Why I applied for the Capital One Savor card

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Until recently, all of my focus on credit card rewards was directed at accumulating airline miles.

A free flight can save you thousands of dollars so airline credit cards seemed far and away the most valuable route. Plus, my husband and I travel frequently enough that I couldn’t imagine needing any other rewards card outside of an airline or travel credit card. We had our spending system totally worked out and adding another card to the mix felt like it would only complicate things.

But I’ll share how and why the Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card changed my mind.

The information for the Capital One Savor Cash Rewards card has been collected independently by Million Mile Secrets. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

An offer I couldn’t refuse

Again, I hadn’t considered opening a cashback credit card — or any other credit card, for that matter. I was totally content accumulating miles on my Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (which I still use regularly, but my strategy has changed).

Then a friend sent me a note that the Capital One Savor was offering a $300 cash bonus for all new cardholders who spent $3,000 within the first three months and I jumped at the opportunity. The time was right to expand my rewards benefits and add a cash back card to the mix.

When opening a new card, it’s important to decide if you’ll be able to make the initial spending requirement. Knowing my current budget and how my husband and I use our other cards, this would have been close, but I had a business trip coming up and knew I’d be charging a lot of reimbursable expenses to a credit card. That meant I could easily meet the requirement of $3,000 in three months on this card. Planning out when to apply for a credit card is an important part of the process.

The #1 reason I love the Capital One Savor

There’s one very specific reason that I love using this credit card: It’s so fun to check my statements and see how much credit I’m accumulating. I’m kind of hooked, actually. I love to check every morning to see what my current credit is, and it’s really easy to cash in the credit whenever you want. Everyone has a different strategy, but I like to save my rewards credit for the end of the statement cycle, so I can reduce my monthly bill by as much as possible and all at once.

How to use this card

Essentially, the question is: How much money did I earn in cash-back rewards this year and was it significantly more than the $95 annual fee? If so, I’ll keep it. I imagine that this card will easily pay for itself over the next year, but I want to be sure before committing fully. Since I also use my Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, I’ve had to re-assess my spending strategy to maximize rewards between the two cards.

Here’s how the Capital One Savor card earnings break down:

• $300 statement credit after you spend $3,000 on purchases within the first three months of opening the card
• 4% cashback on dining, entertainment purchases, and popular streaming services
• 3% cashback at grocery stores
• 1% cashback on all other purchases

Because the Chase Sapphire Preferred® offers great rewards on travel purchases, I use this card when booking flights, rental cars, hotels, and anything else travel-related. If I want to ramp up my miles, I’ll also use the Chase card for restaurant purchases. Otherwise, I’m using my Capital One Savor card for everything else, especially entertainment like concert tickets, which currently earn 8% cashback when booked through Vivid Seats through January 2023.

I used the $300 bonus to adopt a dog

I could have used my bonus on anything, but I wanted to spend it on an item or experience that I wouldn’t be able to purchase with rewards points. There was one item that I’d had my eye on for a week and didn’t want to wait any longer to make the purchase. So I used my $300 for…

My husband and I had been thinking about adopting a senior dog for a few weeks, and when we saw Lolo at the Boulder Humane Society, we were totally smitten right away. After learning that she’d been there for several months and that no one had expressed interest we were heartbroken for her, which made our decision so much easier.

I knew that receiving $300 for free was a great opportunity to pay it forward and use the money for something that would really mean something to both us and her. So we pulled the trigger and adopted our pup. Between the adoption fees, medicine, food, pet bed, leash, collar and a few toys we were right at $300. It was the perfect way to spend our bonus and ensure that the money spent would give us (and her!) years of happiness. The timing was perfect, and I’ve never been so happy to spend $300 before!

The Capital One Savor is a great card for vacation expenses

The Capital One Savor is also a solid pick if you’re looking for a cash back credit card to wipe out vacation expenses like dining out, groceries and entertainment. Capital One says entertainment includes movies, plays, concerts, sporting events, tourist attractions, theme parks, aquariums, zoos, dance clubs, pool halls or bowling alleys, record stores and video rental locations.

Jasmin used the Capital One Savor almost exclusively for meals and attractions when they were in Hawaii, and used the cash back bonus to erase a chunk of those expenses. It’s really easy to redeem cash back with the card. You can request a check or statement credit, any time, with no minimum redemption amount.

The card is especially great for restaurants and takeout, and it’s saving me a bunch of money during this coronavirus period of social social distancing and delivery-centric spending.

In the past, the Capital One Savor bonus has been as high as $500 cash back after meeting minimum spending, but we don’t know if that offer will ever return. This was actually the first Capital One card I’d ever applied for, so I was a little nervous, but fortunately it was an instant approval.

Side note — the Capital One Savor is a metal credit card and it is heavy (it feels even chunkier than the ultra-premium Chase Sapphire Reserve®. So it’s got a bit of a cool factor going on for it.

Do you have a cash-back rewards card that you can’t live without? What made you choose this card over all the other options? Or are you considering opening a cash-back card and weighing the pros and cons? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.

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