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The Offer
The Spark business card from Capital One is a 2% cashback card or 2x miles per dollar which can be redeemed for 2% toward travel. The online offer has a $59 annual fee, waived the first year. It also has a signup bonus of $500 or 50,000 miles (worth $500) after spending $4500. See Capital One Spark Business Cards Now $500/50,000 Mile Bonuses After $4,500 In Spend for more info.
- Multiple reports on Reddit indicate that the Capital One Spark card is being offered with no-annual-fee by applying for the card in-branch. This offer is showing on the electronic display in-branch. The fee-free nature of the card is a permanent feature, not just the first year.
Note that Capital One branches are not found all over so this isn’t necessary too helpful for many. Locator
Caveat: The big catch is that, reportedly, the in-branch offer is not getting the signup bonus, although one person had success getting it upon request.
Our Verdict
Tough to risk the signup bonus for the fee waiver; you may not get lucky with getting the bonus, so it’s a big risk.
We reported a while back that Capital One has also been sending out offers for the Venture personal credit card with the annual fee waived for life. Some of those offers came with bonuses and some came without.
Note that although Capital One is known to pull all 3 credit bureaus, it’s been possible to freeze your Experian and end up with Equifax and Transunion pulls only.
With the Citi Double Cash offering 2% back with no-annual-fee, I bet there is pressure on Capital One and Barclay’s to either keep their 2% cards fee-free, or else to beef up the benefits of the card to make it worth the annual fee.
Cap one will also combine hard pulls for applications made on the same day, so if you can swing the min spend there’s that to consider; I went with one a spark business and spark miles card, both approved instantly. I’ll take that for one TU and one EX pull.
No credit card signup offer is worth 3 hard credit pulls, and especially Capital One’s average at best cards. You could get 3 other cards total that are better by them self than just the Capital One card itself. My brother got a Capital One card and thought he made the best decision ever until I explained things to him. He’s not a miles and points junkie though, so he was still happy.
Ken, it’s easy to freeze one bureau and get approved.
It is, but it’s still two hard pulls for a single card.
With Experian frozen, I value an EQ + TU pull less than a EX pull.
I have the 2% cash back card. In second year but no fee yet. Will call to see if I can get fee waived for life and report back.
I just learned that CapitalOne has branches. 🙂
Currently have the Spark Biz card, still within the first year. I’ve read at least one report (on this website) that the waiver fees could be waived year after year (basically, indefinitely). We’ll see once I get charged the annual fee.
Just did an online chat to see if they can match me to the no AF version, unsuccessful.
Same here. They were very insistent.
@Chuck – Please count me as the 2nd person to have had success in also getting the Sign-Up Bonus (added after the fact). I signed up in branch; then e-mailed my banker after the fact to confirm that the No Annual Fee was in addition to the sign-up bonus; he said yes it did. However, when I called the Card (after it arrived about 2 weeks later) – they said No Bonus; so he had to arrange a Conf. Call with (me on the line for some reason) – and the Cap One Rep. was extremely matter of fact; said she would get back to me in 2 weeks to let me know ‘their decision’ on whether they could Add it on. Right on cue, I got that call 2 weeks later and they said Yes it was added – I now have 45 days to meet the Spend. Sure it worked out for me – but given my effort threshold for this, I would not have done it given that it probably took an extra couple hours. I wonder if CapOne is monitoring this closely (hence the 2 weeks to call me back and say Yes we can add it).
Nice!