Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card: Requirements, Ideal Credit Score & Approval Tips

One of the most popular mid-tier credit cards available is the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card.

Offering exceptional rewards, a streamlined bonus structure, and solid ancillary perks, this card is the go-to option for many frequent travelers.

Although Capital One is generally hit-or-miss when it comes to credit card approvals — even for those with excellent credit — we’re going to be taking a look at the requirements to get approved for the Capital One Venture card.

Capital One Venture Card Snapshot

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Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card

U.P. Rating 

The rating for this card has been determined by our own industry experts who know the in's and out's of credit card products. Bonuses, rewards as well as rates and fees are all taken into account. Compensation from the issuer does not affect our rating. We only recommend products we either use ourselves or endorse.

Get 2x miles plus some of the most flexible redemptions offered by a travel credit card!

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Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card

Get 2x miles plus some of the most flexible redemptions offered by a travel credit card!

Welcome Offer

Enjoy $250 to use on Capital One Travel in your first cardholder year, plus earn 75,000 bonus miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within the first 3 months from account opening - that’s equal to $1,000 in travel.

$250 Capital One Travel Credit + 75,000 miles

UP's Bonus Valuation*:

$1,600

Annual Fee

$95

APR

19.99% - 29.99% (Variable)

Credit Recommended

Upgraded Points credit ranges are a variation of FICO^®Score 8, one of many types of credit scores lenders may use when considering your credit cardapplication.

Good to Excellent Credit (670-850)

Why We Like This Card

The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card is one of the most popular rewards cards on the market. It’s perfect for anyone in search of a great welcome offer, high rewards rates, and flexible redemption options.

Frequent travelers with excellent credit may benefit from this credit card that offers a lot of bells and whistles. And it offers easy-to-understand rewards earning and redemption.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• 5x miles per $1 on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel
• 2x miles per $1 on all other purchases
• Global Entry or TSA PreCheck application fee credit

Cons

• $95 annual fee (rates & fees)
• Limited elite benefits

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Card Highlights

• Enjoy $250 to use on Capital One Travel in your first cardholder year, plus earn 75,000 bonus miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within the first 3 months from account opening – that’s equal to $1,000 in travel
• Earn unlimited 2X miles on every purchase, every day
• Earn 5X miles on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel, where you’ll get Capital One’s best prices on thousands of trip options
• Miles won’t expire for the life of the account and there’s no limit to how many you can earn
• Receive up to a $100 credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck^®
• Use your miles to get reimbursed for any travel purchase—or redeem by booking a trip through Capital One Travel
• Enrich every hotel stay from the Lifestyle Collection with a suite of cardholder benefits, like a $50 experience credit, room upgrades, and more
• Transfer your miles to your choice of 15+ travel loyalty programs

Financial Snapshot

• APR: 19.99% - 29.99% (Variable)
• Foreign Transaction Fees: None

Rewards Center

Capital One Miles

Credit Score Factors

In general, your FICO credit score is made up of 5 elements:

• Payment history (35% of your score)
• Amounts owed (30% of your score)
• Length of credit history (15% of your score)
• Credit mix (10% of your score)
• New credit (10% of your score)

There are other scoring models out there, including VantageScore, but FICO is still the gold standard for credit cards, mortgages, auto loans, personal loans, and more.

• Payment history is simply the term for your credit card payment habits. Do you pay your bills on time? Do you pay your bills in full? If you have an excellent payment history, you almost always pay your bills on time, even if it’s not the full statement balance. However, if you often miss your credit card payments, you’ll have a poor payment history. This makes up 35% of your FICO score.
• Amount owed refers to how much of your total available credit you use. Also known as your credit utilization ratio, if you are constantly maxing out all of your credit cards, you have a high credit utilization ratio, which will adversely affect your credit score. For example, if you only have 1 credit card with a $2,000 credit limit and you’re putting $1,950 in purchases every month on that card, you have a 98% credit utilization ratio, which is way too high. You generally want to be at 5% or less. This makes up 30% of your FICO score.
• Length of credit history is a calculated average of how long your credit cards have been opened. So if you have 2 credit cards, one that was opened 5 years ago and another that was opened 1 year ago, your average credit history length is 3 years. This makes up 15% of your FICO score.
• Credit mix is simply the types of credit you have available to you. For example, having a mix of credit cards, auto loans, mortgages, student loans, and personal loans can be advantageous for your FICO score, of which credit mix makes up 10%.
• New credit is also known as hard inquiries. If you have a lot of hard inquiries, you may get dinged slightly on your credit report because new credit makes up 10% of your FICO score.

How To Check Your Credit Score

One of the most common misconceptions is that checking your credit score will hurt it. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

In fact, you can check your FICO score for free at each of the 3 credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.

Being self-aware of your credit score can go a long way in preventing wasted credit card applications. For example, if you only have fair credit but don’t realize it, you could be wasting a credit pull if you apply for a credit card that requires an excellent credit score.

Although you can get a free credit report every year, another great way to monitor the contents of your credit report in real-time is to sign up for a complimentary Credit Karma account. Just be sure not to pay too much attention to the credit score number, as Credit Karma uses VantageScore, which isn’t an industry-standard scoring model.

What Credit Score Is Needed for the Capital One Venture Card?

Right now, the Capital One Venture card is recommended for those who have good to excellent credit. Remember, the credit score is just 1 of the factors that are considered when evaluating an applicant.

Excellent credit (also known as Tier 1 credit) is generally defined as a FICO credit score of 740 or higher. This label can be somewhat misleading because we’ve personally seen those with sub-700 credit scores get approved and those with 800+ credit scores get declined.

In general, Capital One cares a lot more about the number of new accounts on your credit report than the actual credit score number.

For example, we generally recommend those applying for the Capital One Venture card have 6 or fewer new credit cards in the last 24 months.

Capital One earns a significant amount of profits from interest charges, so it might be advantageous for you to report that you carry a balance when filling out the application.

Capital One seems to favor applicants with higher income, though it’s not a deal-breaker if you don’t have a 6-figure income.

Also, Capital One values an existing relationship with Capital One heavily — for example, if you already have the Capital One Quicksilver Cash Rewards Credit Card, you might be positioned for better approval odds.

Maximizing Your Success When Applying for the Capital One Venture Card

Here are some rules of thumb that we found useful when applying for the Capital One Venture card:

• Use the Capital One prequalification tool to get an idea of whether Capital One has pre-screened you for an offer. Although it’s not a guaranteed way to get the Capital One Venture card, seeing a prequalified offer for that card means your approval odds are much, much higher.
• Verify that your credit reports aren’t frozen. Capital One will automatically decline you even if just 1 of your bureaus is frozen, whether it’s Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion.
• If you’re planning to apply for multiple credit cards in quick succession, apply for the Capital One cards first. If you apply for another card too quickly before your Capital One Venture card application, you’ll probably get declined for the Capital One Venture card.
• Apply for at most 1 Capital One credit card every rolling 6 months. Capital One will automatically decline you if you’ve already applied for another Capital One credit card in the last 6 months, whether it’s a business or personal card.
• Carrying a balance is fine, but missing payments is not. Missing payments is a huge red flag, but Capital One generally thinks it’s fine if you carry a balance on your credit cards.
• If you want to get a lot of credit cards, plan to get your Capital One Venture card sooner than later. It’s going to be a lot easier to get approved for a Capital One Venture card if you have a clean slate than if you’ve already opened 10 credit cards in the last 24 months. Ideally, you apply when you have at most 6 new accounts in the last 24 months.
• Work your way up in Capital One’s credit card ecosystem. Capital One values an existing relationship. So if you see yourself getting declined for a Capital One Venture card, it might be better to start out small, like with the Capital One Platinum Credit Card or Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card.
• Having too many inquiries isn’t a deal-breaker, but credit card inquiries can hurt your case. If you’ve recently applied for a mortgage or auto loan, you might have more hard inquiries than you’d like. However, Capital One’s sensitivity to hard inquiries generally only applies to credit card-related inquiries.

How To Boost Your Credit Score

We’re not in the business of offering credit advice, but Capital One actually offers credit card products to customers on all rungs of the credit ladder, so to speak.

For example, if you have limited credit history, Capital One has solutions to help you build credit. If you’re looking to rebuild your credit, Capital One has solutions there, too.

The Capital One Venture card is generally reserved for those who have demonstrated a long history of excellent credit practices.

Here are some great rules of thumb to follow:

1. Take the guesswork out of paying credit card bills and set up AutoPay on all of your credit cards.
2. Don’t max out your credit cards. Just because you have a $10,000 credit limit doesn’t mean you should use all of it every month.
3. Have a trusted family member add you as an authorized user on a credit card with excellent or perfect payment history. This is one of the easiest ways to thicken your credit report quickly.
4. Dispute any inaccurate information on your credit report. If you’ve been a victim of identity fraud in the past, make sure you monitor your credit reports and dispute any factually incorrect information.

Hot Tip: We’ve also put together a separate article on how to improve your credit score!

Final Thoughts

The Capital One Venture card is one of the leading credit cards in the mid-tier travel rewards market.

Those who hold the card offers the ability to earn up to 5x miles on purchases and a Global Entry or TSA PreCheck application fee credit. The card also comes with this generous Capital One Venture 100k offer.

If you’re looking to add this card to your portfolio, be sure that you’re at least meeting the guidelines to get approved; since Capital One pulls all 3 credit bureaus, you run the risk of dinging all 3 of your credit reports if you don’t apply at the right time and end up getting declined.

Overall, we think you should have fewer than 6 new cards opened in the last 2 years, a minimum of 2 years’ worth of excellent credit history with a payment history to reflect this, and a clean credit report for at least a week leading up to your Capital One Venture card application.

Let us know about your success or challenges with your Capital One Venture card application!

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