Spark Miles From Capital One Review

Spark Miles from Capital One is a travel rewards card with a good rewards rate and few frills. 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. And 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.

If you and/or your employees do a lot of traveling, this card can be a handy way to save a little money. On the other hand, a card like Capital One’s Spark Cash offers similar rewards but with even more flexibility (and less hassle) because your rewards come in the form of cash back. Additionally, some of the more specialized travel rewards cards will offer more than the standard one cent per point that Capital One dishes out, though these cards may carry more restrictions on how you can apply those points.

Is the Capital One Spark Miles card right for your business? Keep reading for the details!

Spark Miles From Capital One At A Glance

Eligibility

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 a number of 740 or above. Keep in mind this number is just a guideline — there is no officially published credit score for this card.

If you don’t know your credit score and you want to learn what it is, check out one of Merchant Maverick’s favorite (and free!) credit score websites.

Rewards For Spending

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.

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

As with Capital One’s other travel card, the Spark Miles Select, this bit of plastic gets you 5x miles on hotels and rental cars. There’s a catch, though: You’ll only earn the five-miles-per-dollar rate when you book hotels and rental cars through the Capital One Travel portal. All other charges made outside of Capital One Travel (like room charges or upgrades) snag miles at the card’s standard 2x rate. Additionally, booking hotels and rental cars through other services besides Capital One Travel won’t trigger the 5x rate.

Redeeming Rewards

As with other Capital One business credit cards, you have a few options when it comes to redeeming miles earned with the Spark Miles.

Use Miles For Travel

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.

Multiple Redemption Options

If you get the hankering to redeem rewards for something beyond travel, you can do that too. With the Spark Miles card, you can 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.

Transfer Miles To 15+ Travel Partners

For those who do want to redeem for travel but can’t find a suitable option through Capital One’s travel portal, there is also the possibility of transferring 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.

Rewards Don’t Expire

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.

Card Benefits

You’ll receive a nice array of perks with this card through both Capital One’s business benefits and Visa Business Benefits packages.

Free Employee Cards

A key feature to look for in any business credit card is free employee credit cards. The Spark Miles includes this benefit, which will allow you to dole out cards to your employees at no extra cost — and reap the rewards when they spend with the card.

Global Entry/TSA PreCheck Credit

A unique feature compared to other Capital One cards is the Spark Miles’s statement credit that covers the application fee for either Global Entry or TSA PreCheck. This credit is worth either $100 (if applying for Global Entry) or $85 (if applying for TSA PreCheck).

Fraud Coverage & Alerts

Capital One markets that Spark Miles users are covered by “business-grade protection.” This jumble of buzz words might not sound like much, but Capital One’s fraud coverage is still pretty solid. Should the company notice suspicious charges or fraudulent activity on your account, it can notify you via email, text, or phone call.

You’ll have the additional protection of $0 fraud liability, which means you won’t be liable for unauthorized charges if your card becomes lost or stolen.

Beyond the above security benefits, an employee’s card (or yours) can also be locked should it go missing or stolen.

Account & Business Management

Capital One promises a bundle of online tools to aid your account management. These tools include setting a monthly due date, automatic payments, and an itemized year-end report that summarizes your annual spending.

Additional management features range from a list of repeating payments for subscriptions or bills to transaction details covering merchant addresses, logos, phone numbers, and maps (when available).

Capital One is also friendly toward external accounting software, and you can download purchase records into other formats, such as Quicken, QuickBooks, and Excel.

Visa Business Benefits

Outside of Capital One’s core benefits package sits Visa Business Benefits. Highlights of these additional perks include purchase security and extended protection. The purchase security perk will give you the possibility of having an eligible item replaced, repaired, or reimbursed within 90 days of purchase. For an extended warranty, you’ll get the manufacturer’s warranty doubled on eligible items (up to one additional year).

Beyond purchase protection, Visa Business Benefits also grants users a worldwide 24/7 emergency card replacement service as well as an auto damage waiver covering eligible rental car damage due to collision or theft.

Other Benefits

There are a few other benefits wrapped in with the Spark Miles too. These include:

• Rental collision coverage
• Travel assistance
• Roadside assistance
• Online/mobile app account access
• Eno, Capital One’s 24/7 virtual assistant

Rates & Fees

With the Spark Miles card, you’ll have to pay an annual fee after your first year. However, its APR is comparable to other cards on the market, and there are no foreign transaction fees to worry about.

A Competitive APR

With an APR of 21.24% (variable), you’ll be looking at an interest rate that’s very reasonable to other available 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 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 that 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 ($10 or 3% of the cash advance, whichever is higher) and late payment fees (up to $39).

Is Spark Miles From Capital One Right For You?

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, consider the Spark Miles Select card)
• You want to redeem some or all points for things other than travel

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