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Capital One Spark Miles for Business review

  • Joseph Hostetler

    • Signing up for credit cards through partner links earns us a commission. Terms apply to the offers listed on this page. Here’s our full advertising policy: How we make money.

    Update: One or more card offers in this post are no longer available. Check our Hot Deals for the latest offers.

    If you can qualify for small-business credit cards, the current sign-up offer for the Capital One Spark Miles for Business card is as big a bonus as you’ll find on any card. You can earn 50,000 bonus miles after meeting the card’s minimum spending requirements. This card also earns unlimited 2 Spark miles per dollar on all purchases.

    Let’s take an in-depth look at the card’s benefits, bonus and how to make the most of the miles you earn — and see why this card makes our list of the best business credit cards in 2020.

    The information for the Capital One Spark Miles card has been collected independently by Million Mile Secrets. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

    You can use Capital One miles to book exotic Airbnb villas. (Photo by Lori Zaino)

    Capital One Spark Miles review

    Current bonus

    With the Capital One Spark Miles business card, you’ll earn 50,000 Spark miles (worth $500 in travel) after spending $4,500 on purchases within the first three months of account opening. That’s a sizable bonus — and because you’ll earn 2x Spark miles, the minimum spending for six months will earn you another 9,000 miles. That’s 59,000 miles after meeting your spending.

    The minimum spending requirement breaks down to $1,500 per month. If you can swing that, you’ll find yourself with $500+ in travel. There are many creative ways to meet minimum spending requirements which you can read about here.

    You can even transfer your miles to airlines to potentially receive even more value from your miles. We’ll cover this below.

    Main benefits and perks

    Flat earning rate

    With the Capital One Spark Miles for Business, you’ll earn unlimited two Capital One miles per dollar on all purchases. No confusing bonus categories, just a flat return rate.

    The information for the Capital One Spark Miles Select card has been collected independently by Million Mile Secrets. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

    If you’re interested in learning more about Capital One rewards, take a look at our guide on how to earn Capital One miles.

    Global Entry or TSA PreCheck

    Receive up to $100 in credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck when you use your Spark Miles card. Everyone on the Million Mile Secrets team has Global Entry to speed through customs. Tip: When you have Global Entry, you’ll also have access to TSA PreCheck’s expedited security.

    Purchase protection

    If an item you bought is lost or stolen, you can file a claim to replace, repair or be reimbursed for eligible items within 90 days of purchase, up to $10,000 per claim and $50,000 per cardholder.

    Warranty protection

    This benefit doubles a manufacturer’s warranty up to one extra year on eligible warranties of three years or less.

    Rental car insurance

    The Capital One Spark Miles for Business offers primary car rental insurance for damage from collision or theft when renting for business purposes. For personal rentals, coverage is secondary, which means your personal or business car insurance company pays first.

    How to use miles

    Capital One miles are worth one cent each toward travel. You can redeem your miles for nearly any purchase that codes as travel, like taxi rides, hotels, room service and flights. You don’t even have to worry about searching for available award seats or hotel nights.

    To redeem your miles for travel, buy travel as you normally would with your card. Then you have 90 days to sign into your account, find the travel purchase and “erase” it with your miles.

    You also have the option to pay for travel with your miles instead of purchasing your travel and erasing it later. You’ll find this option after signing into your account. If you use the portal, there is no minimum miles requirement to book.

    Whether you choose to use Capital One miles this way or by erasing your purchase later, you’ll get a value of one cent per mile. That makes the 50,000 mile bonus worth a minimum of $500. Or, you can redeem your miles with Capital One transfer partners:

    With most of these airlines, the transfer ratio is 2:1.5, so you’ll get 1.5 airline miles for every two Spark miles you transfer. The exceptions are Emirates, JetBlue and Singapore Airlines, which have a 2:1 transfer ratio.

    Because you earn two miles per dollar spent with the Capital One Spark Miles for Business, it’s effectively like earning 1.5 airline miles per dollar if you transfer your miles (or one mile per dollar spent in the case of Emirates, JetBlue and Singapore Airlines). This is a promising way to receive a greater value for your miles than just one cent each.

    For example, you can fly round-trip in coach from the mainland U.S. to Hawaii for 35,000 Singapore Airlines miles (70,000 Capital One miles). Depending how much flights cost, that can be a bargain. Or you can book a premium cabin on Singapore Airlines, like its amazing First class product, where one-way flights can go for more than $6,000. Read here for the best ways to use Capital One Miles.

    Is the annual fee worth it?

    This card’s $95 annual fee is hard to justify if you’ve got other travel credit cards. Its ongoing travel benefits aren’t particularly groundbreaking, so you’ve likely got similar benefits from other credit cards. After all, you can achieve 2% cash back with credit cards that have no annual fee at all, like the Citi® Double Cash Card (1% when you buy, plus 1% as you pay).

    The information for the Citi Double Cash Card has been collected independently by Million Mile Secrets. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

    Who is the Capital One Spark Miles for?

    If you have a credit score of 700+ and are looking for a big sign-up bonus, this offer is worth your consideration. This is a small-business card, so you need a for-profit venture to open this card. However, many people don’t realize they’re actually eligible to apply. If you sell items on eBay, if you’re a dog walker, if you are a tutor or freelance writer, you can be eligible for a small-business credit card. Even independent contractors, like Uber and Lyft drivers can qualify for a small-business credit card. You can simply use your own name as your business name on your application.

    Read our post on how to complete a Capital One business card application.

    Keep in mind, Capital One will not process more than one application every six months. If you’ve opened another Capital One card recently, you’ll need to wait to apply for this one.

    Capital One also pulls from all three main credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax and TransUnion) when they process your application. And they report small-business cards to your personal credit reports, so if you’re new to miles and points or want to apply for a Chase card, applying for this card might not be worth it because of the Chase 5/24 rule.

    Insider secrets

    Collecting Capital One miles is great if you’ve got an upcoming trip and no reservoir of credit card rewards to book free travel.

    The Capital One Spark Miles for Business gives you a discount on travel purchases as soon as you receive the card. You don’t need to complete any minimum spending and earn the sign-up bonus before you book your travel — Capital One miles allow you to redeem your rewards for travel you’ve already booked. You’ve got 90 days from the day you book your trip to redeem your points for those travel transactions. You can worry about earning the welcome bonus when you get home, and then apply the points retroactively.

    You can check out my post on this subject here to better understand.

    Similar credit cards

    If you prefer to earn rewards you can use for any purchase — not just travel — consider the Capital One Spark Cash for Business instead. For the same annual fee, you’ll earn 2% cash back on every purchase and can redeem your rewards for a statement credit for any amount whenever you want. The ease of use for the rewards can’t be beat.

    The Capital One Spark Cash offers a $500 cash bonus after you spend $4,500 on purchases in the first three months of account opening. This is a similar offer to what you could earn with the Spark Miles business card except that you can’t transfer the rewards you earn to airlines. To learn more, read our Capital One Spark Cash card review.

    If you like the idea of transferring your rewards to travel partners, but are looking for a card with a much smaller minimum spending requirement, then consider the Ink Business Preferred Credit Card. It has a sign-up bonus of 100,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points (worth at least $1,250 in travel when redeemed through Chase Ultimate Rewards) after spending $15,000 on purchases in the first three months of account opening. This is the highest bonus of any Chase Ultimate Rewards card and you can transfer Ultimate Rewards points to 13 travel partners including, Hyatt, United, Singapore Airlines and Flying Blue (Air France and KLM). To learn more, read our Chase Ink Business Preferred review.

    Bottom line

    With the Capital One Spark Miles for Business card you can earn 50,000 bonus miles after meeting the minimum spending requirements. You can use the miles you earn toward nearly any type of travel purchase, or transfer them to 17 travel partners such as Air Canada, Flying Blue, Singapore Airlines and Accor.

    The $95 annual fee is waived the first year, meaning you could give the card a test run before you have to pay the fee, and there are no foreign transaction fees.

    With the minimum spending included, you could end up with 59,000 Spark miles, which are worth at least $590 toward travel or up to 44,000 airline miles (for the airlines with a 2:1.5 ratio). You could earn yourself a free vacation on things your small business already pays for.

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    Editorial Note: We're the Million Mile Secrets team. And we're proud of our content, opinions and analysis, and of our reader's comments. These haven’t been reviewed, approved or endorsed by any of the airlines, hotels, or credit card issuers which we often write about. And that’s just how we like it! :)