Capital One Spark Cash Select review: The upgraded sign-up bonus makes this card worth it

Although it’s not brimming with luxury perks for business travel, the Capital One business card carries enough features and benefits to add long-term value.  

Welcome offer: A worthy upgrade 

New cardholders can earn a $500 bonus after spending $4,500 within the first three months. Unfortunately, that’s a step down from the card's previous bonus offer (which gave you a chance at a $750 bonus with a $6,000 spending requirement in the same time frame). 

Still, a $500 bonus is a great deal, considering you’d have to spend over $30,000 to earn that much via the card’s 1.5 percent cash back rate. Once earned, you can use it at your leisure since rewards don’t expire as long as your card is in good standing.

Perks: Decent purchase and travel benefits

Capital One offers several ways to secure your card for your peace of mind while shopping and traveling. Along with basic features like $0 fraud coverage for unauthorized charges and travel and emergency assistance, you’ll receive purchase security*, extended warranty protection (*), roadside assistance (fees apply) and MasterRental® insurance*. 

You can also monitor and manage the transactions on your free employee cards or assign the task to an account manager. You can even set custom spending limits on each employee’s card. Combined with the year-end purchase summaries and the auto-pay feature, keeping track of your business credit card expenses and incoming cash back can be a streamlined process. 

Rates and fees: Low-cost option for business owners 

This card is an excellent option for most business owners because it has no annual fee or foreign transaction fee (See Rates & Fees), making it a strong candidate for both day-to-day use and traveling abroad. However, this card does not offer balance transfers, so if you are looking to transfer a balance you'll need to look elsewhere. 

The Capital One Spark Cash Select is a decent all-around card that goes toe-to-toe with top no-annual-fee cards, but you can find better rewards and redemption options on similar cards as well as features like intro APR offers. 

Redemption options: Few and far between 

Considering that excellent credit is needed for this card, the redemption options are quite limited. Capital One offers a couple of ways to redeem your points for cash back, but that’s the only saving grace. Through the issuer, you can receive your cash rewards as: 

• A statement credit 
• A check 
• A gift card 

Rewards rate: Simple but not competitive

The rewards structure is straightforward — you’ll earn 1.5 percent cash back for every qualified purchase made with the card. You’ll also earn 5 percent cash back on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One's travel booking site. There is no limit to the cash back you can earn, and your cash rewards will never expire as long as your account remains open and in good standing. 

This is a typical rewards structure for Capital One flat-rate rewards cards. However, when compared to other cards, the Capital One Spark Cash Select falls behind. There are plenty of cards — including other flat-rate cards — that earn more than the cash back rate on this card. 

Credit requirement: Too high for minimal features

The Capital One Spark Cash Select may keep costs low, but it lacks valuable intro APR offers for purchases. This card also does not offer balance transfers, and it doesn’t offer much outside of standard perks, such as basic travel protections and employee cards. 

Considering the level of benefits available, there may not be enough to match the excellent credit level suggested for this card, especially when there are similar options available for good credit that also offer flat-rate cash back and a more attainable welcome bonus. 

The Capital One Spark Cash Select is a flat-rate cash back card, so the best way to maximize its rewards rate is to pair it with another business card that has a higher rewards rate on your biggest expenses. 

The Capital One Spark Cash Select is a great choice for those who prefer a low-maintenance card with its straightforward flat-rate rewards and lack of an annual fee. However, the credit score requirement might be too high for business owners just starting out. Also, other flat-rate cards have more versatile redemption options, which can come in handy for travel and general cash back.  

The Capital One Spark Cash Select is a great option for small business owners with little or no debt, who want to earn rewards and take advantage of a sign-up bonus. 

This might be the right card for your business if:

• You’re a new business owner. Because there’s no spending cap, you can cover as many purchases as needed within your credit limit without worrying that you’ll be rewarded at a reduced rate. To cap it off, there’s no annual fee or foreign transaction fee (See Rates & Fees) to outpace.
• You want a simplistic rewards strategy. A flat-rate cash back card means you don’t need to track category bonuses, making it easy to rack up cash back and focus on keeping your balance in check.
• You want to pair this card with other cards. Since it has no annual fee (See Rates & Fees) and offers a flat rewards rate of 1.5 percent, you can use this card for miscellaneous spending and another card for more category-specific expenses. 

However, the Spark Cash Select still lacks intro APR offers, which can be a dealbreaker for new business owners. Other issuers still offer equivalent or better value without the trade-off. It also may not be the best option if you travel often on flights or spend big in specific categories and don’t plan on pairing it with a different card to offset those shortcomings.

*Eligible purchases made with this card are replaced, repaired or reimbursed if you experience a loss in the first 90 days after purchase. 

**You may be eligible for reimbursement due to theft or misdirection when your common carrier tickets are purchased with your card. 

(*) Automatically extends the original manufacturer's warranty on eligible purchases made with this card. 

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.

Our proprietary card rating system takes into account a mix of factors when scoring balance transfer and low-interest cards, including each card’s introductory APR, intro APR period length, ongoing APR, balance transfer fee, perks and more.

While balance transfer and general low-interest cards share a similar ratings rubric, we weigh features differently based on how a card is categorized. We categorize cards that carry an especially long intro APR offer on balance transfers as dedicated balance transfer cards, while cards that offer an especially low ongoing APR are considered general low-interest cards. 

Based on its features, we assigned this card a primary category of balance transfer and tailored our ratings accordingly. 

We analyzed over 100 of the most popular balance transfer and low-interest cards and scored each based on where its key features stood in relation to others in its category. 

Here’s a breakdown of what gave this card its score: