Capital One Savor Review: Best Rewards Card for Foodies

The Capital One Savor Rewards Credit Card is an outstanding no-annual fee credit card offering strong earning potential on popular spending categories.
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At a glance

Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card

$250 Cashback

Offer Details:

Earn $250 cashback after you spend $500 on purchases in your first 3 months from account opening.

Why we like it

The Capital One Savor fills a unique space in the rewards landscape. While it is a cashback card, those with a Capital One Venture Rewards Card can convert earning into Venture Miles to recieve outsized value. The 3% cashback rate on entertainment, dining, streaming services, and grcoery stores represents a significant return on major spending categories and can help consolidate a broader Venture Miles store.

  • 8% Cash Back on Capital One Entertainment purchases

  • 5% Cash Back on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel (terms apply)

  • 3% Cash Back at grocery stores (excluding superstores like Walmart® and Target®), on dining, entertainment and popular streaming services

  • 1% Cash Back on all other purchases

Pros

  • No annual fee

  • Decent intro bonus for a low threshold

  • Strong earning on big-spend categories

  • Can be redeemed as cashback or miles if cardholders has other Cap 1 products

Cons

  • Cardholders limited to cashback if they don’t have another Venture Miles earning card

Overview

Everyone’s got to start somewhere.

In the credit card rewards world, it might as well be with the delightfully useful Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card. With no annual fee, a nice little intro bonus, and a healthy dose of strong rewards-earning rates, this cash-back card is perfect for starters.

Since the card costs nothing to own it makes every dollar you earn in cashback true profit. When a card has an annual fee, you’re immediately fighting to ensure you offset the fee and it could take months before you use enough perks to get out of the hole.

Let’s take a look at the rewards, benefits and perks of the Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card.

Who is the Savor Cash Rewards for:

The Savor card is an excellent long-term presence in anyone’s wallet who has a preference for cashback or travel — especially as that cashback can potentially be converted into Venture Miles which unlocks the ability to get huge value by transferring your rewards to an array of travel partners like British Airways, Avianca Lifemiles and more.

The Bottom Line:

The Capital One Savor Rewards Credit Card is an outstanding no-annual fee credit card offering strong earning potential on popular spending categories. Both beginners, seasoned pros, and travel enthusiasts can find lots of value in its offerings.

Intro Bonus

The Savor currently comes with a $200 cashback introductory offer. To earn this bonus you’ll need to spend $500 within three months of opening the card. Although it’s not a huge bonus, getting 40% of your money back is a good deal in anyone’s book. 

And while it may not be as impressive as a 100,000-point bonus on a premium travel card, it’s a generous perk for a no-annual-fee card and gives newbies the chance to earn it safely without being tempted to spend too much to hit the minimum purchase requirement. 

New cardholders can also enjoy 0% APR for the first 15 months, and 19.24%-29.24% variable APR after that, on both purchases and balance transfers, which can help finance a new purchase with no interest or allow you to pay down debt quicker.

Pros & Cons

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of the Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card.

Pros

Cons

Benefits & Perks

The Capital One Savor Rewards Credit Card is a no-annual fee card. That generally means it doesn’t come bursting with perks. With that said, it does boast a few nice features to help increase its value.

0% Intro APR for 15 months

Cardholders can enjoy 0% APR for the first 15 months on both purchases and balance transfers. This helps make the card attractive to those trying to pay down debt on another card with a high interest rate and can help finance larger purchases with no interest cost during the intro period — but don’t let it lure you into a false sense of security. Pay your bills!

No foreign transaction fees

It may be a small thing, but having no foreign transaction fees on a credit card goes a long way for those who ever travel internationally. Ensuring you’re not paying more than what you need to is a basic rule for looking after your finances. Many no-annual fee cards don’t include this benefit, so this is a real plus for the Savor.

Insurance benefits

The Capital One Savor Rewards Credit Card comes with a few decent coverage benefits to help safeguard your travels and purchases. Cardholders get:

  • Extended warranty protection
  • Travel accident insurance
  • 24-hour travel assistance services
  • $0 fraud liability

Earning rewards & redeeming points

Earning cashback is what the Capital One Savor Rewards Cashback Card does best. It comes loaded with strong earning rates across many popular spending categories — and it’s especially great for those with a busy social life.

Earning rewards

8% cashback on Capital One Entertainment Purchases

The highest cash-back rate is reserved for entertainment purchases on Capital One’s own portal. The portal claims that it sells tickets to over 500,000 events in partnership with Vivid Seats, ranging from concerts, to live sports to theater. 

It also has some pretty impressive packages for special events as well as pre-sale ticketing for Capital One cardholders. It’s something to check in on now and again.

5% cashback on hotels and car rentals on Capital One Travel

Similarly, you can earn 5% cashback on purchases made on Capital One Travel. The travel platform is far more useful than Capital One Entertainment, as it’s similar to other online travel booking platforms like Expedia or Priceline. You can book nearly any hotel, flight, or car rental that you could think of and earn this high cash-back rate. 

It’s good to use the platform when searching for travel in case the prices there are strong, but note that the platform does have some limitations and it may make sense to book elsewhere if prices are lower.

3% cash back on dining, grocery stores, entertainment, and streaming services

This is where things get interesting. You’ll earn 3% cashback on the following big-spend categories:

  • Dining
  • Grocery
  • Entertainment
  • Streaming Services

 

3% cashback on popular categories like these is impressive by any standard. Consider the average American’s biggest monthly expenses outside of housing are dining out and groceries: this means you could be earning a ton of rewards on a lot of the spending you’re already doing. 

Better yet is the breadth of each category. Entertainment, for example, covers everything from movie theatres and zoos to theme parks and other tourist attractions. The streaming section is comprehensive, too, including popular services like Netflix, Hulu, Spotify and DIsney+.

It’s important to note that no other no-annual-fee card offers cash-back rates as high as this for these popular spending categories.

1% cashback on everything else

Everything else outside of the categories listed above earns 1% cashback.

Redeeming points

Redeeming for cashback

The most straightforward way to redeem your earnings is for cashback. You can receive your cashback as a statement credit or a check. This option offers the most flexibility, as you can redeem your rewards for literally anything: your rent payment, a flight to Mexico, a new jacket, a bowling ball… the list goes on. To use it as a statement credit, you’d simply apply the credit to a purchase you’ve made recently. The credit will appear in the next statement period. 

Redeem as gift cards or on Amazon.

It’s also possible to redeem your cashback in the form of gift cards. While this might feel logical, I generally advise against it. Instead, buy gift cards using your SavorOne and then use your cashback to cover the costs. This way you’ll earn cashback on the purchases and increase your returns slightly.

It’s also possible to redeem your cashback directly on Amazon after linking your account. You’ll notice the option at checkout once the card is linked.

Redeem as Capital One Venture Miles

The last, and most valuable, way to redeem your cashback is to turn it into transferrable travel miles. This is only possible if you also own another Capital One credit card that earns miles, like the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card, Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card, or Capital One Venture Rewards X Credit Card

If you convert your cashback to miles, you’ll be able to score outsized value from them. We currently value Capital One Miles at around 1.7 cents each. That means if you play your cards right, that $200 introductory offer could be worth $340 in travel (or more).

With this in mind, the Savor becomes a real prospect for serious points and miles enthusiasts, as it can pair well with a travel card like the Venture. You’d essentially be earning 3x miles on the 3% cash-back categories like dining, grocery, streaming services, and entertainment.

Check out the best ways to use Capital One Miles to get some ideas of the possibilities when you transfer your miles to one of Capital One’s 15 airline or hotel partners, including Emirates, Air Canada, British Airways, Wyndham Rewards, Virgin Atlantic, and more.

Is this card right for you?

The Capital One Savor Rewards Credit Card is a great card for many types of people. This includes credit card beginners as well as anyone who does spend a fair amount on dining out and groceries. 

And those with more experience will spot the strong value to be gained from its high earning rates with the potential to turn cashback into Capital One Venture Miles. 

Additionally, its focus on entertainment means those with a packed social calendar will be earning loads of cashback with the Savor.

Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card

$250 Cashback

Offer Details:

Earn $250 cashback after you spend $500 on purchases in your first 3 months from account opening.

Why we like it

The Capital One Savor fills a unique space in the rewards landscape. While it is a cashback card, those with a Capital One Venture Rewards Card can convert earning into Venture Miles to recieve outsized value. The 3% cashback rate on entertainment, dining, streaming services, and grcoery stores represents a significant return on major spending categories and can help consolidate a broader Venture Miles store.

  • 8% Cash Back on Capital One Entertainment purchases

  • 5% Cash Back on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel (terms apply)

  • 3% Cash Back at grocery stores (excluding superstores like Walmart® and Target®), on dining, entertainment and popular streaming services

  • 1% Cash Back on all other purchases

Pros

  • No annual fee

  • Decent intro bonus for a low threshold

  • Strong earning on big-spend categories

  • Can be redeemed as cashback or miles if cardholders has other Cap 1 products

Cons

  • Cardholders limited to cashback if they don’t have another Venture Miles earning card

Editorial Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone. This post contains references to products from one or more of our partners and we may receive compensation when you click on links to those products.

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