Capital One Savor Rewards Review: Best Beginner Credit Card

The Capital One Savor Rewards (formerly Savor One) is the best no-fee card on the market. For zero annual fee, you get a ton of perks (in addition to a sign up bonus), zero foreign transaction fees, and good acceptance pretty much everywhere (I’ve tried this card in the US and internationally and have never had any issues). While this card won’t get you any lounge access or premium travel, it’s a great starter card for building credit and getting set up in the reward travel space. This one to me is an easy keeper card – since there’s no cost and solid benefits, I plan on keeping this one forever so there’s no worrying about future cancellations or maximizing expected value here (cough cough, Amex Platinum).

Furthermore, there’s a way to convert this card’s cash back *into Capital One travel points* if you have another, higher – tier capital one card (more on that later). Given I value capital one points at least at 1.5 cents per point, this can effectively turn this card into an earning powerhouse for daily spend.

Right now, this card has a decent sign up bonus: (apply HERE). The current offer is a $250 cash bonus after spending $500 within 3 months. As a reminder, there is no annual fee on this card.

In This Post:

1. The Benefits
2. Who Should Get This Card
3. Who Shouldn’t Get This Card
4. What Are the Points Worth?
5. The Backdoor Way to Maximize Travel earnings By Combining With Another Capital One Card
6. Summary

The Benefits

1. Sign Up Bonus. This card offers a sign up bonus of $200 after $500 in spend within 3 months. Assuming you’d spend $500 in 3 months (I think most folks should qualify here), this is free money (and tax free, at least in the US)
2. Unlimited 3% cashback on groceries and dining (excluding Walmart and Target) and 1% on everything else. The card also offers 5% off hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel – I don’t think this last multiplier is worth much, though.
3. Zero foreign transaction fees. This card does not have any FX fees which is super helpful for any travel. Anecdotally, when using this card abroad, I’ve never had any issues with acceptance. This card is part of the MasterCard network.
4. Zero annual fee (you get the perks for no cost) – I consider this a benefit because this card offers an unusual amount of perks for not having any fee.
5. Access to Capital One Entertainment and Dining. To be honest, I’ve never gotten value out of either of these but definitely nice to have options.
6. 50% off at Capital One Cafes. Honestly, this one is a pretty good perk and Capital One actually has decent coffee and a lot of locations. They partner with Verve Coffee Roasters. I don’t know anywhere else in NYC where you can get a latte for $2.50, so this is definitely a solid perk for any coffee drinker in an area with one of these.

Who Should Get This Card

• You are new to the credit card space / rewards space, and are looking for a starter card with no annual fee with solid perks
• You want to test out the Capital One ecosystem
• You want a “keeper card” that you can always have and use for daily food or grocery spend, as well as travel abroad with no foreign transaction fee

Who Shouldn’t Get This Card

• You want airport lounge access. This card doesn’t offer it
• You want lots of travel benefits. This card doesn’t have any
• You want a massive sign up bonus you can use for a cool trip. Not possible on this one (although, for no annual fee, this one is as good as it gets).

What Are the Points Worth?

The base points on this card are worth a flat 1 cent per point, eligible to be redeemed for cashback. Another way to think about this is a 1x point per dollar, you’re basically guaranteed 1% off any purchase you make. On dining and groceries where you get the 3x multiplier, you get a guaranteed 3% off any purchase you make.

You’re also able to redeem your points for a bunch of different options. However, just redeeming for cash is usually the best deal. However, there is one way to get even more than one cent per point from the Capital One Savor Rewards card…

The Backdoor Way to Maximize Travel earnings By Combining With Another Capital One Card

One thing that is not advertised by Capital One but is possible is converting your cash back on the Savor Rewards Card to Capital One travel points.

In order to do this, you need either a Venture Rewards or Venture X Credit Card.

This to me is the real hidden earning secret for this card. Once you’ve had this card for awhile and if you have solid credit, you can apply for one of the Venture cards offers rewards in miles, not cashback.

Once you have both, you are able to convert your Savor One Cashback to Venture Miles. Why does this matter?

You can earn miles using the Savor One as your daily spend card with the high multipliers on Grocery and Dining, and then convert them to capital one miles on your other card to be used. The 3x multiplier is the highest offered by Capital One, and is on a popular spend category most people probably spend a significant amount of money on per year.

To summarize:

Step 1: Earn points on Capital One Savor Rewards at a high rate on grocery and dining spend

Step 2: Convert those points to Capital One miles made available by your other capital one credit card and voila – you can redeem them for miles on all of capital one’s travel partners.

In order to convert those points on the website, follow these steps:

1. Go to “Rewards” on your account
2. Scroll to the bottom and click “Combine rewards”

3. Select the right account (your other capital one card that earns miles, not cash back) and confirm your transfer to miles:

Capital One miles are worth more than 1 cent per point to me. Big caveat here is their value will vary depending on what type of travel you redeem them for, but in my experience you can usually get at least 1.5 cents per point in value on capital one miles.

This means that with this unlock, this card goes from 3x cash back on dining and groceries to 3x * 1.5x = 4.5x (at least) on dining and groceries after you convert. In other words, you’ll get at least 4.5% off on every purchase (functionally) by using this backdoor conversion, which is as good as it gets for a zero annual fee credit card.

For example, I redeem my capital one miles for (mostly) free flight to Croatia this past summer.

Summary

In conclusion, if you’re just starting out in the credit card space and looking for your first rewards travel card that can help you build credit and where you’ll also get paid for it, look no further.

For those already in the credit card game, this one is worth considering but there are definitely some more interesting (although more expensive) options out there you can use for maximizing value for travel.