Do you enjoy a night out at your favorite restaurant? Are you one who tries new places every weekend? What about a movie or a show in Vegas? Wherever your need for entertainment or love of food takes you. The Capital One Savor One Credit Card is hard to beat with it’s no annual fee and high earning rate on food and entertainment purchases.
This is a cash back card that comes with no annual fee. This is something that is good to keep in mind as this is a card you could keep for the long haul. This card also comes with no foreign transaction fees, which is a selling point of all Capital One cards. This card also comes with a moderate sign-up bonus of $150 cash back bonus after spending $500 on purchases with the first 3 months of account opening.
Sign-Up Bonus tips
When it comes to the sign-up bonus there are a few things to consider. The first one is capital one includes language in their terms that suggests customers are only eligible for the sign-up bonus if they are a new customer. This is generally being applied to new accounts for a product. So, if you have never had the Savor One card before you should be okay. But bear in mind that the way the language is worded you could be at risk for not receiving the sign-up bonus.
More on not receiving a sign-up bonus. Some have complained that when they used the pre-qualify tool on capital one’s website and then approved they never received their sign-up bonus after meeting the requirements. Keep in mind these are complaints from disgruntled customers, so there may be more to the story. But just to play it safe I would recommend using the pre-qualifying tool and if it looks like you have a good shot at being approved either clear your cookies or open an incognito browser.
Savor One Categories
- 3% cash back on dining and entertainment
- 2% cash back at grocery stores
- 1% cash back on all other purchases
What is an Entertainment Purchase for Savor One?
According to Capital One and entertainment purchase is defined as a ticket purchase made at a movie theater, record store, video rental location, does not include streaming and subscription services. Tourist attraction, amusement park, aquarium, zoo, dance hall, billiard and pool establishment, bowling alley, professional sporting event, theatrical promoter, or concert promoter.
Ultimately if the merchant you are purchasing your entertainment from uses an entertainment code that Capital One determines falls under one of those categories, your purchase will earn you 3% cash back. Some restaurants and stores inside say a sporting arena may be coded as “food” or “merchandise”, respectively.
Interestingly, Capital One lists a few non-qualifying entertainment purchases that they don’t offer 3% cash back for. These would be purchases made at golf courses, country clubs (including membership fees), collegiate sporting events categorized as “universities”, charitable organizations that provide live entertainment, amusement park tickets purchased on third-party sites or on entertainment and resort packages categorized as “travel” or “hotel”.
What is a Dining Purchase with Savor One?
Like the entertainment category, it will mainly come down to how the merchant has set up codes for their business. But according to Capital One, you can expect purchases at restaurants, fast-food places, coffee shops, cafes, lounges, bakeries, bars and nightclubs to count towards Dining purchases.
You can see there are plenty of opportunities to earn that 3% cash back with the Capital One Savor One credit card. While the big brother, if you will to the Savor One card. The Savor card earns 4% on dining and entertainment it does come with a $95 annual fee (waived in year 1).
Earning on Groceries
While not game changing, this card does earn a respectable 2% cash back at the grocery store. There is no cap to the amount of cash back that you can earn in any category, so that is a plus. But frankly there are better options out there when it comes to purchasing groceries. If you are willing to pay a $95 annual fee The Blue Cash Preferred Card from American Express offers 6% cash back at U.S. supermarkets on up to $6,000 in spending each year.
If you don’t want to pay an annual fee the Walmart Credit card and the Target Red card (both debit and credit versions) offer 5% back that you can use on grocery purchases.
SavorOne Earning Potential
One nice thing about the Capital One Savor One card is that there is no maximum to the amount of cash back you can spend. So if you spend a lot in entertainment and dining out you can rack up that cash back quickly. If you think you spend $10,000 or more you may want to consider the regular Savor card which has a $95 annual fee and you can earn 4% cash back in the dining and entertainment category. Also with no cap on earning potential.
Overall Thoughts
If you like eating out and not paying for an annual fee this very well might be the best option for you. The sign-up bonus is decent for a no annual fee card and you can even use this while travelling internationally. If you want a no annual fee credit card that earns 3X in more than just dining and entertainment. The Wells Fargo Propel card might be a better option for you.