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Benefits and perks of the Capital One Spark Miles for Business

  • Joseph Hostetler

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    The Capital One® Spark® Miles for Business credit card is one of the most flexible business cards for earning travel rewards — it even earns a spot on our list of the best business credit cards for travel.

    Currently, it has an intro offer of 50,000 Spark miles (worth $500+ in travel), which you’ll earn after meeting the card minimum-spending requirements. Plus, you’ll earn 2 Spark miles per dollar on every purchase, so it’s a great card to have if much of your spending falls outside of traditional bonus categories found on other business credit cards. Also, you can transfer Capital One Spark miles to 17 travel partners, which really opens up your redemption options.

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

    (Photo by Alex Poison/Shutterstock)

    Capital One Spark Miles for Business benefits and perks

    To earn the Capital One® Spark Miles card’s 50,000-mile bonus, you need to spend $4,500 in the first three months of account opening. The card’s $95 annual fee is waived the first year.

    It is a business credit card, which means you’ll need to have some sort of a for-profit venture to be eligible — but you don’t need to be running a full-time business to qualify for a business card. You can even get a business card without an EIN. You could be a part-time freelancer, Uber driver, or dog walker and qualify for a small-business card. If you’re a sole proprietor, you can even use your own name as the name of the business on the application and your Social Security number as the business tax ID. Check out our step-by-step guide to completing a Capital One business card application.

    Just note, Capital One business cards will show up on your personal credit report and Capital One is known to pull from all three major credit bureaus. Because this card will appear on your personal credit report, it will count toward your Chase “5/24” limit. So you’ll want to be sure you have the Chase credit cards you want before you apply.

    Be sure to also read our tips to improve your Capital One approval odds.

    Unlimited 2x miles everywhere

    Even before writing about credit card rewards became my full-time job, it was a part-time hobby. But for most people, it’s not worth the time and effort to earn every last point and squeeze every last drop of value from them.

    This is where the Capital One® Spark® Miles for Business card really shines. With it, you don’t have to worry about whether or not you’re using the right card for a specific purchase and every mile is worth at least one cent toward travel purchases, so it’s easy to know what your points are worth.

    This is as simple as it gets.

    Earn 5x on hotels and rental cars

    In addition to earning 2x miles everywhere, you can earn 5x miles on hotel and rental car purchases made through the Capital One Travel site. This is a solid return for hotel spending, even if it doesn’t make the Spark Miles one of the best hotel credit cards.

    One thing to be aware of is that bookings through third-party sites, like the Capital One travel site, won’t earn elite credit points for a hotel chain and you typically won’t receive any elite status perks on these stays.

    Redeem rewards for nearly any travel purchase

    Earning credit card rewards is often much easier than redeeming them. Again, this isn’t the case with the Capital One Spark Miles card.

    You can use your Spark miles to erase eligible travel expenses from your statement at a rate of one cent per point. In the past, I’ve used Spark miles to erase an expensive $600 car rental charge. We just paid with the card and I went online to redeem the points. It couldn’t have been easier.

    When you’re erasing travel charges, you don’t need to worry about blackout dates or finding available award nights or flights. Just book the travel you want, when you want. One of the hidden benefits is that you can also earn frequent flyer miles (or hotel points) at the same time you’re getting free travel.

    One thing to note is that in order to erase a charge with Spark miles, it has to code as “travel” with Capital One. Most of the purchases you’d expect to code as travel will do just that, but there are some gray areas. For example, there are lots of reports of Airbnb coding as “travel,” whereas some vacation home rental sites, like HomeAway, will code as “real estate.”

    Transfer miles to airlines

    You can transfer Capital One miles to 17 travel partners. This gives you more options for redeeming your miles.

    You can transfer miles to these partners at a 2:1.5 ratio (2 Spark miles = 1.5 airline miles):

    And to these partners at a 2:1 ratio:

    Having the ability to transfer miles to airlines gives you options when it comes to finding great deals. For example, it costs 55,000 Aeroplan miles (82,500 Spark miles) to book a one-way business-class flight to Europe Zone 1 (Germany, U.K., France and more).

    If you used those 82,500 Spark miles to erase a travel expense, they would be worth $825, but that same business-class flight could easily cost $2,500+ out of pocket. It’s easy to see how the ability to transfer your miles can really power up your travel.

    Primary car rental insurance

    I frequently rent cars and I make sure to always pay with a credit card that comes with primary rental car insurance. That saves me the $15+ per day the rental company normally charges for the same coverage.

    The Capital One Spark Miles card provides primary car rental coverage, up to the cash value of the vehicle, for theft and damage to your rental car if it’s rented primarily for business purposes. For personal rentals the coverage is secondary.

    Free employee cards

    Keeping track of employee spending is free and easy with the Capital One Spark Miles card because you can get employees their own cards at no extra cost.

    You can easily download purchase records and quarterly or yearly summaries and spreadsheets in formats compatible with Quicken, QuickBooks, and Excel.

    Visa SavingsEdge

    Once you enroll your card in the Visa SavingsEdge program you’ll automatically save up to 15% at select merchants.

    The discounts are for all sorts of purchases from specified hotels, office supply stores, gas stations, restaurants and more. There is no cost to join, so this program is just extra money in your pocket at the end of the day.

    No foreign transaction fees

    This doesn’t seem like a big deal until you’ve got an extra 3% fee tacked onto your vacation expenses. Remember, foreign transaction fees typically apply to anything you pay for in a foreign currency, not just when you make a purchase outside of the country.

    So it’s extra nice that the Capital One Spark Miles for Business doesn’t have foreign transaction fees.

    Zero fraud liability

    One of the unsung heroes of credit card perks is the fact that you aren’t liable for any fraudulent charges made to your card. This is huge. If you exist online at all, your information is eventually going to be a part of some big data breach. It’s happened to me several times.

    With the Spark Miles business card you won’t have to pay for charges you didn’t make and you’ll get real-time alerts by text, phone or email if someone attempts to use your card information fraudulently.

    Global Entry or TSA PreCheck

    Receive a credit of up to a $100 for the application fee for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck when you pay with your Spark Miles card. Everyone on the MMS team has Global Entry to speed through customs and when you have Global Entry, you get TSA PreCheck expedited security benefits too.

    Overall value

    The first year you have the card, you’re guaranteed to receive a value of at least $590 from meeting the spending requirement and earning the card’s intro offer. The annual fee is waived the first year, so that bonus is pure profit. Capital One is essentially paying you $500+ just to try out their card.

    Depending on the nature of your small business, you could very well save hundreds more per year — but one of the biggest money savers will come from the primary rental car insurance you’ll receive when renting a car for business purposes. I literally save $100+ per year with this credit card perk alone.

    Conservatively, this card is worth $700 the first year you have it — and it can easily be worth $200+ every year after, just by using a couple of the benefits.

    Bottom line

    The Capital One Spark Miles for Business ranks among the best business credit cards on the market. If you don’t want the hassle of rotating bonus categories, blackout dates, off-peak awards, hotel reward night availability, etc., this is the card for you.

    What do you think, is the Capital One Spark Miles for Business for you? Or are you interested in one of the other top business credit cards?

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    Featured image by Wyatt Smith.

    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! :)