Capital One Venture X Business Card review: Business travel MVP

The Capital One Spark Miles for Business serves as a lower-tier version of the Venture X Business, offering similar rewards rates and basic features for a $0 intro for first year; $95 after that annual fee (See Rates & Fees). The most notable features are its TSA PreCheck or Global Entry application fee credits and travel protections — which can vary depending on which Visa or Mastercard tier you receive.

The Spark Miles for Business doesn’t have many advantages over the Venture X Business, but it’s an excellent budget-friendly alternative if you have a startup business that involves occasional travel. If you’re unsure whether you can use the Venture X Business cards’ credits enough to offset the annual fee, the Spark Miles for Business could be a more suitable option.

However, it could actually take more effort to recoup the annual fee on the Spark Miles for Business than it would to recoup the fee on the Venture X Business. There aren’t any travel credits or substantial perks of monetary value, so you’d need to dip into your hard-earned rewards to offset the annual fee.

Meanwhile, you’d only need to spend $300 on travel through Capital One and use your 10,000 annual bonus miles to offset the $395 fee (See Rates & Fees) for the Capital One Venture X Business — putting the value from your miles and other perks straight into your pocket.

The Ink Business Premier is an excellent flat-rate alternative if you rarely use your card rewards through transfer partners. However, you can boost its 2 percent flat-rate cash back to 2.5 percent on purchases over $5,000, giving it a leg up over competitors. Plus, you can pay off purchases over time (with interest) like a traditional credit card if needed.

However, the Ink Business Premier isn’t designed for travel and doesn’t offer annual credits. That said, its 5 percent cash back on Chase Travel℠ bookings, travel protections and excellent cellphone insurance could still prove helpful during business trips.

The Ink Business Cash® Credit Card could be an excellent partner thanks to 5 percent cash back on the first $25,000 of purchases at office supply stores and on internet, cable and phone services each account anniversary. There’s also 2 percent cash back on the first $25,000 of gas station and restaurant purchases each account anniversary. This could complement the Venture X Business’ flat-rate rewards and perks for a full range of business expense categories, whether you’re at the office or on the road.

The American Express® Business Gold Card, despite its high annual fee, can pair well with the Venture X Business card. On the rewards side, it earns 3X points on flights and prepaid hotels booked on amextravel.com, beating the Venture X card’s 2X miles on travel purchases outside the Capital One portal.

The card also includes hotel credits, flexible business credits and Walmart+ reimbursement, which compensate for the Venture X Business card’s lack of business-focused credits.

You’ll have the best approval odds if you apply for the Capital One Venture X Business card with an excellent credit score (a FICO score of 740 or higher, or a VantageScore of 781 higher), which is higher than what some premium business cards require.

Yes, similar to the consumer version of the Venture X card, the Venture X Business Card is a metal credit card. This is one of the few Capital One business cards with a metal finish; most are made of plastic.

The best business cards offer rewards in key business spending categories, so a primary factor in a business card’s rating is its rewards value. This includes the card’s average rewards rate, estimated annual rewards earnings, sign-up bonus value and reward redemption value.

To estimate a business card’s average annual rewards earnings, we first calculate its average rewards rate based on how much it earns in different bonus categories and how closely its categories align with the average small-business owner’s spending habits. In other words, we assess whether the card earns rewards at a high rate in the most popular business spending categories. 

We researched 10 key business spending categories including dining, gas, office supplies, travel, telecommunications, insurance and more to get a sense of the average small-business owner’s spending habits. We assumed an average annual spend of around $40,000 per year based on Bankrate survey data. 

Using this data, we are able to assign a weighting to each of a card’s bonus categories. We also estimate the redemption value of points or miles from various issuer, airline and hotel rewards programs.

This weighting and rewards valuation allows us to estimate a card’s average annual rewards earnings — how many points or miles you’d earn with a given card if your spending was about average and you used the card for all of your business purchases — as well as what those points are worth. We also use point valuations to determine a card’s sign-up bonus value.

With these calculations complete, we assign each card a score based on how its average rewards earnings, sign-up bonus value, rewards rate and redemption value stack up against other business cards, factoring in the card’s annual fee.

The better these values, the higher its score will be, making it more worthy of inclusion in our list and increasing its potential ranking.

We also score business cards based on how much it costs to keep them in your wallet or carry a balance. 

To start, each business card is scored based on whether it offers an intro APR and how its ongoing APR compares to the rates available on other business cards. This is because an intro APR on new purchases or balance transfers can be a lifesaver if you need to pay down debt, finance a large business purchase or free up cash flow. 

While intro APRs are not uncommon on business cards, they aren’t a given, so cards that offer this sort of payment flexibility will score higher in our card rating system.

Even more important to both a card’s score and its inclusion in our list, however, is how its annual fee influences its overall value. We consider a card’s annual fee in two ways — how it ranks relative to the fees you’ll find on other cards in the category and how it impacts a card’s overall rewards value. 

Cards with an annual fee will always be at a slight disadvantage in our scoring system since annual fees inherently cut into your rewards value. However, if a card offers terrific value via its ongoing rewards and perks, it can earn a high score and a spot in our list even if it carries a high annual fee. 

With this in mind, we rate a card based primarily on how its ongoing rewards value and ongoing perk value (such as annual credits or bonuses) stack up against those of other cards in the category when you subtract annual fees.

We rate each business card’s flexibility based on the restrictions it imposes on earning and redeeming rewards. 

Flexibility factors include whether a card only allows you to earn a high rewards rate on only a small amount of spending or requires you to meet a certain earning threshold before you can redeem rewards. We also examine whether your points are worth less when you opt for some redemption options over others and whether a card gives you the flexibility to transfer rewards to travel partners. 

We also score each card’s set of features – its perks and benefits — against five tiers of features to provide a rating. Top-tier perks include benefits like airport lounge access, travel credits, elite status with an airline or hotel and credits for expedited security screening membership programs.

We give extra weight to perks especially useful or valuable for small-business owners, like being able to qualify with no personal guarantee, digital advertising credits, free employee cards and accounting perks.