Capital One Venture Card

The second credit card I suggest opening on my 2026 Beginner's Card List is the Capital One Venture Card. This is because not only does the card have a low annual fee and great benefits to off set the fee (see below!), but Capital One is known to be rather picky for approvals. If you have one or more inquiries on your credit in the past six months, you may or may not be able to get approved. You can use Capital One's preapproval tool to check your odds. Also, if you freeze your credit (I freeze with all of the bureaus. This is free to do) and unthaw 24 hours before you apply.

This is also because in Nov 2025, Capital One implemented a rule that in order to qualify for sign up bonuses you must open the cards "in order" of lowest tier to highest tier. This is you need to open the cards in this order to earn a sign up bonus on each: Venture One, Venture, and Venture X).

Often the Venture One card is skipped (due to lower sign up bonus/benefits not worth taking on up spot of you 5/24). 

In essence, it's recommended to open a Venture card BEFORE opening a Venture X card. 

If you open a VentureX card first, you will not be eligible for a Venture Card sign up bonus until 48 months have passed since earning the Venture X sign up bonus. 

Capital One Venture Card

Standard Offer: Spend $4,000 in 3 months and earn 75,000 points

Current Elevated Offer (Jan 2026): Spend $4,000 in 3 months and earn 75,000 points + a $250 travel credit (to be used in Capital One Travel portal). This offer is worth a minimum of $1,000 in travel!

Annual Fee: $95 

5/24: This is a personal card, therefore it takes a spot for the Chase 5/24 rule (Chase will only allow you to have 4 personal credit cards from ANY bank/store/airline/hotel/etc in the previous 24 months. If you exceed this limit, Chase likely will automatically not approve you for more cards. Read Item 2 here for more beginner basics)

Card Benefits:

• 2x points on all purchases
• 5x points on travel purchases booked through Capital One Travel (including rental cars)
• No foreign transaction fees
• Up to $120 credit towards TSA PreCheck or Global Entry when you use this card to apply (note, credit is available once every 4 years)

This is a great no-brainer card to use on all of your purchases and to take on international travel, since it's earns 2x's points on all purchases AND doesn't have foreign transaction fees!

Capital One Benefits:

• Ability to combine points with anyone! 
• Ability to transfer points to Capital One Travel partners for direct bookings and to gain larger value from points (compared to Capital One Travel portal, where 1 point equals 1 cent). See Capital One Airline and Hotel Partners, plus other ways to use Capital One Points here.
• Ability to redeem miles for travel-related purchases (as long as the purchase is coded as "Travel"). This can be a great option to use points to cover the cost of items such as rental cars, airbnbs, and even Disneyland tickets (when purchased through a travel agent like Undercover Tourist)

Summary

 If you're interested in applying for a Venture Card, here is a referral link! This is free to you, but gives me a small kick back of points for using my referral. Note that you will likely be directed to Capital One Pre-approval tool from this link. After completing the pre-approval tool, you can accept the Venture Card offer!

Thank you as always for your support! If you already have a Venture Card and want to earn more Capital One Points, I suggest opening the VentureX next. If you already have Venture Miles, here are Capital One's Transfer Partners and ways to use your Venture Miles.

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Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here.

Trying to figure out your next card? Here is my FREE personalized Next Card Recommendation form. Simply fill this out and I'll let you know my suggestions.

Wondering how I keep all of this information organized? Check out my Points Tracker!

Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!