10 Capital One Credit Card SECRETS You NEED to Know

Hey, credit warriors, welcome to the show. And this is the latest video in our series on secret benefits of certain credit cards. We've already covered Chase and American Express. And in this video, I'm going to cover 10 secret benefits of Capital One cards. It is a credit card issue that many people use to build their credit. But also in recent years, they've opened some of the most exciting airport lounges. And they also now offer transfer partners where you can redeem miles for premium cabins like business class and first class at good rates. But Capital One has some of the most intricate rules for the aspiring cardholder to get around. So in this video, we are going to cover it all. Oh, and this video is sponsored by Aura, but more on that later. Number one, application restrictions. You need to know. So Capital One is unusual in the fact that it limits the number of Capital One branded personal credit cards in your wallet to just two. Now, this may not count for co-branded cards like if you have the Capital One Walmart card or card for small business. There's also data showing that you can have a total of four cards, including co-branded, et cetera. But if it's their own brand of personal credit card, it is supposedly just two. That's why we recommend the Capital One duo of the Venture X and Saver One, two cards that work really well together. In addition to that, Capital One will only approve you for one of their cards, whether personal or business, once every six months. So don't think you can pick up that Capital One duo straight away. You need to apply for one card first, use it paid off every month and then six months later, apply for another, and then that's it for you. That's two. You could be the guy with the largest collection of credit cards in the world, but only two of those are from Capital One for personal credit cards. At least Capital One is also the only credit card company that has threatened me with closing my account unless I use the card. So you really need to use your cards for them to offer you more cards, upgrades or even keep your account open. They also are very sensitive to recent hard pulls and they often deny people because of that. Luckily, there is a way to find out if you are pre-approved. Number two, the Capital One pre-approval tool. This is a tool to see what cards you are pre-approved for. Capital One pulls from all three credit bureaus, which is something that most banks don't do. You don't want to harm your credit score by a few points on all three of the credit bureaus if you end up getting denied for the card. That's such a waste of three hard pulls. So check out Capital One's pre-approval tool. You can search for it on Google. You have to enter your info, your social security number, etc. And you can see what Capital One offers you based on your credit profile. I'm pre-approved for only a couple of cards, the Saver One and the Venture One. Kind of disappointing, actually, since I would like to be approved for the Venture X. But me having only one Capital One card that I never use could be something to do with it, or the fact that I've let some high balances report to the credit bureaus recently. So if I was going to apply for the Venture X, I would sort out my credit first and then check the pre-approval tool again. But the pre-approval tool still isn't a 100% guarantee of an approval. Even less so, is it a 100% guarantee of a denial? Actually, I would say maybe it's a 95% certain on the approval. But just because a card doesn't appear does not mean you would be denied. It gives you peace of mind that you won't waste a hard pull on all three bureaus. But it's highly likely you could still be approved for a card despite not being pre-approved on the pre-approval tool. The scandalous thing is that Capital One often pre-approves you for versions of their cards that don't have welcome bonuses. Like here, you can see I am pre-approved for the Saver One for good credit. But if you look, you will discover that there is no welcome bonus on that card. You need the one for excellent credit to get the welcome bonus. And you might not have realized this, but Capital One has multiple versions of each card for different levels of credit. There's four Quicksilvers, three Savers and four Venture cards. And the lower level ones don't have welcome bonuses. So just be aware of that. You may want to improve your credit a bit and then come back and see if you're offered a version of a card that has a welcome bonus. Number three, upgrade offers. Once you have a Capital One credit card, you may have started off with a Platinum card, which earns no rewards. It just helps you build credit. You may be thinking of getting something better, but you may not want to do a new application and waste that second Capital One slot and three hard pulls on all your credit bureaus. So you decide to do a product change or upgrade. With Capital One, it's all about building a relationship with them. They pay close attention to the amount of spending you do on their cards. And if you never use the card that you have with them, they won't offer you anything. No product changes, no credit limit increases. So spend some money on the card and pay it off each month. At the same time, make sure your credit score is rising. Then you can try the Capital One product upgrade link. I will put it in the description section below. You have to enter your password for your account, and then it should offer you some upgrade options. For me, it just shows no upgrade available since I never use my Capital One Quicksilver card and their system registers that and doesn't offer me anything. I think this comment from a discussion about Capital One on Reddit sums it up nicely. So the fundamental issue with Capital One is that absolutely every decision there is made by a computer. The human reps have zero input or authority. It makes them absolutely one of the most frustrating credit card providers to deal with. Basically, Capital One puts you into buckets with similar customers. Remember the whole thing about different versions of cards for fair, good and excellent credit? Well, that's kind of a clue. But then it also seems that they have a distinction drawn between people who use their cards and people who don't. And the level of income that you've entered into your account. So you have to just play their game, get a Capital One card, use it every month. Don't max it out. Build your credit at the same time. Update your income if it's going up. And then you will get offered product upgrades to cards that you can earn rewards on. And our next thing. Number four, credit limit increases. This is another area where bucketing can be an issue, since many people get Capital One cards with limits of just 300 to 500 dollars when they first start building credit. They are going to want credit limit increases as they move along. So same rules apply. Make sure you're using your card, improving your credit and updating your income if it's going up. Now, if you request a credit limit increase over the phone, this is most likely going to be a hard credit pull. But if you request it through Capital One's app, there will only be a soft pull on your report. Click profile in the bottom right hand corner, then account features and settings, then choose the card you want an increase on. I only have one, so it only shows up with one option. Update your income if it's increased. Remember, it's household income, not just you alone. Then enter your employment status. Being self-employed is a red flag. So most people recommend just choosing employed and then entering the occupation, no matter whether you're self-employed or not, then enter your rent or mortgage payment. And if you have other family members in the house who earn income, you can divide it amongst you. So if it was a couple who both earn an income and your rent's a thousand dollars, you could divide it by two and put five hundred dollars. Then lastly, you enter your desired credit limit. If you are approved, you will get an instant notification. If not, you get a message saying that they will send you an email in two business days with their decision. That's what I got when I tested this. And again, that is because I have one Capital One card that I never use. All right. Let's now move on to talking more about the rewards on Capital One cards. But first, guys, if you want to apply for cool credit cards and reap all the benefits like cashback, free travel, et cetera, you need to protect your credit score and protect your credit file from identity fraud. If you let your personal data get into the hands of identity thieves and they set up fraudulent accounts in your name, it could tank your credit score and end up costing you thousands of dollars to sort out. Theft of your personal data is way more common than you think. The CEO of UnitedHealthcare recently said that one third of Americans' data was exposed in a recent hack of its systems. AT&T also had a recent data breach that affected 73 million Americans' data. And because of this, I have partnered with Aura, who is sponsoring this video. Aura is an all in one identity protection and credit monitoring service. Aura constantly monitors the dark web for your data, such as emails and passwords stolen and breaches, so you can take action before it's too late. Aura also constantly submits removal requests for your personal information on data broker websites such as True People Search, where your personal info can be visible for all to see. In addition, Aura monitors your credit report for suspicious activity. It reduces annoying robocalls. Yeah, those kind of calls. It reduces them. Then there is also a VPN to keep your info safe when using public Wi-Fi and a password manager. In fact, Aura does like six things in one and does it for a way better price than if you signed up for all those things individually. And my viewers can get a two week free trial of their service by going to Aura.com slash Ben Hedges or clicking the link in the video description. You can either leave your personal data at risk or protect yourself by getting Aura today. Number five, transferring cashback to points. So Capital One, like many other banks, issues both cashback earning credit cards and points earning credit cards. In fact, Capital One calls their points Capital One Miles. Some examples of cashback cards from Capital One would be the Capital One Quicksilver or the Capital One Saver. And for points, we have the Venture X or any of the other venture cards. But did you know that if you have a Capital One cashback earning card, you can actually convert that cashback into Capital One Miles at a rate of one cent in cashback equals one mile as long as you have a miles earning credit card to transfer it to. And it's very easy to do. In your account of your cashback card, just click View Rewards. Then go down here to Move Rewards. And for me, it doesn't let me do it because I don't have any other Capital One cards to move it to. But if you did have other cards like a Venture or a Venture X, they would show up here and you could transfer that cashback over and it becomes Capital One Miles. And why is this a big deal? You may ask. Well, it is because transferable points can be worth a lot more than one cent per point, which is the rate you got for them when you transferred cashback. OK, one cent in cashback equals one point. But actually, you're going to get more value. So if we go and look at what the points guy values Capital One points at, he gives it one point eight five cents per mile. And that's because when you transfer them out to airlines and you book award tickets, the value is going to be higher, sometimes even up to three, four or five cents per mile in premium cabins. So if we just take that average rate of one point eight five cents per mile, that three percent cashback you are earning on dining on your Saver One card is now five point five five percent. Number six, using miles to pay for past travel purchases. Capital One cards like the Venture and Venture X give you a unique way to cover travel purchases with miles. You can erase any travel purchase made on the card in the past 90 days. And Capital One's definition of travel is broad. So this means that you can cover things like Airbnbs that are not bookable through Capital One's travel portal or most other travel portals, for that matter. And speaking of Airbnb, if you want to stay at my Catskills Mountains cabin north of New York City, do check the link in the description. But yeah, it's that easy, guys. You just book on any travel website or you book in person. All right. If it's one of those things that you can book in person, like obviously subways, that's going to be in person. Trains might be in person. And then in your account, choose the option cover travel purchases. And because it covers anything in the past 90 days, it means, say, you were working on a welcome bonus like 75000 points on the Venture card. You could potentially book the travel that you want to do and perhaps even take your trip before you even get the bonus points in your account and then still have that paid for because it's anything in the past 90 days is eligible to be covered. Only caveat with this is it's just one cent per point. So the Venture cards bonus of 75000 points would be worth seven hundred and fifty dollars. It's a lower value than if you transferred it out to airlines and book premium cabins. So there's no way you would do this to cover a business class flight, but for economy class flights, the value could be similar. OK, close to one cent per point. And obviously, if you wanted to use the bonus to cover like an Airbnb, this would be the only way. Number seven, best transfer partners. Capital One has 18 transfer partners, but some are better than others. Not all of them transfer at a one to one ratio. Well, actually, most of them do now, but there's still one or two that don't. There are many articles online on what people think are the best of these transfer partners. Now, everyone has their own opinion, but let me give you a few that will be of interest to people living in the US. Although Capital One's partners don't include any of the big three US airlines, you can actually book all three of them by transferring out to other airlines and using their miles to book thanks to airline alliances. So you have Turkish Airlines, which is part of Star Alliance. So that's useful for booking US domestic tickets on United, which is also part of Star Alliance. Avianca is also part of Star Alliance and they're a Capital One transfer partner, too. So you could also use them for that purpose to book United. Then you have British Airways, which is part of One World Alliance. And thus, that means you can book US domestic tickets on American Airlines. British Airways is also a transfer partner of American Express, Chase and City. So it's really easy if you have cards with several different banks to pool points in British Airways. In addition to using BA Avios for American Airlines flights, you can, of course, also book BA flights to London if you want. Then lastly, if you want to book Delta flights in the US, you can transfer to Virgin and use Virgin Miles to book Delta flights. There are a load of other partners that can offer good value, too, but the ones to avoid would be Ever Air. It's a four to three transfer ratio instead of one to one. OK, so if you transfer 1000 miles, you're only going to get 750 in your Ever Air account. You might be able to get a good deal on a flight to Taiwan, but not much else. Finnair, their award tickets tend to be more expensive than other airlines in the same alliance, which is One World. So instead of using Finnair, you might as well just transfer to British Airways and you should be able to book all the same flights. Then there are also a couple of hotels that aren't really worth it. Wyndham's points are worth about one cent per point. So in many cases, using points to cover the charges in the past 90 days would offer the same value. And then Choice Privileges points are worth about 0.6 cents per point, yet they still transfer at a one to one ratio from Capital One. So just book directly and then use points to erase the charge. Number eight, lounge access. So this one may not really be a secret, but Capital One has some pretty extensive lounge access. Actually, on the Venture X, which after factoring in the travel credit and the anniversary miles, the $395 annual fee actually comes down to paying you $5 to hold the card. All right. So you get paid $5 per year for some of the best lounge access out there. The Venture X gets you access to Capital One, Plaza Premium and Priority Pass lounges. Now, the Capital One lounges currently only have three locations, but they have proved very popular and a clear rival to Amex Centurion lounges and Chase Sapphire lounges. Plaza Premium lounges have 250 locations in over 30 countries. And the cool thing is, if you just have the Venture card, which is only a $95 annual fee, you actually get two complementary visits to either the Capital One lounge or the Plaza Premium lounge. Number nine, no foreign transaction fees. Now, usually you have to get to the mid tier of credit cards with most banks before you see no foreign transaction fees as a benefit. So paying $95 a year annual fees or more. But with Capital One, none of their cards have foreign transaction fees. Even those $0 annual fee cards like the Saver One, the Quicksilver and the Platinum. Even on this version of the Quicksilver, for fair credit, foreign transaction fees are not listed in the fees section. That's really unusual for lower tier cards. And if you have a Capital One card, you might as well make the most of it. Let's now move on to our last Capital One secret. Number 10, free Uber One membership. All right. So this one is a temporary benefit that's lasting until close to the end of 2024. And there are two versions of it on the following cards. The Saver, the Saver One, the Saver One for students and the Quicksilver Rewards for students. You get a credit for Uber One membership, which gets you no delivery fees on food and groceries and 6% back in Uber cash on Uber rides and a few other benefits. Plus, the card is then going to give you 10% cash back on Uber and Uber Eats purchases. Then for these cards, Quicksilver, Quicksilver One and Quicksilver Secured, you just get the Uber One membership credit. And this all lasts until November 14th, 2024. Amex did this a few years back on their gold card for a limited time, too. Now, obviously, it is to get you to sign up for Uber One and then keep using it beyond the time that you get the credit for it. So past November, since you get used to it and you just say, all right, I'll pay for it now. It's actually a really clever marketing technique for Uber, but it's a very useful benefit, especially if you live in an area like a large city where you can really use it to get food delivered or take Uber rides. Even out here in Middletown, New York, where I live, it's the most up and coming area in the state, guys. Uber is becoming more and more useful for food delivery. So if you have one of these cards, don't forget to sign up for Uber One. And if you don't, it could be a reason to consider getting one. Just remember, if you don't want to keep using it past November 2024, do cancel it at that time. Guys, that is the video for today. I hope you enjoyed it. You can find links to many Capital One cards we mentioned, like the Venture X and the Saver in my credit card guide below. And if you value being able to get approved for any of these cards, don't forget to protect your identity and credit score with Aura. Get a two week free trial of their service with my link below. Please subscribe to the channel if you're new. We'll see you next time. Bye bye.