I’m able to travel the world on a teacher budget thanks to my travel hacking skills. One of the easiest ways to get started is with the right travel credit card. Travel credit cards can earn you free and cheap flights, hotel nights, and luxury experiences. In this breakdown of Chase Sapphire Preferred vs Capital One Venture, I’ll walk you through the welcome bonuses, earning rates, perks, and why one card stands out as my personal favorite.
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Welcome Bonuses
To begin the battle of Chase Sapphire Preferred vs Capital One Venture, let’s look at welcome offers. Both have strong sign-up bonuses, especially if you’re just getting started with points and miles:
Chase Sapphire Preferred: typically offers a 60,000-point signup bonus, but sometimes they offer a higher rate
Capital One Venture: 75,000-mile signup bonus
If you’re redeeming through their travel portals, Chase gives you 1.25 cents per point, while Venture gives you 1 cent per point.
However, I avoid using travel portals when I can. You’ll usually get much better value by transferring your points to their airline or hotel partners.
Earning Rates
Both cards offer solid earning rates, but they work very differently.
Chase Sapphire Preferred
5x points on travel booked through the Chase Travel Portal
5x on Lyft
3x on dining
3x on select streaming services
2x on other travel
1x on everything else
Capital One Venture
2x miles on every single purchase
5x on hotels and rental cars through Capital One Travel
If you want simple, flat-rate earning, Venture wins.
If you like maximizing categories, Chase comes out ahead. You can also build up what is known as the Chase Trifecta to maximize earnings in different categories which you can read about here.
Annual Fees & Credits
Both cards have a $95 annual fee, but the way they offset that fee is very different.
Chase Sapphire Preferred
$50 annual hotel credit when booking through the Chase portal
Complimentary DoorDash subscription
Strong travel insurance protection
Capital One Venture
$50 experience credit at Lifestyle Collection Hotels (this is not a hotel credit, this covers things like food & drinks at the property)
Global Entry/TSA PreCheck reimbursement
Travel insurance (but generally not as strong as Chase’s coverage)
I’ve used Chase’s travel insurance to get reimbursed for lost luggage. It was a lengthy process, but they did reimburse me. They also provided me with a delayed baggage reimbursement of $100 per day for 5 days. This helped me purchase clothes and other necessities while on vacation.
Transfer Partners
Both cards share a few overlapping partners, but there’s one huge difference in this Chase Sapphire Preferred vs Capital One Venture showdown:
Chase’s Big Advantage: Hyatt
Hyatt is known for having incredibly low award rates, sometimes as low as 3,500 points per night. I’ve personally booked Hyatt stays for around 8,000 points a night, which is an unbelievable value compared to other hotel programs.
If Hyatt is important to you, Chase is the clear winner.
How to Maximize Earnings
Both cards get even better when paired with other cards.
Chase Sapphire Preferred
You can pair it with Chase Freedom Flex and Freedom Unlimited to create the famous Chase Trifecta, which maximizes your earning rates across more categories.
Capital One Venture
You can pair it with the Savor card to increase points earned on dining and entertainment.
Which One Wins: Chase Sapphire Preferred vs Capital One Venture
I’ve had both of these card, but the Chase Sapphire Preferred is the clear winner for me.
It’s the card I’ll always keep because:
I love the strong earning potential with the Chase Trifecta
The $50 hotel credit is easy to use every year
The DoorDash subscription saves me money on deliveries
Hyatt as a transfer partner is unbeatable value
The Capital One Venture is still a great card, and I especially recommend it if you’re applying during a year when you need Global Entry. Beyond that, I find it harder to offset the $95 annual fee.
How I used the Chase Sapphire Preferred for an 8-night trip to South Korea
I utilized the Chase Sapphire to get round-trip airfare and hotels stays in South Korea for $395. You can read more about it here!
