Capital One Spark Miles Review

What Is Capital One Spark Miles?

Spark Miles from Capital One is a solid business credit card for travel rewards. With a flat rate of two miles for every dollar spent (plus five miles per dollar spent on hotel and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel), the Spark 2x Miles offers a simple and appealing rewards system.

Plus, unlike some other travel programs, your miles can be used for most travel arrangements — not just flights on your airline of choice or nights in specific hotels.

Does Capital One Spark 2x Miles deserve to be counted among the best business credit cards? Keep reading to find out!

Capital One Spark 2x Miles: Quick Facts

Rewards & Perks

With the Spark 2x Miles card, you’ll get a solid rewards rate when making purchases. What’s more, heavy spenders will like this card’s valuable early spend bonus.

With a high flat rewards rate and a great welcome bonus, Spark Miles earns a perfect score in the Rewards category.

An Early Spend Bonus Worth 50K Miles

By holding a Spark Miles card, you’ll be eligible to receive 50,000 miles — the equivalent of $500 — if you spend $4,500 on purchases within the first three months after opening your account. This is certainly a solid bonus, even if it won’t break the bank.

Once you qualify for the early spend bonus, you’ll get your 50,000 miles within two billing cycles. Unsurprisingly, current or previous Spark cardholders aren’t eligible for the bonus offer.

Unlimited 2x Miles On All Purchases

The base rewards scheme with Spark Miles is simple: You’ll collect two miles for every dollar you spend on purchases. Because there are no category restrictions, this is a very solid rate that matches up well against most other cards on the market.

5x Miles On Hotels & Rental Cars

All Capital One business credit cards earn you 5x rewards on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel, and Spark 2X Miles is no exception. Just remember that booking hotels and rental cars through other services besides Capital One’s travel portal won’t trigger the 5x rate.

Redeeming Rewards

The easiest and most logical redemption method is to redeem your miles for travel. When booking travel through Capital One, you can use your miles on airfare, hotels, vacation packages, car rentals, and more. There are no blackout dates, seat restrictions, or required minimum redemption amounts.

You can also redeem miles for cash as a check or account credit, gift cards from an array of merchants, and more. Keep in mind that if you choose one of these redemption options, your cash value may vary from the standard one-cent-per-mile rate.

For those who do want to redeem for travel but can’t find a suitable option through Capital One’s travel portal, you can transfer your miles to select air travel loyalty programs. At the time of writing, you can transfer miles to over 15 partners, including British Airways, Emirates Skywards, Air Canada, and Air France KLM.

Just like every other Capital One business credit card, the miles you earn with the Spark Miles card won’t expire as long as your account is active. In some cases, you might be able to transfer miles between Capital One accounts, but whenever your account is closed, any unredeemed miles will be lost.

Rates & Fees

With the Spark Miles card, you’ll have to pay an annual fee after your first year. The card’s APR is on the high side as well, and there is no intro 0% APR period. Accordingly, this card gets only average scores in this category.

A High APR

With an APR of 26.24% (variable), you’ll be looking at an interest rate that’s higher than that of many other business credit cards. Of course, this APR won’t come into play as long as you pay off your balance every month.

A $95 Annual Fee After The First Year

While waived for the first year, bear the Spark Miles’s $95 annual fee in mind. If you make all your purchases at the card’s standard 2x miles rate and redeem miles for the standard one cent per mile, you’ll need to spend at least $4,750 on purchases annually to recoup the annual fee’s cost ($95 / 0.02 = $4,750).

No Foreign Transaction Fees

As with the rest of Capital One’s business credit card lineup, Spark Miles carries no foreign transaction fees. That is especially crucial for a travel card — those who venture abroad frequently won’t have to worry about paying more than they have to when making purchases outside the country.

Other Fees To Keep In Mind

Besides an annual fee, the Spark Miles comes with a couple of additional fees to watch out for. These extra costs include cash advance fees ($5 or 5% of the cash advance, whichever is higher) and late payment fees (up to $39).

Features

You’ll receive a nice array of business features and benefits with this card — enough to earn this card a perfect score in this category.

Eligibility Requirements

The Capital One Spark Miles card is marketed to applicants 18 years or older with excellent credit. Per the Capital One website, excellent credit users should have:

• Never declared bankruptcy or defaulted on a loan
• Been no more than 60 days late for a payment in the past year on credit cards, medical bills, or loan repayments
• A loan or credit card for at least three years with a credit limit of $5,000 or higher

For those curious, an excellent credit score generally amounts to around 740 or above. Keep in mind this number is just a guideline — there is no officially published credit score for this card.

Customer Service

Capital One offers a full range of customer support options to all Spark Miles cardholders.

With 24/7 direct customer support and an extensive FAQ that comes in three sections, the card earns a good score in this category.

Capital One Spark Miles Reviews

Spark 2% Miles earns strong marks from cardholders on review sites. The card earns an average user score of 3.7/5 at Wallethub (221 reviews) and 4.2/5 at Credit Karma (just 5 reviews). These scores don’t look spectacular, but they are higher than what the average business credit card gets with these websites.

Final Verdict: Is Spark Miles From Capital One Right For You?

Spark Miles from Capital One is a strong business credit card for travel rewards. The consistent earning rate will see you earning rewards without having to keep track of revolving spending categories or anything of the sort.

The card’s relatively high APR, annual fee (waived the first year), and lack of an intro 0% APR period hold back the card’s score a bit, but for the right business owner, Spark Miles offers abundant value.

On the other hand, as we note in our review of Capital One’s Spark Cash, that card offers similar rewards but with even more flexibility (and less hassle) because your rewards come in the form of cash back. If you’re able to pay off your balance in full every month (Spark Cash is a charge card), look into Spark 2% Cash.

If your credit score isn’t quite in the range Capital One likes to see for this card but your business’s metrics are strong, you may want to consider one of the top corporate credit cards instead.

You might want to apply if:

• You plan on putting more than $19,000 worth of charges on your card annually
• You or your employees do a lot of traveling, and you want a card with flexible travel rewards
• You want a simple way to earn travel rewards for your business

You might want to look for a different card if:

• You plan on spending less than $19,000 annually with your card (if so, read our Spark Miles Select review)
• You want to redeem some or all points for things other than travel

Credit Card Review Methodology

We spend hours researching and evaluating each credit card that we review at Merchant Maverick, placing special emphasis on key characteristics to generate our ratings.

When rating credit cards and credit card issuers, we use an 18-point rubric that looks at rewards and perks, rates and fees, features, eligibility requirements, customer service, and user reviews. We weigh each section differently to calculate the total star rating.

• Rewards & Perks: 40% of the total star rating
• Rates & Fees: 30% of the total star rating
• Features: 15% of the total star rating
• Eligibility Requirements: 5% of the total star rating
• Customer Service: 5% of the total star rating
• User Reviews: 5% of the total star rating

Each section is further broken down into granular, weighted subsections, in which we examine specific attributes like APR, introductory offers, cash back and travel rewards, credit score requirements and disclosures, foreign transaction fees, and the availability of employee cards.

Read more about how we rate business credit cards.