Capital One Spark Cash Plus: Review
The theme of this Capital One business card is big purchases for predictable rewards. Whether you’re shopping around town or jetting off, Capital One Spark Cash Plus lets you manage rewards seamlessly while offering higher-than-average points for everyday purchases and travel.
Is Capital One Spark Cash Plus worth it?
With its solid 2% back on every purchase with no expiration date on points or cap on the cash-back rewards earned, Spark Cash Plus is one of the more generous cash-back business cards out there. Whether the Spark Cash Plus card is actually worth it comes down to how you plan to use it. Consider this card only if you’re looking for a charge card instead of a traditional credit card.
As you’re expected to pay your balance back every month, there’s no APR on this card. Additionally, there’s a $150 annual fee that you’ll need to factor in when assessing your rewards potential to see if you’ll at least break even. However, if you spend more than $150,000 a year, you will get your annual fee refunded.
What we like
Spark Cash Plus has various benefits we’re big fans of, such as:
Unlimited, flat-rate rewards
With the Capital One Spark Cash Plus card, you can earn 2% back on every transaction you make for your business. Although some other cards have a similar reward structure, Spark Cash Plus boasts the added benefit of no limit to the rewards you can earn. You can also earn 5% back on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel, which is a pretty solid rate considering this isn’t a business travel card.
Generous welcome bonus
While the welcome bonus offered by the Spark Cash Plus card is a reach to earn, it’s pretty valuable if you can meet the spending requirement. If you spend $30,000 in the first three months after account opening, you can earn $2,000 in cash back.
For larger businesses that spend a lot, this bonus goes even further. For every $500K spent in the first year of card ownership, you can earn another $2,000 in cash back. So if you spend $1M in the first year, you can rack up $6,000 in cash back exclusively from the welcome bonuses (plus the 2-5% you’ll earn on your purchases). This isn’t a ton considering the high spending requirement, but the ability to earn additional cash bonuses throughout the first year is a sweet perk for high spenders.
Ability to get annual fee refunded
By now, it should be pretty obvious that the Spark Cash Plus card is meant for high-spending businesses. This next perk goes along that same line— if you spend $150,000 or more in a year, you can get your $150 annual fee refunded! That would divide out to $12.5K in spending monthly, which should be a relatively easy feat for many businesses to achieve.
What we don’t like
As with any product, the Spark Cash Plus card comes with its fair share of drawbacks:
High annual fee
If you can’t meet the $150,000 per year requirement to have your annual fee refunded, you’ll be in the hole by $150. You’d need to spend $7,500 on miscellaneous purchases to earn enough rewards to offset that fee (2% of $7,500 = $150), meaning you essentially aren’t earning anything until after that point.
Limited benefits
While some business cards (like the Capital One Spark Miles for Business) have benefits like credits for TSA PreCheck® or Global Entry, statement credits or airport lounge access, the Spark Cash Plus boasts no such thing. It isn’t advertised as a travel card so this isn’t altogether surprising, but we feel there should be more perks considering the $150 price tag.
Can’t carry a balance
We never advise carrying a balance, since that’s a surefire way to trap you further and further in debt. However, sometimes it’s difficult to pay off that statement every month. Some cards even have an intro APR offer, giving you an interest-free period to pay off a large purchase.
The Spark Cash Plus card doesn’t give you the option to carry a balance, so you need to make sure you can foot the bill every month without fail. This could be a good thing in some ways, though, since it may keep you from spending more money than you have available. But if you end up being late on your payments, you’ll be subject to hefty penalty fees and damage on your credit score.
Middling bonus potential
Okay, so we’re at an impasse with the welcome bonus. The $2,000 initial bonus for spending $30,000 in the first three months feels pretty thin. It’s a lot of spending for a pretty mediocre reward.
Even getting the additional $2,000 bonus for spending $500,000 makes the bonus amount seem negligible for anyone at this level of business spending. But if you spend a couple million per year, it could be somewhat lucrative since most cards don’t let you earn multiple welcome bonuses.
Who is Capital One Spark Cash Plus best for?
The ideal owner of the Spark Plus cash-back card is a business owner who wants to earn points based on their already hefty business spending. They must also be in a position to pay back their spending in full each month.
Spark Cash Plus is a great vehicle for getting 2% back for doing what you already do. To avoid getting in over your head with this card, you should have several quarters’ worth of spending data to look at when deciding if you’ll hit reward and bonus thresholds.
Capital One Spark Cash Plus: Rewards
Spark business card rewards are tailored to business owners’ spending habits. Let’s delve into how this rewards card effectively achieves this.
Earning rewards
Capital One Spark Cash Plus offers one of the most streamlined rewards systems on the market:
- 2% on everyday purchases: Get 2% back in every spending category with no limits on how many points you can earn in a year. Points never expire for the life of the account.
- 5% on travel: Just book hotels and car rentals through Capital One Travel to access this rate.
Redeeming rewards
The Spark Cash Plus rewards are redeemed like any other Capital One business card. Here’s a look at the options:
- Cash back: Request a check for the value of your points.
- Statement credits: Use statement credits to apply reward earnings to your balance.
- Past purchases: Cover qualifying purchases made within the past 90 days by applying reward points toward them retroactively.
- Gift cards: Trade points for gift cards to use at thousands of popular restaurants and retailers.
Welcome offer
Capital One Spark Cash Plus “doubles up” with its welcome bonus, offering one of the biggest bonuses for a Spark card on the market. First, earn the standard $2,000 cash bonus when you spend $30,000 in the first three months. Then, you can also qualify for an additional $2,000 bonus for every $500,000 spent in the first year, without limits.
Capital One Spark Cash Plus: Benefits
Business benefits
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Free employee cards: Cardholders get to make sure every penny spent can qualify toward rewards with free cards for all users. You can set custom spending limits per employee card.
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Free virtual cards: Enjoy safer online payments by keeping your card number concealed from merchants.
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Purchase records: Capital One lets you quickly and securely download your purchase records into Quicken®, QuickBooks® or Excel® for easier tracking and bookkeeping.
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Free extended warranties: Enjoy additional warranty and protection on eligible items purchased with your Spark Cash card.
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$0 fraud liability: You’ll get an emergency replacement with a cash advance if your card is lost or stolen.
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Preferred travel rates: Get the best prices on thousands of trip options that you can pay flexibly with your rewards with Capital One Travel. Discounts can even apply after a trip has been booked.
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No foreign transaction fees: Pay zero foreign transaction fees for purchases outside the United States.
Other perks
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Roadside assistance: Free help for when you need towing, tire changes or jump-starts during auto-related emergencies.
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Fraud and security alerts: Cardholders get email or text message alerts when potential mistakes or fraudulent purchases are suspected.
Capital One Spark Cash Plus: The fine print
While Spark Cash Plus is one of the most straightforward cards out there, it’s still helpful to read the fine print on fees and potential catches.
Fees
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Annual fee: $150
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Foreign transaction fee: $0
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Late payment fee: 2.99% of the unpaid portion, and you may not be able to use the card for another purchase until you’ve paid the full amount due.
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Cash advance fee: The greater of $5 or 5% of the amount of each cash advance
Interest rates
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Regular APR: N/A
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Intro APR offer: N/A
Credit limit
Unlike standard credit cards, Spark Cash Plus doesn’t have a set credit limit. Capital One will determine your spending limit based on your credit score, repayment history, and monthly business income upon approving your account.
As a flexible-spending card, it can be tailored to meet the needs of any business. The average business owner could put six figures on this card every few months, but that doesn’t mean you can utilize this card without a ceiling.
How Capital One Spark Cash Plus compares
Here’s a look at how the Spark Cash Plus stands compared to credit cards offering cash back in the same range.
Capital One Spark Cash Plus vs. Capital One Spark Cash Select for Excellent Credit
The best way to describe the Capital One Spark Cash Select for Excellent Credit is to call it the credit card version of Spark Cash Plus. Spark Cash Select offers unlimited 1.5% back on every purchase versus Spark Cash Plus’s 2% back. The card also has no annual fee.
Cash Plus and Select also have very different bonus structures. Cardholders who opt for Select trade the high-ambition $2,000 bonus for $30,000 in spending during the first three months for a tamer $500 cash bonus after spending $4,500 in the same time period. Of course, the biggest difference is that Select is a card with an APR.
Both cards give 5% cash back on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel. Most of Spark Cash Plus’s other basic business rewards and conveniences are also shared with this 1.5% flat-rate rewards card.
Capital One Spark Cash Plus vs. The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express
The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express is one of the few cards to come close to the flexibility and simplicity of Spark Cash Plus without an annual fee (see rates and fees). However, it’s not a charge card.
The Blue Business Plus offers 2X points back on the first $50,000 in purchases each year before reverting to 1X points beyond that.
Should you get Capital One Spark Cash Plus?
Capital One Spark Cash Plus is a card intended to help business owners cover monthly business expenses. To benefit from this card, you’ll need two qualities. First, your cash flow is consistent and predictable enough to ensure you can pay your balance in full each month. Second, your spending is high enough to beat the annual fee and match bonus thresholds.
Spark Cash Plus’s unlimited 2% cash back is technically still strong enough to justify the card even if you can’t meet the threshold to get $2,000 back in bonus rewards in the first three months.
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For rates and fees of The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express, please visit this page.
Note: 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.
