Capital One SavorOne Cash Rewards Credit Card review: Great for social foodies

For a credit card with no annual fee, the SavorOne offers competitive cash back rates in everyday categories and plenty of redemption options. It also carries a good intro APR period on purchases and balance transfers that may appeal to new cardholders.

Rewards: Boosted, unlimited cash back rates

The SavorOne earns 3 percent cash back in several everyday categories, including dining, entertainment, grocery store purchases (excluding Walmart and Target) and popular streaming services.

Generous cash back on these categories can be hard to find, especially since the SavorOne has no spending limits on your boosted cash back rate. Although other cards come close to matching this offer, they might include different categories or have spending limits for the highest-earning categories before the rate drops to 1 percent. For example, the Blue Cash Everyday® Card from American Express offers the same cash back rate at U.S. supermarkets, U.S. gas stations and U.S. online retailers, but it’s capped at $6,000 in purchases per year, then it earns 1 percent.

The SavorOne card’s categories cover many significant expenses, making the card an excellent option for earning cash back every day without limits. But while most major grocery store purchases earn you 3 percent cash back, it’s important to consider that superstore and wholesale club purchases will only earn you 1 percent cash back. Furthermore, the card’s list of eligible streaming services excludes a few major services like Prime Video and some popular audiobook and fitness programming subscriptions as well.

Something else you should consider about SavorOne's cash back rates is that the highest-earning cash back categories are very specific. You’ll only get the card's best cash back rates on Capital One Travel and Entertainment purchases and through Uber and Uber Eats. If you like to order your food through a different app or plan your travel and social calendar on different platforms, then this card may not benefit you.

Sign-up bonus: Valuable welcome offer

Rates and fees: Decent intro APR for a low-fee card

The Capital One SavorOne card is affordable both upfront and over time. It lacks some of the fees you might find on other cards and cements itself as a user-friendly choice in a card landscape saturated with options. It comes with no foreign transaction fees and no annual fee, making it a low-cost card to carry. 

It’s not common for rewards-specific cards to have a solid intro APR offer for new cardholders, and the SavorOne keeps itself competitive with a slightly-longer-than-average offer. The balance transfer fee is on the lower end, too: 3 percent of the amount transferred in the first 15 months of account opening (no fee for amounts transferred at the transfer APR). Many cards also apply a higher balance transfer fee after a few months, but new SavorOne cardholders have the entire 15-month introductory window.

(See Rates and Fees)

Bankrate credit cards editor Robert Thorpe uses the Capital One SavorOne Cash Rewards cards to get the most out of his online shopping experience:

I got this card because it fit with my strategy of using cash back cards to essentially save money in areas I spent the most in. I used to use this as my go-to card for eating out but then switched to the Citi Custom Cash® Card. I now mostly use this for the shopping discounts. I would routinely check issuer’s websites to see what cards I prequalified for and which offers fit my spending habits. I prequalified for this card. At the time, I didn’t have a card that rewarded my spending on dining and take-out. I liked the sign-up bonus, so I got it.

— Robert Thorpe— Editor, Personal Finance

Another Bankrate expert, Nouri Zarrugh, stands by the SavorOne Cash Rewards card as a great way to save on food delivery and for complimenting rewards earned with other Capital One cards.

I don’t get food delivered regularly, but free delivery and discounts on Uber Eats orders have come in handy, and I haven’t seen a perk like this offered on any cards other than Capital One rewards cards. Add this perk to the card’s ongoing cash back on dining purchases, and I’d say the SavorOne is easily the best card for food delivery.

A lot of people may not realize that you don’t need to redeem SavorOne rewards as cash back. You can also move rewards from the SavorOne to a Capital One travel card at a 1:1 ratio. Considering how many categories this card covers without charging an annual fee, it could help you build a surprisingly powerful travel rewards credit card stack.

— Nouri Zarrugh— Senior Editor, Credit Cards

The Capital One SavorOne Cash Rewards card slots nicely between two industry heavyweights: the Chase Freedom Unlimited® Card and the Bank of America® Customized Cash Rewards credit card. While both of these cards feature a $0 annual fee and strong rewards, each card excels over its competitors and falls short in some areas.

While groceries, dining and entertainment are three of the SavorOne’s highest cash back categories, these are not the biggest spending categories for everyone. Here are cards you can pair with the Capital One SavorOne to bolster your cash back strategy and maximize your earnings.

The Capital One SavorOne Cash Rewards credit card is one of the best cash back cards on the market, especially for foodies and social butterflies. The sheer variety of the card’s bonus cash back categories allows you to earn cash back at a great rate on plenty of purchases while enjoying a generous introductory offer on new purchases. For a card with no annual fee, you can find plenty of value with the SavorOne. (See Rates and Fees)

However, if you don’t spend a lot of money on entertainment, groceries or dining, you could have difficulty maximizing rewards with this card. Plus, there are other rewards cards that have higher rates on some of the SavorOne’s purchase categories, although those cards might not include all of the categories. The SavorOne is a great catch-all card if you want to just hold one credit card. But rewards strategists and maximizers may be better off pairing a flat-rate card with a rewards card that comes with higher rates in one or two categories.

*All information about the Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card and Chase Freedom Unlimited® has been collected independently by Bankrate and has not been reviewed or approved by the issuer.

For Capital One products listed on this page, some of the above benefits are provided by Visa® or Mastercard® and may vary by product. See the respective Guide to Benefits for details, as terms and exclusions apply.

We rate credit cards using a proprietary card scoring system that ranks each card’s estimated average rewards rate, estimated annual earnings, welcome bonus value, APR, fees, perks and more against those of other cards in its primary category.

Each card feature is assigned a weighting based on how important it is to people looking for a card in a given category. These features are then scored based on how they rank relative to the features on other cards in the category. Based on these calculations, each card receives an overall rating of 1-5 stars (with 5 being the highest possible score and 1 being the lowest).

We analyzed over 150 of the most popular rewards and cash back cards to determine where each stacked up based on their value, cost, benefits and more. Here are some of the key factors that influenced this card’s overall score and how the score influenced our review: