Is the Capital One SavorOne card worth it? Absolutely — this is NOT your standard no annual fee card

We look at dozens and dozens of credit cards to compare features and benefits and bring the best cards to your attention. Through this searching, many cards start to look alike. Cards without annual fees are nice to have, but they tend to be stripped down in benefits compared to many of the annual-fee versions within the same card family.

However, the Capital One® SavorOne® Cash Rewards Credit Card is a no annual fee card that bucks this trend. It offers perks and rewards that even beat out many cards that carry annual fees. This is a perfect card for city dwellers who eat out and enjoy shows or entertainment often. You’ll even get bonus points for takeout/delivery and groceries, all of which are exceptionally important during this coronavirus quarantine situation!

Here are some of the best reasons why the Capital One SavorOne card is worth it if you’re looking for a new no annual fee credit card with awesome features.

Is the Capital One SavorOne Card worth it?

When you open the Capital One SavorOne Card, you’ll earn $150 cash bonus after spending $500 on purchases in the first three months of account opening. That’s a great welcome offer with a relatively low minimum spending requirement. This card is awesome for anyone who dines out frequently or attends events like live shows, movies and concerts.

The feature that sweetens this deal even more is the fact that the Capital One SavorOne card has no annual fee.

Here are some of the best reasons why the Capital One SavorOne card is worth it.

Unlimited Capital One SavorOne Rewards With up to 3% Cash Back

The best benefit of using a credit card for purchases is the rewards that you can enjoy.The Capital One SavorOne card offers cash back rewards up to 3% back on popular categories, including:

• 3% cash back on dining (includes restaurants, cafes, bars, lounges, fast-food chains and bakeries)
• 3% cash back on entertainment (includes ticket purchases at movie theaters, professional or semi-professional live sports, amusement parks, tourist attractions, aquariums, zoos, dance halls, record stores, pool halls and bowling alleys)
• 2% cash back at grocery stores
• 1% cash back on everything else

Dining includes ordering takeout or delivery, so you’ll earn lots of cash back on the inordinate amount of money you spend with GrubHub during COVID-19. While most cash-back cards offer 1-1.5% cash back, this card offers 3% cash back. You’ll also receive a fair return for grocery store purchases.

In addition, there is no limit to the amount of cash back you can earn at any of these earning rates.

Easy and flexible rewards with the Capital One SavorOne

It is very easy to redeem rewards with the Capital One SavorOne card. All rewards are granted in the form of cash back. This means you can use your rewards for anything you want, whether that means travel rewards (which we love), tickets to an awesome sports event, your next meal or anything else.

Cash back is as simple as it gets. Capital One makes it easy to redeem the cash back in the form of either a check or statement credit. I usually recommend getting a statement credit since it lowers the balance on your credit card, and the statement credit is credited very quickly. But I like that check is still an option.

In addition, Capital One offers other convenient options for your rewards. For example, there is no minimum to the amount of cash back you can redeem. Also you can choose to automatically redeem cash back whenever you hit a certain amount (like every $25 for example, automatically transfer it as statement credit to your card). Your hard-earned cash back never expires either as long as your account is open.

Special access to experiences and events

Capital One offers opportunities to get special access to unique events and experiences that you can’t get anywhere else. This is a great compliment to a card that already offers you 3% cash back for entertainment purchases.

This includes premier culinary experiences, big-time sports events and must-see music events. You can see all of the upcoming Capital One events online.

You can purchase discounted tickets, on-site perks, VIP experiences, and get access to cardholder lounges with your Capital One SavorOne card.

Capital One SavorOne travel perks

The SavorOne card also offers travel benefits, making it a good option to take when you’re on the road. There are no foreign transaction fees when traveling abroad, which is good to see on a no annual fee card.

This card offers other nice perks:

• Travel Accident Insurance: Get automatic insurance for a covered loss at no extra charge when you use your SavorOne card to purchase the entire fare
• Extended Warranty: Purchase an eligible item with your Capital One SavorOne and you’ll get additional warranty protection at no charge.

Tech Savvy Benefits

For those of you who love fresh new technology and want to have a card that offers the most tech-savvy features, then the SavorOne is sure to deliver. Capital One offers lots of really cool features including:

• Instant Purchase Notification: Get a push notification to your phone each time a new purchase is approved. You will immediately know if your card is being used fraudulently
• Instant Card Lock: Suspect that your card might be lost or stolen? Instantly lock it from the app until you find it.
• Virtual Card Numbers from Eno®: If you are making online purchases, you can choose to generate unique virtual card numbers for every website that you visit. If that site is compromised, your real card information is still safe
• Account Alerts from Eno®: The Eno virtual assitant uses machine learning and AI to determine if it suspects suspicious activity on your card and will send you messages via the Capital One app. You can chat with the assistant like a real human to resolve the issue.
• Manage Recurring Merchants: The Capital One app and website will automatically track recurring payments where your card is stored online. This makes it easy to manage ongoing subscriptions.

Capital One puts a lot of effort into their mobile app and it shows. They have one of the best mobile apps in the industry. This offers a lot of convenience and protection while using your SavorOne card.

Should you get the Capital One SavorOne card?

Because the card has no annual fee, you can keep the card open as long as you want. Keeping card accounts open can have a positive impact on your credit score since one factor it considers is the average length of your accounts. Banks like to see longer average lifetime on your accounts, and no annual fee cards are great ways to increase that metric.

Note that the Capital One SavorOne card also has a “big brother,” the Capital One® Savor® Cash Rewards Credit Card, which offers an even higher cash-back bonus of 4% cash back on dining and entertainment (other bonus categories are the same). It’s also got a higher welcome bonus of $300 cash back after spending $3,000 on purchases in the first three months of account opening.

The Capital One Savor has a $95 annual fee (waived the first year). So you will want to weigh how much you are likely to use those bonus categories to determine if the extra annual fee is worth an additional 1% cash back in those categories. In order to break even with the $95 annual fee over the no annual fee SavorOne, you would need to spend $9,500 per year in dining and entertainment categories (or ~$792 per month). If your spending is higher than this amount, then you will earn more cash back from the additional bonus, than the annual fee for that card.

The Savor card also earns 8% cash back on tickets at Vivid Seats through May 2020. Read our post on the Capital One Savor vs SavorOne before you make a decision.

Chase “5/24 rule”

Many of our favorite credit cards for beginners are Chase credit cards. These cards have a restriction called the Chase “5/24 rule” which means that Chase will not approve you for a card if you have opened five or more credit card accounts within the last 24 months. For this reason, we usually recommend beginners start with Chase cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card before they open other accounts which might impact their ability to get this card because of the 5/24 rule.

Then, when you have the Chase cards you want, you can consider cards from other banks like the Capital One SavorOne.

Bottom line

The Capital One SavorOne card is a no annual fee credit card that offers a ton of value to anyone who wields it. It comes with a $150 cash bonus after spending $500 on purchases in the first three months of account opening. And with 3% cash back on dining and entertainment purchases, the cash back will add up quickly for anyone who eats out frequently or likes to go out to movies and concerts.

The card makes reward redemption easy and offers tons of other benefits like tech-savvy perks, access to unique experiences and travel protection benefits.