1 miles when all is said and done. Our Reasonable Redemption Values list Capital One miles at 1.45 cents per point, so that 350,000 points is worth just over $5,000. 10% back on $50,000 spend should be tempting for those who can swing it.
What about the application via Capital One Relationship Manager? If you don’t have one, you can call Capital One and ask to be assigned one. If you’re not currently a Capital One customer, you can still do the same thing. That said, you will have to actually answer questions from a living person, so if you do decide to apply now, just make sure that you’re comfortable with the dialogue surrounding your business. Also, just because you’re able to talk to a relationship manager, it doesn’t mean you’ll be allowed to apply or be approved. We have no info on what the qualifications that Capitol One is using for invitations or approvals (if there are any). You can see Nick’s primer here. It’s being reported that eventually there will be a public application link, but who knows what the welcome offer will be at that point.
View from the Wing reports that the card will not appear on your personal credit report, so this won’t affect your 5/24 status and the spend won’t be reported on your credit utilization. If you are comfortable with your eligibility for a business card, can get an application through a relationship manager and can swing the spend, this new Spark Travel Elite offer is definitely worth considering.
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biz version has no hertz. not sure what else. its not the same. not sure why they call it X.
Hi Mike,
Do you still have the link for the Spark Elite Travel card? If so I’d love it please.
how does cap 1 look at simon mall gc spend? figured it’s the easiest way to quickly spend $50k if they’re ok with it.
Got a call from a rm few days ago received a email with application was approved have a link for anyone who needs it
Can you e-mail the link? I’d like to take a look at it.
Sure where do you want me to send it?
Any chance you still have the link? Thanks
Hi Mike – can you also send me the link?
Does anyone have the link? I would really like to get this card. I appreciate it
I’d like to try the link if you will share it please.
Same where would you like link sent?
Thanks for the help with the link! Received the link and auto approved.
Real business with about $1.8M annual revenue and $1.2M+ in real business spend.
Nice , congrats and should be a breeze for you got card about a month ago, already more then half way through spend bonus
Hi Mike can I get some help with the link as well please?
Mike, appreciate if you can share the link with me as well, thanks
Would really appreciate the link as well. Thank you all
Hey Mike, this is old but could you possibly share the link? Thanks.
***EDIT THE LINK I HAVE IS SAYING OFFER NO LONGER AVAILABLE, the link i had was for spark travel elite seems they’ve re branded it sorry everyone
Does anyone have a relationship manager that they could share?
Thank you for all the comments, I tried the LinkedIn thing and it worked great!
Never had a CO card and I was approved instantly (after a lengthy and intelligent conversation about my business with the Relationship Manager).
Was a breeze, called the number on back of my Spark, got the name for my relationship manager. Called him and application email received in abiot 7 minutes after I hung up with him.
Awesome! Thanks for the update!
What’s the thought of putting personal expenses on Cap1 biz cards? Have some large home repair and travel expenses that I wouldn’t mind putting on this. And does the primary car rental have to be on business trips only?
Anybody have a number to call. 50k in six months is no problem at all, may well do it in a couple of days depending on the week. However, I can’t seem to get past a rep telling me its invitation only, and nobody has ever even heard of relationship managers…
The number that my RM gave to me was 800-867-0904. I posted that originally, but then took it off as it seems like the CSR’s have no idea how to deal with requests. I tried once during the day and was able to get through, but that could very well be because I already have one.
When the Spark Cash Plus was out and in the same situation (RM-only, untrained CSRs), a lot of people had success messaging Small Business Card RM’s on Linkedin. You can easily find several. Might be worth a shot.
Thanks. THe number I have gotten so far is 18009039177 but 3 people and a transfer to another line, which had someone located in America, and so far haven’t found anyone that even knows was a Relationship manager is. Have never tried locating anyone via Linkedin but will google it and see what I can figure out.
Just go on linkedin and search for Capital One Small Business Card Relationship manager. A bunch will come up, some specifically for Spark
The message icon will be right there and they seemed to respond well to messaging last time.
well i sent a couple of messages out. I am curious though-as I have a sole proprietorship so have never had a reason to use linkedin, how can one be sure that this is the persons actual role? Seems a bit risky to be reaching out to people myself and then giving them such personal information as would be needed for an application
You wouldn’t apply over LinkedIn. The RM would give you an invite code or an application link, most likely.
Nice job CapOne marketing, you’ve created a disincentive to apply for the X, so don’t sit on making this card publicly available for too long.
So is this card attainable or not?
Was the author of the article incorrect?
I am a business owner and would like the card… But when I called got the same nonsense answer
Maybe before the article is published there should be some verification
The card is absolutely attainable, but only via a Small Business Card relationship manager. This is verified by people who have the card, Capitol One and a plethora of other blogs and news outlets that have also reported on it.
It seems that many customer service reps aren’t aware of the card, don’t know how to get it, etc. That’s not terribly surprising as we get a vast amount of inaccurate information from CSR’s from many companies about products new and old, policies, etc.
If you already have a Capitol One Business card, call the number on the back and tell them you’d like to be assigned a relationship manager to talk through products for your business (if you don’t have an RM already). If they don’t know what you’re talking about, hang up and call again. If you don’t have a card, call Small Business Banking and tell them you have a business and want to talk about credit card products with a relationship manager. Do not expect a CSR to be able to help you apply for the card. They won’t be able to.
Avoid calling on the weekend or at night, from what I understand, most, if not all, RM’s keep normal bank hours.
It sounds like it’s attainable if you want to spend the time tracking down a RM who still has invites available. Personally, I don’t want to spend hours on it so I will wait until it’s publicly available or we hear some success stories from people who were able to get the card in a reasonable amount of time. But the application for the Venture X that I was planning for August 1 will no longer be made, as there is no sense blowing a 5/24 slot knowing this business version of the X exists and presumably will be publicly available soon.
Hurray !! I got my Card. I have been assigned a wonderful Relationship manager, and she sent me the link. And I got approved.
It took over 3 days to find a CS who connected me with the right person. Apparently if you have a Business card already there is a field in your profile, that they can only see, that has the name of your Relationship Manager. Now for the hard part 50K in 6 months !!
Thanks for the great article !
Nice! Good work, Al!
Could you help me out and connect me with her, please? 🙁
Al if you could fwd my info to her that would be much appreciated!
I went to Capital One branch today and they never heard of this card
I was told you will need an invitation code to apply.
By whom?
Has any one had success calling and applying with Capitol One Elite card?
I called and they said they don’t have Relationship Managers, and that the Elite Card is only available if you get a “Private” invitation. And there are no more invitations left
This isn’t a welcome offer; it’s a big spend in a limited time offer. I think the points and miles blogging community should establish some standard for a multiplier that qualifies as a “welcome” offer. If it is 10x, then a 50k points for $5k spend qualifies. The 5x then 4x multipliers here may appeal to some but they’re not real welcome bonuses
That’s an interesting idea. I think the general qualification is that it’s a limited time spending offer that’s only available to new cardholders (thus a “welcome offer”), regardless of the multiplier involved. There are several welcome offers that are just free night certificates, that are less than 5x or even that just involve making one purchase on the card. They may not be appealing for some, but since they are only targeted at new cardholders it makes them welcome offers.
What do you think should the qualification should be?
is it a $50k spend or a $60k spend? I presume it’s spend $10k and then spend an additional $40k, but the article has me wondering which it is.
From the article:
50K total, the 10k after 3 is included in the 50k total after 6
any issues with cap 1 of ppl buying large gc amounts from simon mall? would be the only way for me to spend $50k/6 months
I’ve heard of shutdowns, but most of those that I’ve personally read about have been folks who have been doing 80-90%+ utilization with almost 100% GC spending over an extended period of time with some cycling of limit (+10K/mo). I’ve done some SM and GCM spending on my C1 card, but nothing over 5-7K transactions and it seems like most folks haven’t had much issue with spending those amounts. And I do put regular spend on the card as well.
BUT then there’s Greg, who was shutdown without using the card for any funny business and appears to be blacklisted. So, it’s not risk-free by any means.
very similar SUB offer to the Spark Miles for Business card.
I got a Spark Business card less than 6 months ago and still working on the 50k spend for 300k points. Do you think they will approve me for another business card? I also have the old Venture card (not X).
I have read elsewhere that only the Spark Cash Plus card will prevent you from getting this new card. If that’s the Spark card you have, no luck. If it’s not then you fall back onto Capitol One’s approval logic which is opaque and understood by no one.
What Larry said. Only Spark cardholder that would be officially ineligible is a Spark Cash Plus (or so we’re being told right now)
I simply don’t have that much to spend!
“ the card will not appear on your personal credit report,”
do they still do the triple-pull for this card though?
As far as I know, Capital One still pulls all three credit bureaus. There’s some DP’s of that not happening more and more frequently, but I don’t think that anyone has figured out any sort of rhyme or reason as to when it does or doesn’t.
In terms of what’s quoted, while you will see hard pulls, the account itself won’t show up (and each bureau only receives one hard inquiry), nor will utilization be reported.
You can (and should) freeze your most pulled bureau. They still approve even if they can only pull two.
Is Greg applying?
Sorry to open old wounds but I just had to ask.
Lol, too soon Joe! Too soon!
Well, so comparing that to AMEX where just 2 Business Platinum cards could get you 300,000 for spending $30K in 3 months, it’s maybe not so great. I have a few of those and perhaps can get one more still.
The Cap One card is a VISA, I assume, so that makes it a bit easier for spending. I think I will still give it a miss. If it were for Chase points that would be different.
If I spend $50k on multiple SUBs/cards, I’d land the equivalent of 750k+ CapOne pts and more time to complete the spend. Yeah, that sounds better.
Sounds like you’ve got a fun next few months in store!
Question is whether one can get approved for that many cards from Cap1 and over what time frame. The key is if you have a high spending capacity in a shorter window, this will give a sizable bonus with just 1 card.
Cap 1 is tough they never gave me a card but Chase always Go figure..
You and Greg…there’s something suspicious I guess. 🙂
Yes of Course , x Landlord, Foreman and lots of stuff laying around and people can get hurt quickly. More like the TPG always LOOKING..
Take Care Vine Owner..