<p>I read somewhere on here - these are great cards - best use of points. Can folks using them weigh in? Good deal? Best deal? Tips to maximize?
Thanks.</p>
<p>I have a personal one and a business one. I like them. points are easy to use and flexible. They also carry no foreign transaction fees if you travel and use them outside the US</p>
<p>We have 3. 1 corporate, 1 for hubs and 1 for me. And actually both sons have cards on my account so I guess we have 5. I use points mostly to get gift cards. The points are easy to redeem. Recently there was some small dollar fraud on mine and it was handled quickly and efficiently. I have no complaints.</p>
<p>i got one capital one card when i was 16 and had no issues with it. When i turned 18 they upped my limit. it gave points which could be cashed in for things. I kept the card till I was 22 when I decided to get a new card which gave actual cash back. I have had that one ever since and it’s pretty nice. it was very easy to claim your rewards under both cards. They did call me once to confirm charges that I had made online and was having shipped to a different address to make sure that there was no fraud on my card. I also lost a card once and they sent me a new one over night. I have used the extended warranty that they provide and had no issues with that - though i believe that had more to do with Visa and less to do with capital one.</p>
<p>We’ve been using Capital one cards for a long time and find that redeeming the points for airline miles is extremely easy. We got the first card right before we went abroad. We wanted a card without the foreign transaction fees as laketime mentioned. We also make sure that any appliances are bought with that or our Costco AmEx for the extended warranty.</p>
<p>^^extended warranty? Please tell, kathie</p>
<p>rodney, per my card:</p>
<p>Warranty Manager Service offers Extended Warranty Protection that doubles
the free repair period under the original manufacturer’s written U.S. repair warranty up to one (1) additional year on eligible warranties of three
(3) years or less when an item is purchased entirely with your eligible Visa card.</p>
<p>I used it not too long ago to repair my washer which broke one month out of it’s warranty period. I had to pay for the repair, send in my repair receipt, my original receipt, and a copy of the statement showing the charges and within a week they had sent back a check reimbursing me for the full $280. Not too bad considering I’ve never paid them a dime of interest.</p>
<p>I had one for years, and they regularly sent me new cards with different numbers, which was a royal pain because I have a lot of auto-billing set up to go to my credit card, and every time the number changed I had to go update all those places.</p>
<p>The rewards got significantly worse over the years, too - it went from 1 mile per dollar with a trip needing 25000 miles to 1/2 mile per dollar with a trip needing 50000 or 60000 miles.</p>
<p>I dropped it and got a card associated with my Fidelity account which gives me 1.5% cash back on everything.</p>
<p>We got the Capitol One Orbitz version a few years ago- we do most of our travel booking with Expedia, however (because we like their deals and how they do things and have gotten customer rewards that likely replace the lost extra points). Good card so far. I had been leary of it because of the ads on TV, the company is much better than those.</p>
<p>We also have a Fidelity card- another good one for us. When we signed up for a Capitol One card we chose the version that was most suited to us. It is nice to have 2 different cards- but not many. We always pay off the cards quickly ansd so never have an interest charge. We dropped another card when we got this one- made sure we got the cash back for accumulated points. You do have to be careful about how many cards you have and relative balances (ie ratio of balance to max allowed) to keep your credit score good, easy for us at our ages with high limits (son was surprised when he recently got his first “real” job and credit card in his name and the allowed credit is only $500- he wrote a check to reimburse us for an online purchase with our card he could easily afford. He never bothered to get one of the student ones when he could).</p>
<p>We have a Capitol One business card for ourselves and one for my non-profit. We get $100 if we charge at least $1000 in the 1st 90 days & an extra $50 if we get a 2nd cardholder. We get 2% cash back – unlimited on all our purchases. So far, I have no complaints.</p>
<p>I prefer the Costco AmEx so far in terms of the extended warranty. The one time on other cards I used the Visa extended warranty, it took a very LONG time & lots of hoops to get them to cooperate. 
Hopefully things will be better in the future. Have never had hassles with the Costco AmEx. ;)</p>
<p>Have only had these cards since December, so don’t have long track record yet. Did charge our photovoltaic. They told us we can use the $$ to reduce our credit card bill or get a check mailed to us–our choice. Am using these cards in place of the Charles Schwab Visa that used to give 2%, until it was taken over by BofAm :(.</p>
<p>My Cap One card gives me double points/miles on all purchases and redeems for travel at 100 points per dollar (a $300 flight redeems at 30000 points). They have a strong fraud dept and we’ve always received excellent service.</p>
<p>NRE - I laughed when I read your post. Capital One is the ONLY credit card company that HASN’T changed my card numbers. In our household B of A is the worst offender in that regard. I’ve had good experiences with Capital One.</p>
<p>re changing credit card numbers: from a friend who works for Visa. With Visa, you can keep the same number, even if you go with a different version a card. Not so with MasterCard, where the numbers are always changing.</p>
<p>We love our Capitol One cards–you can redeem points for any purchases, i.e., get a credit back on your card. We paid for all new kitchen appliances for a new house using our card, and have a lot of points now to use for kids’ college plane fares. Very easy to use and redeem.</p>
<p>We use our Capitol One card for just about everything. Ours accrues 2 points for every dollar spent. It is simple to use the rewards program with the reward amount simply being recredited to the account.</p>
<p>Does anyone know why there are so many variations? 2 points? 1 point? Etc.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>^ They offer lots of variations so you can get what’s important to you.</p>
<p>They have different interest rates, different annual fees, and probably require different levels of credit score. The 2 points per dollar cards have a fee of $59 after the first year. This may or may not be better depending on what your usage is.</p>
<p>There are lots of variations. </p>
<p>My 2 points per dollar Cap One card has never charged an annual fee, but it doesn’t like it is being currently offered. Mine is a Cap One VISA Signature No Hassle Rewards card.</p>
<p>I have a capitol one card and really like it. I get cash back, I don’t remember what percentage, but I’ve gotten like $40 since I got the card in August and I only use it on gas purchases and sporadic grocery shopping.</p>
<p>I’m not crazy about the Cap 1 “rewards” system, but it’s a great card for travel abroad. No forign transaction fees, and (my card, anyway) included insurance of my rental car, which could have been pricey otherwise.</p>
<p>I generally use one of my airline cards here in the U.S., though, because that lets me lie to myself about fun travel being “free.” (The Cap1 reward for rline travel generally doesn’t get you as far per dollar charged as the others I have. YMMV.)</p>