8 Best Capital One Credit Cards of May 2024

The best Capital One credit card would depend on your individual needs and spending habits. Compare your options from Benzinga's top picks below!

Capital One is a well-known name in the credit card industry, and for good reason. With a range of card options catering to different needs and lifestyles, excellent customer service and valuable features and benefits, Capital One stands out as a popular option among consumers.

Choosing the right credit card that aligns with your spending habits and financial goals is crucial to maximize the benefits and rewards you can receive. Here are some of the best Capital One credit cards to consider this year, along with a comprehensive guide to help you find the best card for your financial goals.

Quick Look: The Best Capital One Credit Cards

• Best Overall: Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card
• Best for Premium Travel: Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card
• Best for Cashback on Dining, Groceries, Entertainment: Capital One SavorOne Cash Rewards Credit Card 
• Best for Travel Rewards: Capital One Spark 2X Miles Business Credit Card
• Best for Students: Capital One SavorOne Cash Rewards for Students
• Best for Businesses: Capital One Spark Cash Plus Credit Card
• Best for Building Credit: Capital One Quicksilver Cash Rewards Credit Card
• Best for Walmart Shoppers: Capital One Walmart Rewards Mastercard

The 8 Best Capital One Credit Cards

If you're looking for cashback, premium travel rewards like travel insurance or anything in between, consider this a guide to get started. Whether you're a frequent traveler, a savvy shopper or someone looking to build credit, there's a Capital One card that's perfect for you.

1. Best Overall: Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card

Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card is one of the top travel credit cards for good reason. The card allows you to earn unlimited 2X miles per dollar spent on purchases using the card. When you’re ready to redeem your miles, you can transfer your miles to over 15 travel partners, including a 1:1 transfer to loyalty programs such as British Airways Executive Club and Emirates Skywards. 

Some of the travel perks that come with this card include no limits on miles and no minimum mile requirements to redeem for travel. There are also no blackout dates and no expiration dates to worry about. The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card also covers the application fee of up to $100 for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck. 

This card also comes with many perks that you’ll find with some of the other Capital One cards. These include car rental insurance, roadside assistance and extended warranties on eligible purchases. It also includes virtual card numbers to protect your card from fraud when shopping online.

But the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card is more than a travel rewards credit card. You can redeem points for gift cards, cash or a statement credit. Combined with Capital One's premium rewards portal and the fact that users with fair to good credit could be accepted, it is a strong overall choice. 

Why Benzinga likes it: Flexible travel rewards, impressive bonus features and cashback. 

2. Best for Premium Travel: Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card

Arguably one of the two top offerings for premium travel is the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card. The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card offers a host of rewards. To start, you could earn 75,000 bonus miles when you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first three months from account opening, equal to around $750.  

While the annual fee is a hefty $395, if you travel regularly, you can receive a $300 annual credit for bookings through Capital One Travel. You'll also get Capital One's best trip prices, with a price guarantee. In addition, Capital One offers 10,000 bonus miles, equal to $100 in travel rewards, each year on the card opening anniversary.

You can earn 10 times miles on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel and five times miles on flights booked through Capital One Travel, plus two times miles on all other purchases. Finally, you can transfer your miles to your choice of 15 or so travel partners. In addition, the Capital One Venture X Rewards gives you luxury benefits like experience credits, room upgrades and more.

Why Benzinga likes it: Capital One's premium travel rewards card has some of the best perks and travel rewards of any card from any issuer. 

3. Best for Cashback on Dining, Groceries, Entertainment: Capital One SavorOne Cash Rewards Credit Card 

The Capital One SavorOne Cash Rewards is a good choice if you’re a social person who wants more cash back rewards on entertainment purchases. There are no cash back limits on this card, and the rewards will remain valid as long as the account is open. The rewards rates of this card are as follows:

• Unlimited 8% cash back on tickets purchased from Vivid Seats or Capital One Entertainment
• Unlimited 5% cash back on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel
• Unlimited 3% cash back on dining, entertainment, grocery store and streaming service purchases (excluding Target and Walmart)
• Unlimited 1% cash back on other purchases

In addition to providing more opportunities to maximize your earnings with this cash back card, the Capital One SavorOne Cash Rewards Credit Card comes with other perks. This includes no foreign transaction fee, which can be beneficial for travelers. It also provides car rental insurance for cars booked and paid for with your card. Like other Capital One cards, this card also offers an extended warranty and price protection benefits.

Why Benzinga likes it: With ultra-high rewards on tickets, hotels, rental, dining, grocery and popular streaming services, it's a strong all-around contender for many card users.

4. Best for Travel Rewards: Capital One Spark 2X Miles Business Credit Card

For businesses that partake in business trips often, the Capital One Spark Miles for Business Credit Card can be a good option. This card allows you to earn credit card rewards in the form of miles, which can be redeemed through Capital One Travel or another travel website. There is no limit to how many miles you can earn; each dollar spent using the card earns 2X miles. 

Redeeming miles that you earn from this card can be a bit different than redeeming cash back rewards. Miles can be redeemed for any qualifying travel purchase you’ve made using the card in the past 90 days. Capital One automatically categorizes purchases using its merchant category codes, so the miles can be redeemed for anything that the company has categorized as a travel purchase. Sometimes, this can extend beyond hotel, flight and rental car purchases to include food delivery services.

Like other Capital One’s travel credit cards, you can add employees to this card’s account at no additional charge. The downside is that business owners can’t maintain total control over the accounts. For example, limits cannot be set on each employee’s card, and the account does not track each employee’s separate spending habits. 

Other benefits come with this card, too. You can download a custom, itemized spending report quarterly and yearly to review your account summary. You’ll also be able to manage your everyday spending by downloading purchase records directly to QuickBooks, Quicken or Excel software. Business travelers can get rental car insurance up to the vehicle's cash value for rental car reservations booked and paid for using the card. Additionally, the account can receive a credit of up to $100 for an application for Global Entry/TSA PreCheck every four years to make business travel a smoother experience. 

Why Benzinga likes it: Excellent for business travel needs and simplified cash back.

5. Best for Students: Capital One SavorOne Cash Rewards for Students

The Capital One SavorOne Cash Rewards for Students Credit Card may be geared toward college students, but it’s a good card for anyone looking to build their credit. This is because it is available to people with no credit history or to people who have fair to average FICO credit scores. Along with that, the card is not short on perks.

Like many Capital One cards, this card offers cash back on various purchases. It’s an excellent choice if you like to spend money on traveling. When you use Capital One Travel to book your hotel and/or rental cars and use this credit card, you can receive unlimited 5% cash back on your bookings. That’s only second to the unlimited 8% cash back opportunity if you purchase through through the Capital One Entertainment ticketing platform using your card. 

You can also get unlimited 3% cash back at grocery stores (excluding Walmart and Target), dining, movie theaters, museums, streaming services and more entertainment opportunities. The card offers unlimited 1% cash back on purchases for all other categories. Cash back can be redeemed for a statement credit, check, gift cards, PayPal or Amazon. You can even set your cash back to be redeemed automatically once per year or when you’ve earned a set amount.

There are some other perks to this card, too. You’ll have access to Capital One’s CreditWise credit monitoring program to help you monitor and build your credit. You’ll also receive purchase protection, which can extend manufacturer warranty coverage on items you purchased with the card. Similarly, the card offers price protection, which can reimburse you the difference if you buy an item using the card and notice that the price for the item drops within 120 days of your purchase date.

Why Benzinga likes it: Great for building credit with rewards unique to students. 

6. Best for Businesses: Capital One Spark Cash Plus Credit Card

Businesses can benefit from cashback rewards too, and that’s why the Capital One Spark Cash Plus Credit Card should be considered. The card offers one of the highest cash back rates for business cards — an unlimited 2% on all qualifying purchases, except for hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel which earn 5%. Like other Capital One cards, you can redeem your cash-back rewards at any time without worrying about meeting a minimum threshold. 

This business credit card offers the same flexibility that other Capital One cash back cards do when it comes to redeeming your rewards. You can redeem the rewards for a statement credit, check, gift card or virtual payment. As a bonus, you can transfer the cash back rewards to another Capital One account. By doing this, you may be able to redeem the rewards for travel and/or at a higher value, depending on what other accounts you hold. 

Because this is a business card, you can get cards for employees at no additional cost. This allows everyone on your team to earn cash back rewards for the same account. You can also get a virtual card number, which adds layer of fraud protection because it allows you to make purchases online without using your real card number. This card includes travel and emergency assistance, auto rental insurance and lost luggage replacement. Other benefits include extended warranty coverage and purchase security, which can cover purchases that need to be replaced or repaired because of a loss, theft or damage within the first 90 days after purchase.

Why Benzinga likes it: A strong all-around solution for businesses with a flat rate of 2% cash back. 

7. Best for Building Credit: Capital One Quicksilver Cash Rewards Credit Card

Capital One Quicksilver Cash Rewards Credit Card is a great alternative to other cash back cards that offer rotating bonuses for spending categories because of its simplicity. The card offers unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase, except for hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel, which gets an unlimited 5% cash back rate.

Like most Capital One cards, cash back rewards never expire for the life of the account. You can save your cash back for as long as you’d like before you redeem it for a statement credit, check, gift card or other payment method. You can also set up automatic cash-back redemptions if you call a representative to do so.

This Quicksilver card comes with other benefits as well. There is no foreign transaction fee, so you can use the card for purchases outside of the U.S. without paying an extra fee. The card also offers 24-hour travel assistance, which can help you if your card gets lost or stolen on a trip by providing a cash advance and an emergency replacement card. For eligible purchases, you can also receive an extra year of warranty on items that were purchased with your card. 

The benefits of this card don’t end there. If you’re the type of person who likes to enjoy sporting events, concerts and more, you’ll be happy to know that the Quicksilver card can get you VIP access to some dining, sporting and music events. With the card, you’ll also have access to Capital One’s CreditWise service, which monitors your credit report for free and can alert you to credit report changes.

Why Benzinga likes it: It's easy to qualify for, with no annual fee and good base rewards plus interesting perks.

8. Best for Walmart Shoppers: Capital One Walmart Rewards Mastercard

Capital One offers a cash back credit card that allows you to earn more for purchases made at Walmart. This makes it a good option for people who do a good amount of shopping at Walmart, whether that’s in-store or online. It provides cash back for all other purchases, too. The cash back rewards rates are:

• Earn 5% cash back on Walmart.com purchases, including those for pickup and delivery
• Earn 2% cash back on purchases in Walmart stores, at restaurants and on travel
• Earn 1% cash back on all other purchases

Like many Capital One cards, this card features no minimum amount to redeem rewards, and rewards don’t expire for the life of your account. Rewards can be redeemed for a statement credit when you check out at Walmart.com, gift cards or travel booked through Capital One Travel. You can also redeem your points for some travel purchases, including flights, hotel stays, public transportation, Uber rides and Uber Eats orders.

One of the benefits of this card is that it is instantly issued and can be used as soon as you’re approved. You’ll also get real-time purchase notifications, security alerts and 0% fraud liability. You also can lock and unlock your card using the Capital One mobile app. 

Why Benzinga likes it: With no annual fee and a competitive 5% cash back on Walmart.com purchases, including grocery pickup and delivery, it's a great choice for the wallet of every regular Walmart shopper. 

Is Capital One a Good Credit Card?

Yes, Capital One offers excellent credit card options to meet the needs of everyone. The bank's no-credit or student offerings come with some of the most competitive rewards in the credit card industry. Likewise, Capital One remains a key competitor in the luxury, travel and business rewards sectors. With such unique offerings, many consumers could benefit from more than one credit card from Capital One. 

Capital One credit cards typically have low or no annual fees, no foreign transaction fees and rewards you can redeem with no minimum. Taken together, you can earn more on everyday purchases, entertainment, travel and more. 

Types of Capital One Credit Cards

Capital One offers various types of credit cards that usually fall into a few categories, based on specific goals like travel, cash back or credit building. It offers credit cards for consumers with fair to excellent credit and even no credit. 

• Credit-building credit cards: These cards are designed to help consumers with fair credit or no credit build a strong credit score over time. They come with fewer rewards than premium cards but still may offer competitive cash back or points. 
• Cash back rewards credit cards: They typically offer 1% to 10% cash back on purchases. Depending on the credit card, common reward categories include entertainment, gas, groceries and other travel expenses. Credit score requirements range from fair to excellent. 
• Travel rewards credit cards: These cards let you earn points that can be redeemed with Capital One's partners for flights, hotels, concert tickets and gift cards. They often come with high rewards after you reach a set minimum spend after card opening that can be redeemed for travel credits worth up to $750. You'll usually need a good to excellent credit score to get Capital One's travel rewards credit cards. 
• Business rewards credit cards: These cards blend the rewards categories of individual consumer cards, such as cash back or travel rewards, but often with higher rewards categories or extra bonuses for businesses. Capital One has rewards credit cards for businesses from fair to excellent credit scores. 

Pros and Cons of Capital One Credit Cards

Here is an overview of the pros and cons of using Capital One credit cards:

How to Choose a Capital One Credit Card

When choosing a Capital One credit card, consider your credit score, the card interest rates and any additional fees like an annual fee or foreign transaction fee. Then, look at your spending habits and reward goals.

• Do you want to build up points for a free weekend getaway?
• Do you prefer the simplicity of flat rate cashback?
• Do you regularly book through shopping portals
• Are you a big entertainment spender?
• Do you have a business that can take advantage of business rewards credit cards?

All of these questions can help you determine the best card or cards from Capital One that will fit your spending needs. For example, you might choose to get the Capital One Walmart Rewards Mastercard for your regular grocery order from Walmart and also choose a travel rewards card to maximize points for your next vacation. Just remember to spread out applications if you plan to get more than one card.

How Many Capital One Cards Can You Have?

The number of Capital One cards that you can have depends on the accounts that you hold. The general limit is two cards per cardholder, but if you had more than two Capital One cards before the rule was established in 2011, you were allowed to keep those cards. Another exception could be if you have a Capital One credit card that was originally issued by a bank that was later acquired by Capital One.

Because Capital One has some co-branded store cards with retailers such as Walmart, they are not counted in the two-card limit. Secured credit cards issued by Capital One are also not included in the limit.

What Is the Potential Credit Limit for a Capital One Credit Card?

Capital One credit cards don’t have a specific credit limit. In terms of the lowest credit score to apply for a Capital One credit card, there are cards available even for consumers with no credit history.

In terms of the available line of credit, the approved line of credit depends on the specific card and your credit history. Capital One credit card limits have been reported from as low as $750 to as high as $75,000. 

Does Capital One Offer a Preapproval Process for Its Credit Cards?

Yes, Capital One offers a simple preapproval tool to find out whether you're preapproved for card offers before you apply. You will have to answer a few simple questions about yourself, and Capital One's tool will suggest the offers you may be eligible for. With Capital One's preapproval option, you can quickly check card offers without hurting your credit score.

Should You Use Capital One Cards?

For the majority of consumers, the answer is yes. Capital One offers a vast array of credit cards to meet any consumer's needs. To reach your financial goals and build your credit score, never spend more than you can pay off each month, and set up automatic payments to pay off the card in full each month. With responsible spending habits, you'll benefit from Capital One's fantastic rewards while building a strong credit history for greater financial opportunities like lower interest rates on loans or mortgages. Need more ideas? Find the best Mastercard credit cards here.

Frequently Asked Questions