Taking a New Look at an Old Credit Card

We opened our Capital One account years ago, long before there was a Venture card.  It was a simple card that had a very low Annual Fee and didn’t earn a lot of points.  But as I started getting more involved in traveling with points and miles, it became obvious to me that I needed a more robust Capital One credit card.

I decided to upgrade my current account to the Venture card rather than apply for a new card.  Even though a new card might have had sign up bonuses,  this account was a very, very old credit line for us.  So I wanted to retain that long standing account relationship so that it would continue to be reflected on our credit report.  As I continued to grow in my knowledge of points and miles, this decision has weighed on me.  I am sure it was not what the big players would have done, but I just wanted to add more value to the account we already had without losing the strength of one of our oldest credit lines.

In the meantime, we had opened a accounts with some other travel cards, so I wasn’t sure where it would fit into play. At first, I didn’t even carry it in my wallet. Then last year while planning our Hawaii trip, I remembered the Travel Eraser benefit.  I had enough points in our account to use it for Early Bird Check in Fees for my husbands airfare and to pay for two airport transfer cab fares during our trip.  Solid uses. This got my wheels spinning.  How else could I use this card to fill in the gaps of other cards we had?

But then it went back into my little box of cards I am not carrying because as I applied for new travel rewards cards, I would use them instead while working toward their spend bonuses.  There were two other cards I was trying to ramp up my earnings on to cover international airfare in 2020.  Both of those cards happen to be American Express, which is not accepted for a a few of our regular bills. Since there were no bonus categories for the bills on any of our other cards, I began paying them with the Venture card.   Venture earns a decent 2 points per dollar. 

I also used it to pay for one of our $100 Global Entry applications.  The card has a benefit to reimburse you for that fee.  They credited our account for the $100 fee within a week plus gave us the 2 points per dollar on that purchase.  Another solid deal.  This was also enough of a value to offset the $95 annual fee on the card.  During my Annual Credit Card Review, Value is a key factor in determining if we should keep a card or not. 

I have decided to put this card back in my wallet and use it for any items that we don’t have bonus tiers for on other cards.  It’s nice to have a pool of points which gives us the option of using the Travel Eraser for some of our travel expenses. I am glad to have found new ways of getting value out of this old account.