Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
| Sorry, this deal is no longer available. Do you want to be alerted about new deals as they’re published? Click here to subscribe to Frequent Miler's Instant Posts by email. |
Update 2/2/21: These offers were last available more than a year ago, but Doctor of Credit reports new working links. These offers require a lot of spend but can be a huge bonus in the right scenario. Read on for the original post; my thoughts about the offer are unchanged since the last time it came around.
There are two huge bonuses now available expired on the Capital One® Spark® Miles for Business credit card and the Capital One® Spark® Cash for Business credit card. Each new welcome offer requires a lot of spend, but with the level of reward offered for that spend these offers might be worth considering for those businesses with high expenses.
For those who want “miles”
| Card Offer and Details |
|---|
50K Miles ⓘ Affiliate Earn a one-time 50K miles bonus when you spend $4,500 in the first 3 months. (Rates & Fees)$0 introductory annual fee for the first year, then $95 Note: Most Capital One Business credit cards (including this one) DO count against Chase's 5/24 Rule FM Mini Review: This card is similar to the Spark Cash Plus card, but it has the advantage that "miles" earned with this card can be transferred to a large number of airline & hotel programs. Earning rate: 2X Miles everywhere ✦ Earn 5X miles on hotels, vacations rentals and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel Base: 2X (2.9%) Card Info: Mastercard issued by CapOne. This card has no foreign currency conversion fees. Noteworthy perks: Redeem miles for travel at value of 1 cent per mile ✦ Convert "miles" to airline miles & hotel points ✦ No foreign transaction fees ✦ Up to $120 fee credit for TSA PreCheck® application fee or Global Entry application fee |
For those who want cash
| Card Offer and Details |
|---|
$750 Cash Back ⓘ Affiliate Earn a $750 cash bonus when you spend $7,500 within the first 3 months. $0 introductory annual fee for the first year, then $95 FM Mini Review: A good option for business owners who prefer simple cash back rewards. Earning rate: 2% everywhere ✦ 5% on hotels and rental cars booked via Capital One Travel Base: 2% Card Info: Visa Signature issued by CapOne. This card has no foreign currency conversion fees. Noteworthy perks: No foreign transaction fees |
Quick Thoughts
As you can see above, both of these offers require a lot of spend. Putting fifty thousand dollars in spend on a single credit card over six months time could be a questionable value proposition considering the fact that one could likely open four or five new credit cards from various issuers and split up that spend over a few new card welcome offers and earn greater rewards per dollar spent.
On the flip side, some folks either prefer not to open multiple credit cards or have plenty of spend to meet this offer and the welcome offers on whatever other cards they choose to open. If you have a large amount of spend in categories that typically go unbonused on other cards, these bonus can certainly be worth a look.
The cash bonus, when taken along with the 2% you would earn from the purchases required to earn the welcome bonus, works out to a return of 6%. You could certainly do worse than getting a net 6% back on $50K in purchases over the first six months (just keep in mind that you do need to make the full $50K in purchases to trigger the full bonus and get that return).
Those who choose the miles card could potentially eke even more value out of the new cardmember bonus considering the fact that the Capital One “miles” can either be redeemed for travel at a rate of $0.01 each or transferred to airline partners. Most Capital One transfer partners transfer at a ratio of 2:1.5 (a couple offer a poor 2:1 transfer ratio). However, Capital One often offers transfer bonuses (check this page for current point transfer bonuses), which can sometimes increase the transfer ratio for one partner or another to as good as 1:1 (or 2:2 if you prefer to think of it that way). In other words, after meeting the minimum spending requirements, you would have enough Capital One Miles to get 225K airline miles from most transfer partners or may get as many as 300K airline miles if taking advantage of a good transfer bonus. That’s a lot of miles to earn from a single card in such a short period of time.
Again, you could earn far more miles by splitting the minimum spending requirement over multiple new card bonuses. However, if for one reason or another you prefer to open and use a single card, it’s hard to beat the return here.
Out of the two, I personally prefer the Miles card since it essentially offers the same value (since Capital One “miles” could be redeemed for travel at a rate of $0.01 each) but additionally offers the ability to get more value out of transfer partners. Keep in mind that Capital One also allows you to combine miles with those earned from your other cards (like the Capital One® Venture® Rewards card) or to transfer them to any other cardmember who has an account that earns Capital One miles. That makes it really easy to combine forces for the award ticket you want.
Two quick caveats for those considering these cards: first, keep in mind that Capital One is known to be very stingy on approvals for those with many credit card accounts with other issuers, so many readers may have trouble getting approved. Second, Plastiq recently announced that Capital One has asked them to suspend the processing of payments on Capital One credit cards — so if you were anticipating that you would use Plastiq to meet the spending requirements, keep in mind that you currently can not and we do not know if and when that capability will return. Thankfully, Plastiq is once again accepting Capital One business card transactions (but keep in mind that you can not pay for things like a mortgage with your Capital One business card — see that post for more detail).
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
Nick et al, an important “feature” of the Capital One world is the ability, as you’ve so ably noted, to buy $900 Marriott hotel gift cards for around 65K cap one points, assuming someone in the family (or good friend) has the the Cap One Venture ONE card. What I didn’t know till today is that one can now buy Raffles Hotel gift cards and Fairmont Hotel gift cards with the same amount of points, i.e. 64,250 to be exact. I thought it was only Marriott. I’m assuming you mentioned this once before, but it makes the capital one spark business card really REALLY worth doing now. I’m so glad the wife has the venture card. We may apply for a second Spark card.
Yes, I previously noted that it was valid for Marriott / Ritz, Fairmont, and Raffles. Used to be Four Seasons also. But I don’t think it’s everyone with a Venture One card — it’s people who opened it during a very specific window of time that have it. For example, my wife has both a Venture account and a Venture One account and does not have the hotel special offers section for redemption, yet I do have that on my Venture One card. Marriott is the one I’ve mentioned repeatedly because it is the most appealing to me, but I could certainly see where others might work for other folks. I did consider getting a Fairmont GC at some point for their current BOGO deals, but the problem is that the BOGO sale requires paying in advance, so I’m not sure if they’ll let you switch to a GC at check out (and I’m also glad I didn’t go that route as we still can’t get into Canada at this point and I’m not flying any time soon).
Anyway, here was the post where I originally wrote about this (when Four Seasons was still an option):
https://frequentmiler.com/the-best-hotel-credit-card-ever/
At some point during the pandemic, they took away the ability to redeem for gift cards altogether. I was pleasantly surprised when gift cards came back and the hotel special offers were alive again (but without Four Seasons). I had screen shots including Fairmont / Raffles in this post as well:
https://frequentmiler.com/capital-one-brings-back-some-travel-gift-cards-including-special-offers/
But yeah, it makes for a great redemption at a value of about 1.4c per point (which makes for a return of 2.8% on regular spend if you’re taking it as gift cards for those brands). The math is a little fuzzy on that because you can also get discounted gift cards sometimes and so on and so forth, but I’m pretty happy to get Marriott GCs cheaply via Capital One and then use them to generate Marriott points while paying for my stays.
https://milestalk.com/capital-one-spark-cash-changes-wont-report-to-personal-credit-bureaus/
Is this still valid?
Yes. I got a new Spark Cash 2 months ago. It has not appeared on my personal credit file.
does C1 have a limit on how many total new cards like chase 5/24 or anything like that? i dont see mention of it on previous FM articles but wanted to check before a 3 HP credit check.
how are the odds of sole prop getting approved? is there known limits like chase had for a while back?
“keep in mind that Capital One is known to be very stingy on approvals for those with many credit card accounts with other issuers, so many readers may have trouble getting approved” – this is the concerning part. thanks in advance
My wife and I each have about a dozen credit cards showing on our credit reports and that hasn’t been an issue with C1. (At least for this Spark card) they look for excellent credit and low utilization in my experience. There have been times when they have declined us when our utilization was in the 30s%. Now before we apply, we pay off a card or two before the statement date so that our utilization falls into the teens. That usually does it.
I already have one Spark Cash. I did a CLI last month and got the CL increased from $51k to $65k. I have a lot of business expenses in non bonused categories so I have been requesting CLI every 6 months to try and grow the credit line. It is an older card that appears on my personal credit report. I could also approach getting the higher limits with a second card and score this bonus along the way. I know Capital One likes to see good credit (which I have) and low utilization (which I can accomplish with proper planning). Any other tips if I decide to go for a second one? Is the recent CLI on the existing card an issue? Any thoughts on how long these enhanced bonus offers stay alive?
WH
I closed the biz miles card ~ 1 year ago. how does CapOne treat people trying to reopen? is it a once per lifetime rule?
[…] other hand, if you can spend $50K over the next six months, you’re better off looking at the Capital One business cards. This fits in a niche somewhere in between. I don’t know whether or not you can open an […]
Will they approve businesses for a second card?
Yes. I had 3 Sparks at one time, before shut down.
Could you elaborate? The shut down part worries me.
Yeah, Same here, I’ve never heard of Capital One shutting anyone down. I got the 200k points for the spark the last time mostly through MS. What did you do?
There have been some shut downs. On the flip side, I’ve been able to do enough to meet my needs without issue.
Many blogs don’t mention that unlike other business credit card, Capital One business cards will be reported to your credit report.
That’s a good point. Counts against 5/24.
And they pull from all 3 bureaus.
So I’m about to put solar on my house and I can charge the $50k on a credit card. What do you think the likelihood of being approved for a huge limit? I’m going to pay it off immediately after? I was going to use my Chase Freedom Unlimited with the 1.5 per dollar and transfer to my Chase Sapphire Reserve. Thoughts?
I’d say that the likelihood of getting a $50K limit is close to zero. That said, I’d imagine that the solar company would happily take split payment over two cards or even let you make a couple of separate payments (so you could pay up to your credit limit, pay it off with Capital One, and then pay again. Cycling your credit limit isn’t always a good idea, but if it’s a legit expense, I’d be less concerned. You could also try to call Capital One after approval and explain that you’ve got a large business expense coming up to fit your building for solar and were hoping for a higher limit. Worst they’ll say is no.
At 1.5x, you’d end up with 75K points. That’s about $1100 in travel if you’ve got the CSR or 75K airline miles if transferred to partners. By contrast, putting that spend on one of these two offers gives you $2K cash or 225K airline miles in most of the transfer partners. That’s enough better that I’d opt to try for Capital One if those are the only two options you’re considering.
A third option would be to open a few new credit cards and ask the solar company to split payment, thereby earning several intro bonuses at once. If you make the deal contingent on them accepting that, I can’t imagine they’ll choose not to make a deal over letting you split tender.
Thank you! I guess the test would to be to see what the initial credit line is when I apply and do what you recommend about requesting a temporary increase for a large purchase to add solar to my home business. Appreciate your advice!
Depends what your initial limit is, however I’d estimate a 0 to 0.1% chance they’ll give you a temporary increase in your credit limit so quickly. Your best bet would be cycling your credit limit.
Casey
Just an idea can’t u put $10K on that card every day then pay $10K off every nite 5x ?
CHEERs
The real question is why you’re spending $50K on solar? Adding more/better insulation, windows, and HVAC is almost always a far better use of your money.
Upgraded the windows. Our house is about 3,500sqft and has two AC units along with a pool and spa and two Teslas so our average monthly bill ranges around $500+ a month. I’m 40 and plan on living in this home for another 30 years so the solar investment out ways the cost.
Casey
No ur doing it right .Fix the house which u did THEN go to Solar if that’s what u want . Most just go to Solar on a gas Guzzler house . Jay Leno loves his Tesla no nutting in 3 years .
CHEERs